John 5:16

16 As a result, the Jewish leaders were harassing Jesus, since he had done these things on the Sabbath.

John 5:16 Meaning and Commentary

John 5:16

And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus
With their tongues, reproaching and reviling him, as a sabbath breaker, a destroyer of the law, and a sinful wicked man:

and sought to slay him;
either in a violent way, by setting the zealots, a sort of ruffians under the pretence of religion, upon him; or rather in a judicial way, summoning him before the sanhedrim, in order to condemn him to death for the breach of the sabbath, which by the law of Moses was punishable with death:

because he had done these things on the sabbath day;
because he had cured the man of his disease, under which he had laboured eight and thirty years, and had ordered him to take up his bed, and walk home with it on his back on the sabbath day. This drew upon him their resentment to such a degree, that they not only persecuted him with their tongues, but sought to take away his life. Nothing would satisfy them but his blood.

John 5:16 In-Context

14 Later Jesus found him in the temple and said, "See! You have been made well. Don't sin anymore in case something worse happens to you."

15 The man went and proclaimed to the Jewish leaders that Jesus was the man who had made him well.

16 As a result, the Jewish leaders were harassing Jesus, since he had done these things on the Sabbath.

17 Jesus replied, "My Father is still working, and I am working too."

18 For this reason the Jewish leaders wanted even more to kill him—not only because he was doing away with the Sabbath but also because he called God his own Father, thereby making himself equal with God.