In these lay a great multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, or paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water;
Upon what would appear to be sufficient critical grounds, these words have been removed from the English Revised Version (1885); but it is well that they have been retained in the margin, because they explain the common conviction regarding the pool which resulted in its popularity.  It would be no great thing to stumble at if indeed it was part of John's Gospel. Whatever healing ever occurred there would thus have been attributed to the power of an angel of the Lord, and what would be so unreasonable about that?  The healing qualities of the waters at Hot Springs, for example; are they any less of God and his angels, merely because our chemists have analyzed them?  Is there not here a tracing back to their true source phenomena which men are so ready to ascribe to secondary sources?  Is not all healing of God; and do not the Scriptures teach that God's angels are servants sent forth to do service for them that shall be the heirs of salvation?   (Hebrews 1:14).