A feast of the Jews. — The writer does not tell us what feast this was, and we must be content to remain without certain knowledge. There is, perhaps, no Jewish feast with which it has not been identified, and it has been even proclaimed confidently that it must have been the Day of Atonement! (Caspari, Chron. and Geogr., Introd., Eng. Trans., p. 130). Our reading is to be regarded as the better one, though not a few authorities insert the article, and interpret “the Feast” to mean the Feast of Passover.
The time-limits are John 4:35, which was in Tebeth (January), and John 6:4, which bring us to the next Passover in Nisan (April), i.e., an interval of four months, the year being an intercalary one with the month VeAdar (and Adar) added, or, as we should say, with two months of March. The only feast which falls in this interval is the Feast of Purim, and it is with this that the best modern opinion identifies the feast of our text. It was kept on the 14th of Adar (March), in commemoration of the deliverance of the Jews from the plots of Haman, and took its name from the lots cast by him (Esther 3:7; Esther 9:24 et seq.). It was one of the most popular feasts (Jos. Ant. xi. 6, § 13), and was characterised by festive rejoicings, presents, and gifts to the poor. At the same time it was not one of the great feasts, and while the writer names the Passover (John 2:13; John 6:4; John 13:1), the Feast of Tabernacles (John 7:2), and even that of the Dedication (John x 22), this has no further importance in the narrative than to account for the fact of Jesus being again in Jerusalem. (Comp. Introduction: Chronological Harmony of the Gospels, p. 35)