In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed.
Why were there a multitude of disabled people here? Perhaps it was because there was a lot of shade. Verse 2 explained that there were five rows of columns which each were covered. That was probably a nice break from the sun.
Also, the pool is near the Sheep Gate, where people brought animals for sacrifice. Perhaps this was a great place to get some help from those that passed through the area. Calvin has this to say:
It is possible that diseased persons lay in the porches to ask alms when the people were passing there who were going into the temple to worship; and there, too, it was customary to purchase the beasts which were to be offered in sacrifice.
But there was more than shade and alms. There’s a pool there and the belief that God is healing certain people through the pool.
Part of verse 3 and the entirety of verse 4 are contested. The ESV doesn’t include them. Other modern translations footnote this portion. It reads as follows (from the NAS):
In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, [waiting for the moving of the waters; for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted.]
The claim is the oldest (and therefore believed to be the best) manuscripts (which contain the complete NT) do not include these words. Two codices are being referred to when this claim is made: Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. They both are believed to originate from the 4th century. Those that subscribe to this view often claim there is no evidence of these verses existence prior to 500ad. That claim is disingenuous, because there is much earlier testimony. Tertullian’s On Baptism (particularly, but not only chapter 5) is clear evidence that he relied upon a text that included these verses.
If it seems a novelty for an angel to be present in waters, an example of what was to come to pass has forerun. An angel, by his intervention, was wont to stir the pool at Bethsaida. They who were complaining of ill-health used to watch for him; for whoever had been the first to descend into them, after his washing, ceased to complain. This figure of corporeal healing sang of a spiritual healing, according to the rule by which things carnal are always antecedent as figurative of things spiritual. And thus, when the grace of God advanced to higher degrees among men, John 1:16-17 an accession of efficacy was granted to the waters and to the angel. They who were wont to remedy bodily defects, now heal the spirit; they who used to work temporal salvation now renew eternal; they who did set free but once in the year, now save peoples in a body daily, death being done away through ablution of sins. (On Baptism, Chapter 5)
Tertullian was a 2nd century author whose writings are a couple hundred years earlier than either of those codices. Even so, it’s a difficult subject because there are 2nd-3rd century papyri of John 5 that do not include the disputed part. I’m not sure how to weigh historical testimony (like Tertullian) to the few fragments we have from a similar time.
Augustine’s tractates (5th century) include the disputed portion, as do the Old Latin translation a century prior to Augustine (Codex Vercellensis).
3. What was done, then, that they who could not be healed in the porches might be healed in that water after being troubled? For on a sudden the water was seen troubled, and that by which it was troubled was not seen. You may believe that this was wont to be done by angelic virtue, yet not without some mystery being implied. After the water was troubled, the one who was able cast himself in, and he alone was healed: whoever went in after that one, did so in vain. What, then, is meant by this, unless it be that there came one, even Christ, to the Jewish people; and by doing great things, by teaching profitable things, troubled sinners, troubled the water by His presence, and roused it towards His own death? But He was hidden that troubled. For had they known Him, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory. 1 Corinthians 2:8 Wherefore, to go down into the troubled water means to believe in the Lord’s death. There only one was healed, signifying unity: whoever came thereafter was not healed, because whoever shall be outside unity cannot be healed. (Tractate 17)
The earliest known Greek codex with John 5:4 is Codex Alexandrius from the 5th century. You can read it here. Gordon Fee has done some interesting work on this verse which can be found here. Fee summarizes:
Furthermore, the fact that there is such early and widespread evidence for a text of Johnwithout 5:4, among witnesses with no direct textual relatedness, suggests that the ‘omission’ would have to have been made more than once, a possibility that seems most highly improbable. Since the passage is so thoroughly non-Johannine in style and language, we may confidently regard both additions as having had no place in the Johannine original.
It’s obviously a complicated issue with more complexity than most preachers give it. Nearly every sermon I’ve listened to so far is flippantly dismissive with vague appeals to ‘best manuscripts’. Maybe. But a discussion of the philosophical assumptions that entail ‘best manuscripts’ is so far beyond the scope of the sermon that it would seem best to avoid the issue all-together in the context of corporate gathering. I think it causes far too much confusion and for that reason, I am intending to avoid raising the issue.
Spanish bibles, except for maybe one or two modern translations which no one uses, are all based upon a different textual tradition and for that reason, include verse 4. Nonetheless, verse 7 is pretty clear that minimally the *belief* alluded to in verse 4 was subscribed to by those present at the Pool of Bethesda. This accounts for why the disabled wanted to get into the pool first. The omission of verse 4 doesn’t change the text in my opinion, as relying upon verse 7 alone one could draw a similar conclusion.