It relates Jesus' healing and teaching in Jerusalem, and begins to evidence the hostility shown him by the Jewish authorities.

[7] The Pulpit Commentary notes that "the indefinite Greek: ἑορτη has been identified by commentators with every feast in the calendar, so there can be no final settlement of the problem".

This takes place on the Sabbath, and Jewish religious leaders see the man carrying his mat and tell him this is against the law.

Verses 3b–4 are not found in the most reliable manuscripts of John,[10] although they appear in the King James Version of the Bible (which is based on the Textus Receptus).

[11] In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water.

[4] Two reasons emerge: From Jesus' words, "My Father", Methodist founder John Wesley observed that "It is evident [that] all the hearers so understood him [to mean] making himself equal with God".

[22] Lutheran theologian Heinrich Meyer refers to "the hour when the dead hear the voice of the Son of God" as the "resurrection summons".

Meyer argues that this "hour" extends from its beginning at "Christ's entrance upon His life-giving ministry" until "the second advent – already had it begun to be present, but, viewed in its completeness, it still belonged to the future".

(John 5:47) Theologian Albert Barnes notes that "the ancient fathers of the Church and the generality of modern commentators have regarded our Lord as the prophet promised in these verses [of Deuteronomy]".

[7] However, the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges is critical of this approach: These teachings of Jesus are almost only found in John.