In these lay a great multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, or paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water;
The spurious nature of the words here cited, however, is not to be denied. They were probably added by some scribe at a very early date to explain what was meant by the cripple's having no one to help him get into the water at the propitious moment.  If there had been any virtue in the waters of the pool, it seems highly incredible that they should have been efficacious only at indeterminate intervals, only for such a short while, and, even then, only for the person who got into them first.  The cripple of this narrative had surely found them without any value to himself.