聖書注解書

Verse 1-ch. 9:34 - MESSIAH'S WORK AS COMPLEMENTARY TO HIS TEACHING. We return in this section to matter which resembles that of Mark and Luke, and undoubtedly belongs to the Framework (vide Introduction). St. Matthew has given a lengthy summary of the teaching of the Christ, and he now supplements it by a summary of his daily work. He is not concerned with the chronological connexion of the incidents here narrated, for this is evidently to him a matter of but secondary importance. He only desires to bring out different aspects of the Lord's life. Thus he notices -

1. Christ's miracles of healing, and the secret of his ability to perform them (vers. 1-17).

2. The personal trials that Christ incurred in his work (ver. 18-Matthew 9:8).

3. The liberty of the gospel as shown by Christ's treatment of the outcast, and his answer to those who insisted on fasting (Matthew 9:9-17).

4. The completeness of his healing power (Matthew 9:18-34). Verses 1-17. - 1. Christ's miracles of healing, and the secret of his ability to perform them. Observe:

(1) The variety in the patients.

(a) One of the chosen people, who had lost all social and religious privileges;

(b) a Gentile, an outsider by birth;

(c) the near relation of a personal follower;

(d) multitudes.

(2) The variety in the requests for his aid.

(a) The request by the sufferer;

(b) the request by another;

(c) apparently no request, yet the personal follower has Christ with him;

(d) the sufferers are brought to him. Verses 1-4. - Healing the leper. Parallel passages: Mark 1:40-45; Luke 5:12-16. Observe in this miracle

(1) the Lord's sympathy, running counter to popular prejudice (vide Edersheim, ' Life,' 1:495);

(2) his full acceptance of the Law (Matthew 5:17); cf. ver. 4, note. Verse 1. - Matthew only. When he was come down from the mountain (Matthew 5:1, note), great multitudes followed him, A transitional verse. It carries on the thought of the ὄχλοι in the last verse of the preceding chapter, and serves to introduce the following examples of sick folk; or, perhaps, it may be connected with the "great multitudes" (ὄχλοι πολλοί) of Matthew 4:25, coming, as the plural suggests (cf. also Matthew 12:23) from the various places there enumerated. If we must combine this verse with Luke 5:12, we must suppose our Lord to have descended the mountain, and to be passing through "one of the cities," coming (our ver. 5) afterwards to Capernaum, the "great multitudes" (cf. Luke 5:15)being drawn from the various cities through which he passed. The verse reminds us that the two sides of the Lord's life, preaching and work, were intimately connected. Men not only wondered at what they heard (Matthew 7:28, 29), they also followed him, and this led to occasions for the exercise of his practical activity. The result was that they wondered at his work (Matthew 9:33), as they wondered at his preaching.

Verse 2. - And, behold. In this case the unexpected (Matthew 1:20, note) was the near approach (προσελθών), the "worship," and the prayer of an outcast. There came a leper. Loathsome physically and typically. The other passages which speak of the healing of lepers by our Lord or the apostles are

(1) Matthew 10:8;

(2) Matthew 11:5; parallel passage, Luke 7:22;

(3) Luke 17:12;

(4) perhaps Matthew 26:6; parallel passage, Mark 14:3. And worshipped him (Matthew 4:9, note). From the parallel passages we may see that the word here refers more to the posture of his body than to the nature of his thoughts. Saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. Leprosy stood in so peculiar and solemn a relation to the Israelites that it would hardly be included under the terms, "all manner of disease, and all manner of sickness," in Matthew 4:23, 24; we have therefore no evidence that up to this time any leper had been healed by our Lord. The man's utterance marks, therefore, a distinct advance in faith. None like him, the object of the Divine "stroke," had been healed; but from lesser examples of Jesus' power he argues to the greater. Sure of Jesus' power, he appeals to his heart. Make me clean (καθαρίσαι). Not merely "heal me;" for a leper could not but think of healing and its consequences - restoration to social and religious privileges (vide infra).

Verse 3. - And Jesus put forth (and he stretched forth, Revised Version) his hand, and touched him. The careful record of the twofold action may be either a trace of the increasing astonishment of the bystanders or a means of indicating that this was no accidental touch, but the result of deliberate will (cf. Matthew 14:31). According to the Law (Leviticus 13:46 with Leviticus 11:40), our Lord by this action would become unclean until the evening. But of this there is no hint. That indeed he could not by it contract any real impurity, or even any ceremonial impurity in the eyes of God, is self-evident. But how could he himself justify his exemption from the Law? and how could the people justify it? Probably both he and they felt that as "the priests, in their contact with the leper to be adjudged, were exempted from the law of defilement," much more was the One who "cleansed" him. "He says, I will,' to meet the heresy of Photinus. He commands, because of Afius. He touches, because of Manichseus" (Ambrose, in Ford). Saying, I will (θέλω). Synchronous with the action. Be thou clean; be thou made clean (Revised Version); καθαρίσθητι. The external power which the man had himself acknowledged was now applied to him, and he was made clean by it, physically and therefore ceremonially (cf. Bishop Westcott, on 'Hebrews,' p. 346). And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. (On the parallel passage in Mark and Luke, "departed from him," see Professor Marshall, in Expositor, June, 1891, p. 464).

Verse 4. - And Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no man; i.e. of those who were not present (Bengel). The command may have been given

(1) to save the man from temptation to self-importance; or

(2) to prevent any rumour of the miracle coming to the ears of the recognized authorities, and thus prejudicing them in their verdict upon his case; or, and more probably,

(3) for the Lord's sake, for this seems to be the reason for the command in all the other occasions when it is given (Matthew 9:30; Matthew 12:16; Matthew 17:9; Mark 5:43; Mark 7:36; Mark 8:26; cf. Mark 1:34; Mark 3:12). The Lord did not desire to be thronged with multitudes who came only to see his miracles; he would work in quiet (cf. the quotation from Isaiah in Matthew 12:18-21). But go thy way, show thyself to the priest. The latter clause belongs verbally to Leviticus 13:49, but the thought is that of Leviticus 14:2, sqq. Without the official verdict, the man could not be restored to communal privileges (so also Luke 17:14). And offer the gift that Moses commanded. Including

(1) "two living clean birds, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop" (Leviticus 14:4);

(2) "two he-lambs without blemish, and one ewe lamb of the first year without blemish, and three tenth parts of an epbah of fine flour for a meal offering, mingled with oil, and one log of oil" (Leviticus 14:10), unless he he poor, in which case lesser sacrifices may be substituted (vers. 21, 22; cf. Keil, 'Arch.,' § 59; and for details of the traditional ceremonial, Edersheim, 'Temple,' pp. 315-318). For a testimony unto them (εἰς μαρτύριον αὐτοῖς). Although a fair sense might be extracted by connecting this clause with. the words, "Moses commanded," it would, especially in the parallel passages, be a very awkward addition to them. Rather it must represent the man's "offering" in its ultimate purpose, and this not necessarily in the man's own mind. So more clearly the "Western" reading in the parallel passage in Luke, ἵνα εἰς μαρτύριον η΅ ὑμῖν τοῦτο. Whether "them" refers to the priests or to the nation generally is not of grave importance, for the priests themselves, in act and feeling, represented the nation (cf. Matthew 7:29, note). Of more interest is the question - What is that which is here testified of?

(1) Prima facie the man's own state. The performance of the rites would be legal evidence that he was clean.

(2) Yet this interpretation is hardly borne out by the usage of the phrase. Αἰς μαρτύριον in the LXX. (never closely with the dative as here) seems to always refer to that which is both permanent and important (cf. Genesis 21:30; Genesis 31:44; Deuteronomy 31:26; Joshua 24:27; Hosea 2:12). And in the New Testament with the dative it elsewhere refers either to work for the Lord (Matthew 10:18; Matthew 24:14; Mark 6:11) or to a solemn judgment (James 5:3). So probably here. The man's offering is to be a permanent testimony to the nation of our Lord's relation to the Law. His miracles confirmed his profession (Matthew 5:17).

(3) Some, however, accepting the above view in the main, translate, "for a testimony against them" (as Mark 6:11; cf. Luke 9:5, and as perhaps James 5:3, but vide Plumptre there); but it is unlikely that so harsh a thought towards the nation would be expressed by our Lord at this early stage of his ministry. In Mark 6:11 there is a definite reason for its use.

Verses 5-13. - The healing of the centurion's servant. (Vers. 5-10; parallel passage Luke 7:1-3, 6-10. Vers. 11, 12, equivalent to Luke 13:28, 29.) According to St. Luke, the centurion sent first elders of the Jews to plead for him, and afterwards friends, and expressly said by them that he did not think himself worthy to come to Jesus. Their return in ver. 10 seems to forbid the supposition that he eventually came. This detailed narrative seems more likely than St. Matthew's, which is not only compressed, but, if taken by itself, gives a wrong idea of what appears to have actually taken place. But quod tacit per alium facit per se, and as Trench points out, this is "an exchange of persons, of which all historical narrative and all the language of our common life is full. A comparison of Mark 10:35 with ch. 20:20 will furnish another example of the same." The fact is that St. Matthew (or, perhaps, the original framer of the source that he used, or those through whose hands it passed) seizes on the Gentilic origin of the centurion, without troubling himself to record his previous kind and generous attitude towards the Jews, and the interest that they now show on his behalf. This led to the omission of the second group of messengers also, and, of course, to the modification of the language where necessary, e.g. ver. 13. For the same reason, St. Matthew records vers. 11, 12 in this place. For the contrast between this and the superficially similar miracle recorded in John 4:46, sqq., cf. Trench on that miracle. Verse 5. - And when Jesus (Revised Version, he) was entered into Capernaum. (On Capernaum, see Matthew 4:13.) There came unto him; i.e. by messengers, as we learn from St. Luke (vide supra). A centurion, beseeching him. The centurion probably belonged to the soldiers of Antipas, in whose district Capernaum lay. They would naturally be organized after the Roman manner; of the forces of the Indian native states and our own. It should be observed, by the way, that even the imperial troops stationed in Palestine were drawn, not from distant lands, but from the non-Jewish inhabitants of the country, perhaps especially from Samaritans (vide Schurer, I. 2. p. 50).

Verse 6. - Matthew only. And saying, Lord, my servant; Revised Version margin, "boy" (ὁ παῖς μου), just as in some English-speaking communities "boy" is commonly used for "manservant." In the parallel passage of Luke, the narrative speaks of him as δοῦλος, the message as παῖς. Lieth. Perforce (βέβληται). At home; Revised Version, in the house; i.e. of the centurion. Sick of the palsy, grievously tormented (cf. 1 Macc. 9:55, 56). "Paralysis with contraction of the joints is accompanied with intense suffering, and, when united, as it much oftener is in the hot climates of the East and of Africa than among us, with tetanus, both 'grievously torments,' and rapidly brings on dissolution" (Trench, 'Miracles,' p231: 1866). Observe that the statement of the case is itself a petition.

Verse 7. - Matthew only. And Jesus (Revised Version, be) saith unto him, I Will come and heal him. The emphasis is not on the coming, but on the person who comes (ἐγὼ ἐλθών). Observe Christ's perfect self-consciousness. Heal (θεραπεύσω) ; contrast ver. 8.

Verse 8. - The (Revised Version, and the) centurion answered and said. His reply as reported in Matthew is almost verbally the same as his second message in Luke, save for the important addition there of his unworthiness to come. Lord, I am not worthy (ἱκανός); Matthew 3:11, note. That thou shouldest come under my roof. "My," probably emphatic: however thou mayest honour others. But speak the word only; but only say the word (Revised Version); ἀλλὰ μόνον εἰπὲ λόγῳ. Only say with a single word what is to be done, and it shall be done (cf. ver. 16). And my servant shall be healed (ἰαθήσεται); Matthew 4:23, note.