Day 4 - Wednesday - Commentary the New Testament Use of the Old Testament - Logos
The Healing of the Lame Man and the Sabbath Controversy ( John 5:1–47 ) In the aftermath of Jesus’ healing of the lame man, the Jews object, in a petty display of religious legalism, to the man picking up his mat on the Sabbath ( Jn. 5:10 ). Although the Jewish leaders may have thought of passages such as Exod. 31:12–17; Jer. 17:21–27; Neh. 13:15, 19 , the man did not actually break any biblical Sabbath regulations. According to Jewish tradition, however, the man was violating a code that prohibited carrying an object “from one domain into another” ( m. Šabb. 7:2 )—in the present instance, his mat. Apparently, it was permissible to carry a bed with a person lying on it, but not one that was empty ( m. Šabb. 10:5 ). At this point, Jesus is accused not of violating the law himself but of enticing someone else to sin by issuing a command that would have caused that person to break the law. In the ensuing “Sabbath controversy” ( Jn. 5:16–47 ), Jesus aligns his messianic activ...