John 5:16

The Father and the Son

16 Now because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews began to persecute Him.

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 Afterward, Jesus found the man at the temple and said to him, “See, you have been made well. Stop sinning, or something worse may happen to you.”

15 And the man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.

16 Now because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews began to persecute Him.

17 But Jesus answered them, “To this very day My Father is at His work, and I too am working.”

18 Because of this, the Jews tried all the harder to kill Him. Not only was He breaking the Sabbath, but He was even calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.