BIBLE STUDY LESSON 16

SERIES Q --- THE SAVIOUR

SHABBAT BREAKER?

FEASTING OR FASTING?

From Luke 5:33-39

The Pharisees were often critical of Yeshua. On one occasion they complained to Yeshua that His disciples were feasting while they and John’s disciples were fasting. [We often pray and go without food, and so do John’s disciples,] they grumbled to Yeshua. [But not Your disciples! They keep on eating and drinking while we do without!] [Would you fast at a wedding party?] Yeshua asked. [Wedding guests don’t wear long faces and go hungry in the presence of the bridegroom. So why should My disciples do this when they are with Me? When I am gone, there will be time for fasting.] Then Yeshua gave this example: [No sensible person tears up a new coat to make patches for an old one. If he did, he would ruin the new coat and make the old one look older than ever. Neither does a person pour fresh wine into old wineskins, for they would stretch more and burst, losing the wine and ruining the wineskins. It is much better to put fresh wine into new wineskins. Of course, anyone who knows the good taste of old wine will want his fresh wine to age. He is sure to say that it is better when aged.]

AT THE POOL OF BETHESDA

From John 5:1-18

After His discussion with the Pharisees, Yeshua left with His disciples for Jerusalem. The occasion was a religious festival, which Jewish men were required to attend. In Jerusalem, by the Sheep Gate, there was a pool surrounded by five arches, called The Pool of Bethesda. From time to time, an angel came to stir the waters, bringing healing to the person who entered the troubled waters first. The pool was crowded with those who were lame, blind, and paralyzed, waiting for the waters to move. One man had been sick for thirty-eight years. Yeshua knew this when He saw him. [Do you want to get well?] Yeshua asked. [Of course,] the man replied. [But I have no friend to put me into the water when it is troubled. While I am struggling to get in, someone else gets ahead of me,] [You may get up now,] Yeshua said. [Roll up your mat, and walk!] Immediately the man did what Yeshua said. He rolled up his mat and began walking. Since it was the Shabbat, the Jewish leaders believed that no work should be done, not even carrying a mat. [You know that it is against the Law to carry your mat on the Shabbat,] they told the man. [But the One who healed me said that I should,] he answered. [Who told you that?] they asked angrily. The man did not know who Yeshua was, and he could not see Him in the large crowd. Later, Yeshua found this man in the temple. [You are well now,] He said to the man. [But if you don’t change your ways, and stop sinning, you may find yourself in worse trouble.] When the man left Yeshua, he hurried away to tell the religious leaders that it was Yeshua who had healed him. Because of this, they began to plot against Yeshua, calling Him a Shabbat breaker. [My Father is always busy doing good,] He said. [How can I do otherwise?] Now the Jewish leaders were anxious to kill Yeshua because He had not only disobeyed their Shabbat Laws, but had called YHVH His Father, putting Himself on a level with YHVH.

COMMENTARY

THREE POOLS: THE WATER SYSTEM OF JERUSALEM

Rainfall in Jerusalem was slight, and the city was far from the sea and miles from the Jordan River. An adequate water supply was a problem. There were a few springs in the surrounding area, but they were too far outside the city walls to provide water for daily use. It was simply not practical to carry heavy jugs of water for long distances. The ancient Israelites brought the water to the city in another way. They built channels to carry it from the springs to the city. Large pools were dug to hold the water, and earthenware tunnels and pipes buried underground carried it to other parts of the city. [Running water] as it is understood today did not exist, but the precious liquid was available to everyone. When Herod was king, he built a long tunnel or aqueduct that brought water to Jerusalem from a spring south of Bethlehem. It ran through his citadel and the adjoining palace before it emptied into the public pool. Located outside the citadel’s towers and called the Towers’ Pool, it is fed by the waters of that spring to the present day. Herod provided the inhabitants of Jerusalem with another important source of water when he built the temple. The walls of the temple platform were constructed to work like a dam. They blocked the course of a brook that ran through the valley of Bezetha. Instead of flowing past the city, the water collected in a pool just outside the temple. The Pool of Israel, as it came to be called, was the largest of the pools formed from the Bezetha Brook. It was used as a source of water until well into the twentieth century, when it was found to be contaminated, and was drained and filled in. The Pool of Bethesda was located not far from the Israel Pool. The Gospels describe it as near the Jerusalem sheep market. Surrounded by elevated porches on all sides, its waters were used to wash the sheep that were to be brought to the temple for sacrifice. When the pool was no longer used for this purpose, it gradually filled with the silt, rubble and debris that accumulated over hundreds of years. The ground level around it rose in the same way, and the pool was gradually buried and was lost for centuries. But fairly recently, the Pool of Bethesda has been rediscovered. The place where Yeshua healed the man who had been sick for thirty-eight years is now sixty feet below the surface of the ground. It was found beneath the ruins of an ancient church-built hundreds of years ago to mark the location of the pool.