John Lightfoot on John 13:5

[Into a basin.] "On that day, [when they made R. Eleazar Ben Azariah president of the council] the votes were numbered; and they determined concerning the basin wherein they were to wash their feet, that it should contain from two logs to ten."

[He began to wash the feet, &c.] As to this action of our Saviour's washing his disciples' feet, it may be observed,

I. It was an unusual thing for superiors to wash the feet of inferiors. Amongst the duties required from a wife towards a husband this was one, that she should wash his face, his hands, and his feet. The same was expected by a father from his son. The same from a servant towards his master, but not vice versa. Nor, as I remember, was it expected from the disciple towards his master, unless included in that rule, "That the disciple is to honour his master more than his father."

II. The feet were never washed merely under the notion of legal purification. The hands were wont to be washed by the Pharisees merely under that notion, but not the feet: and the hands and the feet by the priests, but the feet not merely upon that account. That what was said before, concerning the basin wherein the feet were to be washed, must not be understood as if the feet were to be washed upon any score of a legal cleansing; but only care was taken by that tradition, lest through defect of a just quantity of water the feet and the person should contract some sort of uncleanness whilst they were washing.

So that by how much distant this action of Christ's was from the common usage and custom, by so much the more instructive was it to his followers, propounded to them not only for example, but doctrine too.

III. As to the manner of the action. It is likely he washed their feet in the same manner as his own were, Luke 7:38; viz. while they were leaning at the table (as the Jewish custom of eating was) he washed their feet, as they were stretched out behind them. And if he did observe any order, he began with Peter, who sat in the next place immediately to himself. This Nonnus seems to believe; to which opinion also there are others that seem inclined; and then the words he began to wash, must be taken in some such sense as if he made ready and put himself into a posture to wash. But perhaps this way of expression may intimate, as if he began to wash some of his disciples, but did not wash them all; which for my own part I could easily enough close with. For whereas Christ did this for example and instruction merely, and not with any design of cleansing them, his end was answered in washing two or three of them, as well as all. And so indeed I would avoid being entangled in the dilemma I lately mentioned, by saying, he did not only leave Judas unwashed, but several others also. What if he washed Peter and James and John only? And as he had before made some distinction betwixt these three and the rest of his disciples by admitting them into his more inward privacies, so perhaps he distinguisheth them no less in this action. These he foretold how they were to suffer martyrdom: might he not, therefore, by this washing, prefigure to them that they must be baptized with the same baptism that he himself was to be baptized with? and as the woman had anointed him for his burial, so he, by this action, might have washed them for that purpose.