John 5:16

16 Because Jesus was doing this on the Sabbath day, 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 Later, Jesus found the man at the Temple and said to him, "See, you are well now. Stop sinning so that something worse does not happen to you."

15 Then the man left and told the Jews that Jesus was the one who had made him well.

16 Because Jesus was doing this on the Sabbath day, the Jews began to persecute him.

17 But Jesus said to them, "My Father never stops working, and so I keep working, too."

18 This made the Jews try still harder to kill him. They said, "First Jesus was breaking the law about the Sabbath day. Now he says that God is his own Father, making himself equal with God!"