Halt and lame meaning7/9/2023 ![]() ![]() Gill's Exposition of the Entire BibleIn these lay a great multitude of impotent folk. All true theology must be, in the best sense, scientific and all true science must be, in the best sense, religious. But it may be fairly asked, which is most truly scientific-to grasp the Ultimate Cause of all, even without the knowledge of intermediate links or to trace these links, and express them in so-called laws, and make these abstract laws lifeless representatives of the living God? There is a via media which, here as elsewhere, wisdom will seek rather than either extreme. ![]() The Biblical critic is glad that he can remove these words from the record, and cannot be called upon to explain them. Scientists of the present century will smile at these Christians of the second century. They knew not its constituent elements, and could not trace the law of its action, but they knew the Source of all good, who gave intellect to man and healing influence to matter, effect to the remedy and skill to the physician, and they accepted the gift as direct from Him. The bubbling water moving as it were with life, and in its healing power seeming to convey new energy to blind and halt and lame, was to them as the presence of a living messenger of God. It explains the man’s own view in John 5:7, and the fact of the multitude assembled round the pool ( John 5:3). This points to a wide acceptance from the second century downwards, and points doubtless to the popular interpretation of that day. It is found in the Alexandrian MS., and in the Latin and early Syrian versions. It is interesting to note how a gloss like this has found its way into the narrative, and, for ninety-nine out of every hundred readers, is now regarded as an integral part of St. Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(3) In these lay a great multitude.-The word “great” before multitude, and the latter clause of the verse “waiting for the moving of the water,” and the whole of John 5:4, is omitted by most of the oldest MSS., including the Sinaitic and the Vatican, and is judged to be no part of the original text by a consensus of modern editors, including Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford, and Westcott and Hort. ![]()
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