And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus and sought to slay him because he had done these things on And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day.
And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him. [This last clause - kai (G2532) ezeetoun (G2212) auton (G846) apokteinai (G615) - is excluded from the text by Tischendorf and Tregelles, on weighty but, as we judge, insufficient authority. Alford does the same, and Lucke, Meyer, and DeWette, approve of the omission, which they regard as a gloss to explain John 5:18. But the word mallon (G3123) - "the more" - which none propose to exclude from the text, presupposes the clause in John 5:16, and is the strongest argument in favour of it. Lachmann retains the clause.]
Because he had done these things on the sabbath day. What to these hypocritical religionists was the doing of the most glorious and beneficent miracles, compared with the atrocity of doing them on the Sabbath day! Having given them this handle, on purpose to raise the first public controversy with them, and thus open a fitting opportunity for laying His claims before them, He rises at once to the whole height of them, in a statement which for grandeur, weight, and terseness exceeds almost anything that ever afterward fell from Him-at least to His enemies.