And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years.

And a certain man was there, who had been thirty and eight years in his infirmity.

And there was a certain man there, that had been eight and thirty years under his infirmity.

But there was a certain man there who had been suffering under his infirmity thirty and eight years.

and there was a certain man there being in ailment thirty and eight years,

And there was one man there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.

One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.

And there was a certain man in that place, having been in his infirmity for thirty-eight years.

One man who was there had been crippled for thirty-eight years.

And there was a man there. The Evangelist collects various circumstances, which prove that the miracle may be relied on as certain. The long duration of the disease had taken away all hope of its being cured. This man complains that he is deprived of the remedy of the water. He had frequently attempted to throw himself into the water, but without success; there was no man to assist him, and this causes the power of Christ to be more strikingly displayed. Such, too, was the import of the command to carry his bed, that all might plainly see that he was cured in no other way than by the agency of Christ; for when he suddenly rises up healthy and strong in all the members in which he was formerly impotent, so sudden a change is the more fitted to arouse and strike the minds of all who beheld it.

An infirmity - A weakness. We know not what his disease was. We know only that it disabled him from walking, and that it was of very long standing. It was doubtless regarded as incurable.

Had an infirmity thirty and eight years - St. Chrysostom conjectured that blindness was the infirmity of this person: what it was, the inspired writer does not say - probably it was a palsy: his case was deplorable - he was not able to go into the pool himself, and he had no one to help him; so that poverty and disease were here connected. The length of the time he had been afflicted makes the miracle of his cure the greater. There could have been no collusion in this case: as his affliction had lasted thirty-eight years, it must have been known to multitudes; therefore he could not be a person prepared for the occasion. All Christ's miracles have been wrought in such a way, and on such persons and occasions, as absolutely to preclude all possibility of the suspicion of imposture.

And a certain man was there,.... At Bethesda's pool, in one of the five porches, or cloisters, that belonged to it:
which had an infirmity thirty and eight years; what his infirmity was, is not said; he was one of the weak, or impotent folk, for so he is called, John 5:7. Some think his distemper was the palsy, and though he had had this infirmity so many years, it is not certain that he had waited so long in this place for a cure; though it may be, for that he had attended some time, is clear from John 5:7. Nor indeed can it be known how long there had been such a preternatural motion in this pool, and such a miraculous virtue in the water; some have thought, that it began at the repairing of the sheep gate by Eliashib, in Nehemiah's time; so Tremellius and Junius, on Nehemiah 3:1; and others have thought, that it had been some few years before the birth of Christ, and about the time that this man was first taken with his disorder. Tertullian says (u), that there was in Judea a medicinal lake, before Christ's time; and that the pool of Bethsaida (it should be Bethesda) was useful in curing the diseases of the Israelites; but ceased from yielding any benefit, when the name of the Lord was blasphemed by them, through their rage and fury, and continuance in it (w); but in what year it began, and the precise time it ceased, he says not. The Persic version here adds, "and was reduced to such a state that he could not move".
(u) De Anima, c. 50. (w) Adv. Judaeos, c. 13.

thirty and eight years--but not all that time at the pool. This was probably the most pitiable of all the cases, and therefore selected.

And a certain man was there. With many others who thought the water had a healing power. His infirmity was probably paralysis.