Sheep Market

The sheep market appears in John 5:2 in the phrase there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda. Both the Revised Version text and the Authorized Version margin render the underlying Greek as sheep gate rather than sheep market, since the Greek probatikē (feminine adjective, of sheep) more naturally modifies the implied noun gate than market, following the reference to the Sheep Gate in Nehemiah 3:1.

Whether the designation refers to a gate or a market, the location is the same: the area near the north side of the temple mount where sheep destined for sacrifice were assembled, inspected, and sold. Pools in this area were used for washing animals prior to sacrifice. The pool of Bethesda, with its five colonnaded porches, was associated with healing, and it was there that Jesus encountered the man who had waited thirty-eight years for someone to lower him into the water at its periodic stirring — whom Jesus healed by his word alone.