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Joh_5:5. Τριάκοντα , κ . τ . λ .] i.e. “having passed thirty-eight years in his sickness,” so that ἔχων belongs to τρ . κ . ὀκτὼ ἔτη (Joh_8:57, Joh_11:17; Josephus, Arch. vii. 11. 1; Krebs, p. 150), and ἐν τ . ἀσθ . αὐτ . denotes the state in which he spent the thirty-eight years. Against the connection of ἔχων with ἐν τ . ἀσθ . ἀ . (being in his sickness thirty-eight years; so Kuinoel and most others) Joh_5:6 is decisive, as also against the perversion of Paulus, who puts a comma after ἔχων (“thirty-eight years old”). The duration of the sickness makes the miracle all the more striking; comp. Luk_8:43. There is no intimation of any reference to the sentence of death pronounced upon Israel in the wilderness (Baumgarten, p. 139 f.; comp. Hengstenberg).