JOHN 5:1-5 NKJV

After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had. Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years.

JOHN 5:1-5 NKJV

John 5:1 The feast of the Jews is probably not the Passover, which John usually refers to by name (2:13; 6:4; 11:55). It may have been Purim, which is not a divine institution but a Jewish-instigated feast to celebrate the deliverance of the Jews and Queen Esther. It is literally a feast of the Jews.

John 5:2 The Sheep Gate was a gate in the wall of Jerusalem near the temple, through which sheep were brought for sacrifice. The pool of Bethesda was a double pool surrounded by Herodian colonnades on four sides, with a fifth colonnade standing on the dividing wall that separated the northern and southern pools. The five porches were in the colonnades on the two sides, with two on each end and one in the middle.

John 5:3–4 By this pool there lay a group of sick people waiting for the moving of the water. All the oldest manuscripts were copied without the latter part of v. 3 and  all of v. 4.

John 5:5 The exact nature of the infirmity is not stated. Apparently it affected his ability to walk (v. 7).