John 5:7 - Printer Friendly

ESV: The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.”

NIV: Sir,' the invalid replied, 'I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.'

NASB: The sick man answered Him, 'Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me.'

CSB: "Sir," the disabled man answered, "I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I'm coming, someone goes down ahead of me."

NLT: I can’t, sir,' the sick man said, 'for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.'

KJV: The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.

NKJV: The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”

Jesus has approached this crippled man, among "a multitude" of invalids laying by the Pool of Bethesda (John 5:3). Perhaps Jesus chose him because of the length of time he'd been suffering. A man crippled for nearly forty years would have made quite a dramatic example of healing. There would have been no doubt that the cure was supernatural. And, there is a better chance that the man was well-known in the area, and so even more a magnet for attention.

In the prior verse, Jesus asked a question: "Do you want to be healed?" This may have been a fairly simple request, or it might have been a challenge: "Do you want to be healed" (emphasis added)? One reason the second option seems likely is the answer given by the man here in verse 7.

Rather than saying, "Yes, I want to be healed," the man offers a complaint that there is nobody to help him into the water. The disputed text of John 5:4 indicated an angel agitated the water, healing only the first person who entered the pool. The man might have been trying to get into the pool for healing, or he might have been content to simply sit and take in the charity of others.

John 5:1–15 shows Jesus healing a man who had been crippled for thirty-eight years. This is the third of John's seven ''signs'' of Christ. Interestingly, the crippled man expresses no prior knowledge of Jesus, nor any overwhelming desire to be healed. Jesus restores the man, then tells him to walk. For carrying his mat—working—the man is then confronted by local religious leaders, but doesn't know who Jesus is. Jesus meets the man in the temple and warns him about the dangers of sin. Once the city's leaders find out that Jesus was responsible for the healing, they will confront Him for violating the Sabbath, and for claiming to be equal with God.

Jesus again returns to Jerusalem, as required for the various feast days. While there, He heals a man who had been crippled for nearly forty years. Since this occurred on the Sabbath, local religious leaders are angry—more upset with Jesus for working on the Sabbath than amazed at His miracle. In response, Jesus offers an important perspective on evidence. Jesus refers to human testimony, scriptural testimony, and miracles as reasons to believe His declarations. Christ also lays claim to many of the attributes of God, making a clear claim to divinity.

Chapters 1 through 4 showed Jesus more or less avoiding publicity. Here, in chapter 5, He will begin to openly challenge the local religious leaders. This chapter is Jesus' first major answer to His critics in this Gospel. The fact that Jesus is willing to heal on the Sabbath sets up a theme of His upcoming disagreements with the Pharisees. Jesus also provides important perspective on the relationship between evidence and faith, which He will expand on in later chapters. This chapter also establishes a key point made by Jesus' critics: His claims to be God.

The gospel of John was written by the disciple John, decades later than the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The author assumes that a reader is already familiar with the content of these other works. So, John presents a different perspective, with a greater emphasis on meaning. John uses seven miracles—which he calls “signs”—in order to prove that Jesus is, in fact, God incarnate. Some of the most well-known verses in all of the Bible are found here. None is more famous than the one-sentence summary of the gospel found in John 3:16.