For an angel went down, &c.— Some imagine that this was a proper officer or messenger, as the word αγγελος primarily signifies; yet as it is most commonly used by the inspired writers to signify a celestial being, employed by God, either for the service or punishment of men, and as the circumstances of this narrative import that the virtue communicated by the agitation of the waters, was not a natural quality inherent in them; our translators seem very justly to have retained the word in a sense which implies a miraculous operation. The phrase, Κατα χαιρον, rendered, at a certain season, is understood by some to express at that season, the season of the feast mentioned John 5:1 confining the miracle of the pool to this particular feast. See Numbers 9:6-7. LXX: for, since the evangelist does not say that the waters of Bethesda had their sanative quality at any other feast, we are at liberty to make what supposition seems most convenient: but I cannot help thinking, that the mode of expression, and the waiting of the multitude, evidently imply that this event was frequent; as if it had happened once only, it is not easy to account for this attendance and expectation of the multitude. That the waters of Bethesda should at this period have a miraculous effect, was without doubt in honour of the personal appearance of the Son of God on earth. Some have thought that it was intended to shew that Ezekiel's vision of waters issuing out of the sanctuary, (ch. 47:) was about to be fulfilled; of which waters it is said, John 5:9 they shall be healed; and every thing shall live whither the river cometh. It is abundantly evident, that this was no natural virtue, nor a virtue acquired from natural causes in these waters, from the following reasons: 1. All manner of diseases were healed by them. 2. These cures were performed only at a certain season. 3. One person only was healed. And that, 4 only after the troubling of the water; whereas, in general, medicinal waters are required to be calm, and not troubled, for the use of patients.
Such is the account which St. John gives us ofthis miraculous pool of Bethesda. As to the time when this miraculous effect first took place, nothing precisely certain can be determined; but it seems most universally agreed, that it could not be long before the coming of Christ, and that the miracle was intended to lead men to him: for the gift of prophesy and of miracles had now been withdrawn from the Jews for above four hundred years; therefore to raise in them a more ardent desire for the coming of the Messiah, and to an observation of the signs of his now almost universally-expected coming, God was pleased to favour them with this remarkable sign of Bethesda; and because in these times the Jewish people lay open not only to the irruptions and tyrannyof the Gentiles, but had wholly lost their liberty; that they might not yet entirely despair of the fulfilling of the promises made to their fathers, nor entirely cast off their allegiance to God, he favoured them with this eminent token of his regard, this wonderful pool, in a place near to the gate of victims, which were figures of the propitiatory sacrifice of the Messiah. As this miracle then began, when the coming of the Messiah drew near, to advise them of the speedy and near approach of that promised salvation, (wherefore also this gift of healing was without the temple,) so there can be no doubt that Christ entered these porches, and performed the following miracle, to shew what was the true intent of this gift of healing, and to what it was designed by God to lead men; even to himself, the fountain opened for sin, and for all uncleanness. The water was thus troubled only at some certain season, to shew them at once the weakness of the law, and the great difference between that and the gospel dispensation; and to teach them, not to rest in the corporal benefit only, as in the ministration of anangel, but to betakethemselves to a careful consideration of the promises of HIS approaching advent, who, not at stated periods of times, but every day, performed, not a single cure only, but healed whole multitudes resorting to him.