John 5:4

And an angel of the Lord. [2] In many Greek copies is now wanting, of the Lord; but at least the ancient Fathers, and interpreters, expound it of a true angel, and of a miraculous cure: so that I cannot but wonder that so learned a man as Dr. Hammond, should rather judge these cures to have been natural. By the angel, he would have us to understand a messenger sent from the temple, who was to stir up the blood, and the grosser and thicker parts from the bottom of the pond, and that these cures were made much after the same manner, as, in some cases, persons find a cure by being put into the belly of a beast newly opened. Into what extravagant interpretations are men of learning sometimes led by their private judgment! What scholar of Galen or Hippocrates, ever pretended that this was a certain and infallible cure for all manner of diseases? Yet here we read: that he who got first into this pond, after the motion of the water, was healed, whatsoever distemper he was seized with. The blind are particularly named: Is this a certain remedy that restores sight to the blind? (Witham) --- The effect produced could not be natural, as only one was cured at each motion of the waters. The longing expectation of the suffering patients, is a mark of the persevering prayer with which poor sinners should solicit the cure of their spiritual infirmities. (Haydock)

[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Angelus Domini. The word Greek: kuriou, Domini is found in several of the best Greek manuscripts though wanting in others. But that the cure was miraculous, see St. John Chrysostom, Greek: om. ls. p. 207, tom. viii. Greek: Aggelos iatiken enetikei dunamin. St. Ambrose, lib. de initandis, chap. iv. St. Augustine (trac. xvii. in Joan.) credas hoc Angelica virtute ficri solere. St. Cyril on this place, Angeli descendentes de c\'9clo piscinæ aquam turbabant.