John Lightfoot on John 5:2

[In the Hebrew tongue.] That is, in the language beyond Euphrates, or the Chaldean.

Aruch: that is, the language of those beyond the flood.

If the Holy Books be written in the Egyptian, or Medes', or Hebrew language. Gloss, In the Hebrew, that is, the language of those beyond Euphrates.

The Hebrew writing is that of those beyond the river.

So that by in the Hebrew tongue they mean the Chaldee language, which, from their return out of Babylon, had been their mother-tongue; and they call it "the language of those beyond Euphrates" (although used also in common with the Syrians on this side Euphrates), that, with respect to the Jews, they might distinguish it from the ancient holy tongue; q.d. "not the tongue they used before they went into captivity, but that which they brought along with them from beyond Euphrates."

The Jews to whom this was the mother-tongue were called Hebrews; and from thence are distinguished from the Hellenists; which every one knows. Whence St. Paul should call himself a Hebrew, 2 Corinthians 11:22, when he was born in Tarsus of Cilicia, might deserve our consideration.

[Having five porches.] It mightily obtains amongst some, that in Bethesda the sacrifices were washed before they offered them: but here I am a little at a stand. For,

I. It is very difficult proving that the sacrifices were washed at all either here or in any place else, before they were offered. The Holy Scriptures are wholly silent as to any such thing; nor, as far as I have yet found, do the traditional writings speak of it. It is confessed, the entrails were washed after the beast had been slain; and for this service there was set apart in the very Temple the washing-room. But for their bodies, their skins, or backs, whether they were washed before they were slain, is justly questionable.

II. Amongst all the blemishes and defects whereby the beast was rendered unfit for sacrifice, we do not read that this was ever reckoned, "that they had not been washed." Do we believe that Abraham washed the ram caught in thicket, Genesis 22, before he sacrificed it? It is said, indeed, "that he took it and wiped it. But this was after he had taken off the skin. He took it, and taking off the skin, he said, 'Behold this, O Lord, as if the skin of thy servant Isaac was taken off before thee.' He wiped it [Gloss, he wiped it with a sponge], and said, 'Behold this, as if Isaac was wiped.' He burnt it, and said," &c.

And let that be well considered in Siphra, fol. 18. 1, where a dispute is had upon those words, Leviticus 6:27; "If the blood of the sacrifice for sin be sprinkled upon a garment, &c. When the discourse is of a garment, I would understand it of nothing but a garment. Whence is to be added, the skin when it is pulled off. The text saith, 'Upon whatsoever the blood shall be sprinkled, ye shall wash.' Perhaps, therefore, one may add the skin before it is pulled off. The text saith, a garment: as a garment that is capable of uncleanness, so whatsoever is capable of uncleanness. Except the skin before it be pulled off. They are the words of R. Judah." Mark, the skin as yet cleaving to the beast's back, and not flayed off, is not capable of uncleanness.

I. I would therefore judge rather, that men, and not beasts, were washed in the pool of Bethesda. I mean the unclean, that by washing they might be purified. For whoever considers the numbers of the unclean that did every day stand in need of being washed, and whoever would a little turn over the Talmudic treatises about purifications, and the gatherings of waters for those purposes, might easily persuade himself that both Bethesda, and all the other pools in Jerusalem, did serve rather for the washing of men, and not of beasts.

I would further judge, that the Syriac interpreter, when he renders that passage, "There was at Jerusalem a certain place of baptistery," that he intended rather the washing unclean person than beasts.

II. "There was not any like to Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, under the second Temple. He one day struck his foot against a dead tortoise, and went down to Siloam, where, breaking all the little particles of hail, he washed himself......This was on the shortest day in winter, the tenth of the month Tebeth."

I do not concern myself for the truth of this story; but must take notice what he hints that telleth it; viz. that in such a case men were wont to wash themselves in Siloam, not the fountain, but the pool.

"Simeon Sicuensis dug wells, cisterns, and caves in Jerusalem. Rabban Jochanan Ben Zacchai saith to him, 'If a woman should come to thee, and ask thee about her menstrua, thou sayest to her, Dip thyself in this well, for the waters thereof will purify.'"

III. Those five porches, therefore, seem to be the several entrances by which the unclean went down into the waters to be washed; and in which, before washing, they might lay up their clothes, and after it put them on again, being there always protected from the rain. And perhaps they had their different entrances and descents according to the different sorts of uncleanness, that all those that were one and the same way defiled should have one and the same entrance and descent into the pool. That this was the first design and use of these porches I do not at all doubt, though afterward there was another use for them brought in. And as to the washing of the unclean in this pool, let me also superadd this one remark: That when they allowed (and that of necessity, because of the multitudes of unclean persons) the lesser gatherings of waters, viz. forty seahs of water in a place fitted on purpose both for breadth and depth, if there was no greater plenty of water, then we must not suppose that they would by any means neglect the ponds and pools.