John 5:22-27

5:22 Furthermore, the Father does not judge ¹  anyone, but has assigned ²  all judgment to the Son, 5:23 so that all people ³  will honor the Son just as they honor the Father. The one who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.

5:24 “I tell you the solemn truth, ⁴  the one who hears ⁵  my message ⁶  and believes the one who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned, ⁷  but has crossed over from death to life. 5:25 I tell you the solemn truth, ⁸  a time ⁹  is coming – and is now here – when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 5:26 For just as the Father has life in himself, thus he has granted the Son to have life in himself, 5:27 and he has granted the Son ¹⁰  authority to execute judgment, ¹¹  because he is the Son of Man.

John 5:2

5:2 Now there is ¹²  in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate ¹³  a pool called Bethzatha ¹⁴  in Aramaic, ¹⁵  which has five covered walkways. ¹⁶ 

Colossians 1:10

1:10 so that you may live ¹⁷  worthily of the Lord and please him in all respects ¹⁸  – bearing fruit in every good deed, growing in the knowledge of God,

[5:22]  ¹ tn Or “condemn.”

[5:22]  ² tn Or “given,” or “handed over.”

[5:23]  ³ tn Grk “all.” The word “people” is not in the Greek text but is supplied for stylistic reasons and for clarity (cf. KJV “all men”).

[5:24]  ⁴ tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[5:24]  ⁵ tn Or “obeys.”

[5:24]  ⁶ tn Or “word.”

[5:24]  ⁷ tn Grk “and does not come into judgment.”

[5:25]  ⁸ tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[5:25]  ⁹ tn Grk “an hour.”

[5:27]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “him.”

[5:27]  ¹¹ tn Grk “authority to judge.”

[5:2]  ¹² tn Regarding the use of the present tense ἐστιν (estin) and its implications for the dating of the Gospel of John, see the article by D. B. Wallace, “John 5,2 and the Date of the Fourth Gospel,” Bib 71 (1990): 177-205.

[5:2]  ¹³ tn The site of the miracle is also something of a problem: προβατικῇ (probatikh) is usually taken as a reference to the Sheep Gate near the temple. Some (R. E. Brown and others) would place the word κολυμβήθρα (kolumbhqra) with προβατικῇ to read “in Jerusalem, by the Sheep Pool, there is (another pool) with the Hebrew name.” This would imply that there is reference to two pools in the context rather than only one. This does not seem necessary (although it is a grammatical possibility). The gender of the words does not help since both are feminine (as is the participle ἐπιλεγομένη [epilegomenh]). Note however that Brown’s suggestion would require a feminine word to be supplied (for the participle ἐπιλεγομένη to modify). The traditional understanding of the phrase as a reference to the Sheep Gate near the temple appears more probably correct.

[5:2]  ¹⁴ tc Some mss (א [L] 33 it) read Bethzatha, while others read Bethsaida (Ì^[66],75 B T W^s [Ψ] pc vg); codex D has Belzetha. A lot of controversy has surrounded the name of the pool itself: The reading of the Byzantine (or majority) text (A C Θ 078 Ë^1,13 Ï), Bethesda, has been virtually discarded by scholars in favor of what is thought to be the more primitive Bethzatha, even though many recent translations continue to employ Bethesda, the traditional reading. The latter is attested by Josephus as the name of a quarter of the city near the northeast corner of the temple area. He reports that the Syrian Legate Cestius burned this suburb in his attack on Jerusalem in October a.d. 68 (J. W. 2.19.4 [2.530]). However, there is some new archaeological evidence for this problem. 3Q15 (Copper Scroll) from Qumran seems to indicate that in the general area of the temple, on the eastern hill of Jerusalem, a treasure was buried in Bet áEsdatayin, in the pool at the entrance to the smaller basin. The name of the region or pool itself seems then to have been Bet ᾿Esda, “house of the flowing.” It appears with the dual ending in the scroll because there were two basins. Bethesda seems to be an accurate Greek rendition of the name, while J. T. Milik suggests Bethzatha is a rendition of the Aramaic intensive plural Bet áEsdata (DJDJ 3, 271). As for the text of John 5:2, the fundamental problems with the Bethesda reading are that it looks motivated (with an edifying Semitic etymology, meaning “House of Mercy” [TCGNT 178]), and is minimally attested. Apart from the Copper Scroll, the evidence for Bethesda is almost entirely shut up to the Byzantine text (C being the most notable exception, but it often has Byzantine encroachments). On the one hand, this argues the Byzantine reading here had ancient, semitic roots; on the other hand, since both readings are attested as historically accurate, a decision has to be based on the better witnesses. The fact that there are multiple readings here suggests that the original was not well understood. Which reading best explains the rise of the others? It seems that Bethzatha is the best choice.

[5:2]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “in Hebrew.”

[5:2]  ¹⁶ tn Or “porticoes,” or “colonnades”; Grk “stoas.”

[1:10]  ¹⁷ tn The infinitive περιπατῆσαι (peripathsai, “to walk, to live, to live one’s life”) is best taken as an infinitive of purpose related to “praying” (προσευχόμενοι, proseucomenoi) and “asking” (αἰτούμενοι, aitoumenoi) in v. 9 and is thus translated as “that you may live.”

[1:10]  ¹⁸ tn BDAG 129 s.v. ἀρεσκεία states that ἀρεσκείαν (areskeian) refers to a “desire to please εἰς πᾶσαν ἀ. to please (the Lord) in all respects Col 1:10.”