celebrate the feast of Purim, and no reason to believe that our Lord would have gone there in honor of a festival which was purely national, not directed by the O. T., observed not in connection with the temple service, but privately at home, and often, if not generally, with rioting and excess, rather than with religious services. I agree therefore with Alford and Tholuck that we cannot gather with any probability what feast it was.--=And Jesus went up to Jerusalem.= Presumptively to attend the feast.--=By the sheep-market.= Rather _sheep-gate_. See Neh. 3:1, 32; 12:39. The site is unknown. The traditional site, identical with the gate now known as St. Stephen’s, is pretty effectually disproved by Robinson, who shows that no wall was existing there at the time of Christ.--=A pool.= Properly _a swimming-place_. Pools for purposes of bathing were in use in the great cities of the old world; and recent excavations have brought to light the fact that ancient Jerusalem was in a remarkable degree supplied with water. See below.--=Called Bethesda.= The word means _House of mercy_. The location is entirely uncertain. Tradition places it near the modern St. Stephen’s gate; but this tradition dates back only to the 12th century.--=Having five porches.= Opening upon the bath or tank. In these the sick could lie and be partially protected from the weather.--=In these lay a great multitude of impotent, blind, halt, withered.= Four classes intended to embrace all forms of purely bodily disorder of a chronic character, but not including those possessed of evil spirits. The _impotent_ are those simply suffering from special weakness and infirmity or from general debility; the _halt_ are those deprived from any reason of the full and free use of their limbs; the _withered_ are those affected by paralysis or kindred disorders.--=Waiting for the moving of the water * * * * was made whole of whatever disease he had.= Whether this explanation, _i. e._, the last clause of ver. 3 and the whole of ver. 4, is genuine or a later interpolation, is a question of dispute among the critics; the weight of authority is, on the whole, in favor of its omission; the weight of reason is wholly so. (_a_) The external evidence is, on the whole, against its retention. It is wanting in the Vatican, Cambridge, and Sinaitic manuscripts; in those manuscripts in which it occurs, the verbal variations are considerable. Tischendorf, Meyer, Alford, and Tregelles all declare against it. (_b_) The internal evidence is conclusive. If it had been in the original, the early copyists would not have omitted it; for in the first centuries there was no such reluctance to accept the supernatural, and no such discrimination between wonders that are and wonders that are not miracles, as would have induced its omission. On the other hand, if no explanation of the reason why the sick were gathered in the porches of Bethesda were given in the original account, it would have been very natural for