John 5:1

After this. [Second Passover: The Invalid at Bethesda, John 5:1-15. See Judean Ministry from First Passover A.D. 28; The Duration of Christ’s Ministry; on miracles pp. 208-213.] Literally, “after these [things],” the same phrase used at the beginning of chs. 6 and 7 (see on ch. 6:1).

A feast. Textual evidence is divided (cf. p. 146) between this and the reading “the feast.”

Since ancient times commentators have been divided regarding the identity of this feast. The opinion of the Church Fathers is divided between Passover and Pentecost, and indeed one 9th-century gospel manuscript at Oxford goes so far as to insert “feast of unleavened bread” instead of “feast of the Jews,” thus identifying the feast as the Passover. Another, later manuscript, however, shows a different attempt at identification by inserting after the word “Jews” the words “the Tabernacles.” In modern times some commentators have championed the Feast of Dedication as the one here mentioned, and many others have held that this feast is to be identified as Purim. Thus almost every feast of the Jewish religious year has had its champion.

Although it must be admitted that no final answer can be given to this problem, there are certain evidences that may be taken into consideration in arriving at a tentative conclusion. In the previous chapter (ch. 4:35) Jesus declared that four months remained until the harvest. As the grain harvest in Palestine occurred in April and May, the events of ch. 4 would seem to have occurred in December or January. At this very time the Feast of Dedication (also known as Hanukkah) was celebrated in all the synagogues throughout Palestine. It is doubtful, however, that this was the feast referred to here, not only because it was not one of the feasts that the Jews regularly went to Jerusalem to celebrate (see Ex. 23:14; Deut. 16:16), but also because it occurred in the winter (see John 10:22), a time when the sick would scarcely have been on the porches surrounding the Pool of Bethesda. The next feast was Purim, which occurred in the middle of the last month of the Jewish year, near the first of March. Although by this time the weather would have been milder, it is still doubtful that Purim is the feast in view here, because, like the Feast of Dedication, it was not one of the great feasts for which the Jews generally journeyed to Jerusalem.

The three other feasts with which the feast of ch. 5:1 has been identified, Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, were all celebrated at Jerusalem and were in periods of generally clement weather. Of these three, it would seem that the Passover has the strongest evidence in its favor as the one under consideration in the present passage. It was so identified as early as the 2d century by Irenaeus (Against Heresies ii. 22. 3, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, p. 391). The same expression, “a feast of the Jews,” is used for the Passover in ch. 6:4; and the feast of ch. 5:1 is the first feast following ch. 4:35 to which Jesus, like the Jews in general, would have gone “up to Jerusalem.” See pp. 192, 193; The Duration of Christ’s Ministry; see on Matt. 20:17.

This miracle and the arraignment of Jesus before the Sanhedrin that resulted (see on vs. 16-18) mark the close of the Judean ministry. It was now probably the Passover of A.D. 29 (see p. 192; The Duration of Christ’s Ministry; see Additional Note on Luke 4), a year after the First Cleansing of the Temple (see on John 2:13). The Judean ministry thus occupied about one year, having been interrupted temporarily by the withdrawal to Galilee mentioned in ch. 4:1-3.

Up to Jerusalem. See on Matt. 20:17.