The Harmony Chronicle and Order of the New Testament, Part 1 · Section 14
SECTION XIV. JOHN Chap. V. All the Chapter.CHRISTS second Passeover after his Baptism. An infirm man healed at Bethesda.
FOr the justifying and cleering of the order in this place, these things are to be taken into consideration. 1. That the first thing that the two Evangelists Mark and Luke, who are most exact for order, have placed after the calling of Levi, is, the Disciples plucking the ears of Corn. They have indeed interserted Levies first, and Iohns disciples questioning about fasting, but that was more for the dispatching of Levies story altogether, then for the propriety of their subsequence each to other, as hath been shewed already. 2. In that the story of the Disciples plucking the ears of Corn, is joyned by them next, we are to look for a Passeover between, for till the Passeover was over, and the first-fruits sheaf offered the second day after, it was not lawfull to meddle with any Corn, to use, or to eat it, Lev. 23.14. 3. Christ had said in the field of Sichem, that it was then four moneths to harvest, Joh. 4.35. that is, to the Passeover, at what time their Barley harvest began, Lev. 23.11, &c. Now, casting up the time from that place and speech, taken up in the current of the story from thence hither, we cannot but conclude the four moneths to be now up, and this to be the Passeover, then thought upon in those words. And we may conceive that the Evangel…st hath the rather omitted to call it by its proper name, or to speak it expresly, that this feast was the Passeover, because in that speech he had given fair intimation, how to understand the next feast of the Iews that he should speak of. He mentioneth indeed a Passeover in Chap. 6.4. but we shall finde by the progresse of the story in the other Evangelists, that that was yet so farre yet to come, that it cannot in the least wise be supposed to be that which was to come within four moneths after Christs being in the field of Sichem. The feast of the Iews therefore that he speaketh of in the first verse of this Chapter, must needs be that Passeover referred to Ioh. 4.35. and this considered doth cleer the order.
At this Passeover a man is healed at Bethesda, who had been diseased from seaven years before Christ was born. This was a pool first laid up by Solomon, as may be conjectured from Iosephus de Bel. lib. 5. cap. 13. compared with Nehem. 3. and at first called Solomons Pool, but now Bethesda, or the place of mercy from its beneficiall virtue. It was supplied with water from the fountain Sileam, which represented Davids and Christs Kingdom, Isa. 8 6.
The five porches about it, and the man, when healed, carrying his bed out of one of them, calls to minde the foreign Mevuo…h or Entries that are so much spoken of in the treatise Erubhin, the carrying of any thing out of which into the street on the Sabbath day, was to carry foreign out of a private place into a publick, and was prohibited.
He is hereupon convented before the Sanhedrin, and there he doth most openly confesse and prove himself to be the Messias: And he asserteth that all Power and Judgment is put into his hand, and that he hath the same authority for the dispensing of the affairs of the new Testament, that the Father had for the old. And this he doth so plainly, that he leaveth their unbelief henceforward without excuse.
The Jews speak of divers ominous things that occurred fourty years before the destruction of the City; As, It is a tradition that fourty years before the Sanctuary was destroyed the western Lamp went out, and the scarlet list kept its rednesse, and the Lords lot came up on the left hand. And they locked up the Temple doors at even, yet when they rose in the morning they found them open. Jerus. in Joma. fol. 43. col. 3. And, Sanhedr. fol. 18. col. 1. Fourty years before the Temple was destroyed, power of judgeng in capitall matters was taken away from Israel: Now there are some that reckon but thirty eight years between the death of Christ and the destruction of the City; and if that be so, then these ominous presages occurred this year that we are upon. It being just fourty years, by that account, from this Passeover at which Christ healeth the diseased man at Bethesda, to the time of Titus his pitching his Camp and siege about Ierusalem, which was at a Passeover. But of this let the Reader judge.