John 5:1

John 5:1. After these things there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. No more is said as to the visit to Galilee than what we find in John 4:43-54. We are taken at once to the close of the visit, when Jesus went up again to Jerusalem. The occasion of His going up was the occurrence of a festival. Contrary to his wont, the Evangelist says nothing of the nature of the festival, merely adding (as in John 2:13; John 7:2, etc.) the words ‘Of the Jews.' It is quite impossible here to examine the attempts which have been made to give more precision to this statement. Not a few Greek manuscripts and other authorities endeavour to remove the difficulty by inserting the article, and reading ‘the feast of the Jews,' an expression usually thought to mean the Passover. The weight of evidence, however, is distinctly in favour of reading ‘a feast;' and we may safely say that with this reading the Passover cannot be intended. Were it possible to believe that the great national festival is spoken of, the consequences would be important. In that case four Passovers would be mentioned in this Gospel (John 2:13; John 5:1; John 6:4; John 18:28); and of one whole year of our Lord's public ministry the only record preserved would be that contained in the chapter before us. The critical evidence, however, sets the discussion at rest so far as the Passover is concerned, and we have only to inquire which of the remaining festivals best suits the few statements of the Evangelist bearing on this part of the history. Our two landmarks are John 4:35 and John 6:4. The former verse assigns the journey through Samaria to the month of December, the latter shows that the events recorded in chap. 6 took place in March or April; hence, in all probability, the festival of chap. John 5:1 falls within the three or four months between these limits. If so, the feasts of Pentecost (about May), Tabernacles (September or October), and the Dedication of the Temple (December) are at once excluded; and no other feast remains except that of Purim, which fell about a month earlier than the Passover. This feast, therefore, is now generally believed to be the one referred to here. The objections are perhaps not insurmountable. It is said that our Lord would hardly go up to Jerusalem for Purim. As to this, however, we are clearly unable to judge; in many ways unknown to us, that feast may have furnished a fitting occasion for His visit. Its human origin would not be an obstacle (comp. chap. John 10:22), nor would its national and patriotic character. It is true that there were abuses in the celebration of Purim, and that excess and licence seem to have been common. Still we cannot doubt that many devout Israelites would be occupied with thankful recollection of the wonderful deliverance of their nation commemorated by the feast, rather than with revelry and boisterous mirth. One other objection may be noticed. The feast of Purim was not allowed to fall on a Sabbath, and hence, it is argued, cannot be thought of here. But nothing in the chapter leads necessarily to the supposition that the Sabbath on which the miracle was wrought was the day of the feast. The feast was the occasion of our Lord's going up to Jerusalem: the Sabbath may have fallen soon after His arrival in the city; more than this we have no right to say. If therefore we look at the historical course of the narrative, it would seem that, of the solutions hitherto offered, that which fixes upon Purim as the feast referred to in the text is the most probable. But there is another question of great importance, which must not be overlooked. Why did John, whose custom it is to mark very clearly the festivals of which he speaks (see John 2:13; John 2:23; John 6:4; John 7:2; John 10:22; John 11:55; John 12:1; John 13:1; John 18:39; John 19:14), write so indefinitely here? The feast before us is the only one in the whole Gospel on which a doubt can rest. We may well ask the reason of this, and the only reply which it seems possible to give is that the indefiniteness is the result of design. The Evangelist omits the name of the feast, that the reader may not attach to it a significance which was not intended. To John, through clearness of insight, not from power of fancy, every action of his Master was fraught with deep significance; and no one who receives the Lord Jesus as he received Him can hesitate to admit in all His words and deeds a fulness of meaning, a perfection of fitness, immeasurably beyond what can be attributed to the highest of human prophets. Our Lord's relation to the whole Jewish economy is never absent from John's thought. Jesus enters the Jewish temple (chap. 14): His own words can be understood by those only who recognise that He Himself is the true Temple of God. The ordained festivals of the nation find their fulfilment in Him. Never, we may say, is any festival named in this Gospel in connection with our Lord, without an intention on the writer's part that we should see the truth which he saw, and behold in it a type of his Master or His work. If this be true, the indefiniteness of the language here is designed to prevent our resting on the thought of this particular festival as fulfilled in Jesus, and to lead to the concentration of our attention on the Sabbath shortly to be mentioned, which in this chapter has an importance altogether exceptional. Were it possible to think that the ‘feast' referred to was the Sabbath itself, all difficulties would be at once removed.