After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and dry them with the towel that was around Him.
5. And began to wash the feet of his disciples. These words express the design of Christ, rather than the outward act; for the Evangelist adds, that he began with Peter.
It has generally been taken for granted by commentators that Christ's washing his disciples' feet, and the discourse that followed it, were the same night in which he was betrayed, and at the same sitting wherein he ate the passover and instituted the Lord's supper; but whether before the solemnity began, or after it was all over, or between the eating of the passover and...
Commenting on John 13:1-17
After that be poureth water into a bason,.... This also was a servile work, and what properly belonged to servants to do; see Joh 2:5. The bason to wash the feet in, called by the Jews was fixed by their doctors to hold, "from two logs to nine kabs" (t); not "from two logs to ten", as Dr. Lightfoot has rendered the passage referred to.