NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R. Seyda

GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

CHAPTER EIGHT

Part I

NOTE: The powers of Jesus run the gamut in this chapter. Among other things, He healed a leper, a paralyzed servant, a fevered mother-in-law; cast out evil spirits; calmed raging winds and waves, and healed two raving demoniac’s. In every case, except Peter’s mother-in-law, the infirmity was incurable by medicinal means. Yet, Christ healed each one with equal ease. The leper was mobile but couldn’t go where he wanted to because of restrictions. The servant could go unrestricted but he wasn’t mobile. Peter’s mother-in-law was mobile and uninhibited to go anywhere but the fever impeded her from doing either. The demoniac’s were mobile, roamed where they would, and physically well, but they were without personal control over their minds and bodies because they were possessed by demons. The devil does not desire complete domination to the point where someone is immobile, restricted to space and too sick and possessed to function. All he wants is just enough power and influence to make lives miserable. But thank God that Christ took that away from him. Now, as in Job’s case, Satan must get permission to harass any of God’s new born children.

Verses 1-2: Jesus descended from the hillside, and a large crowd followed Him. Then a man covered with leprosy came up to Him. The man bowed down before Jesus and said, “Lord, you have the power to heal me if You want.”

This is the first instance of Jesus meeting a leper. There was an interesting teaching among the Rabbis about the Messiah and lepers. It reads: “Rabbi Joshua ben Levi met Elijah standing by the entrance of Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai’s tomb. He then asked him, ‘When will the Messiah come?’ — ‘Go and ask Him yourself,’ was his reply. ‘Where is He sitting?’ — ‘At the entrance.’ And by what sign may I recognize Him?’ — ‘He is sitting among the poor lepers.”¹ Amazing how God was trying to speak so that when Jesus came, this would be one way to acknowledge Him as the Messiah.

So we now see that with His teaching session over, the Master has other things to do on His mission to establish Himself as the Messiah and prepare for His destiny on Mount Calvary. This reminds us of Moses coming down off the mountain after receiving instructions from God.² The difference is that while Moses was given the commandments on Mt. Sinai, now God’s Son is interpreting them on the mountain. Matthew doesn’t say it here, but Luke infers that after Jesus left the mountain He came to the outskirts of a town that lay on the route to Capernaum (cf. verse 5). We know that the leper that met him had to be outside the city because they were forbidden by law to go inside. It was clearly forbidden to touch them,³ because it created serious ritual impurity. In the Jewish teaching we read: “…see that the soul of every person had been made aware prior to birth that God is ritually pure, and that He ha given him a ritually pure soul, it is clear that when born and equipped with a body, the soul must make every effort not to come into contact with something or someone ritually polluted.”⁴

So in Jewish thinking, the whole purpose of human purity was to give people the opportunity to touch a pure and holy God. Of course we all know this effort failed miserably until the perfect Lamb without spot or wrinkle came to die for the sinner so that His holiness can be shared with everyone who believes. We also find this prohibition against touching lepers clearly asserted in verbal traditions that were backed up by the written law: “The walled cities of the Land of Israel are still more holy, in that they must drive lepers out of their midst.”⁵ In fact, on one occasion, Rabbi Johanan said about Elisha: “He healed the leprosy of Naaman,⁶ which is the equivalent of death.”⁷ Rabbis also put leprosy in the category of a plague that resulted from sin.⁸ They say that when “Aaron looked at Miriam, and realized she was leprous. Aaron said unto Moses . . . let her not be as one who is dead.”⁹

The reason they were already treated as dead people is because their disease was incurable and they were already decaying on their way to the tomb. As one venerable Rabbi tells us, anyone considered unclean must leave the camp or city and wait until they can bathe before they are allowed to return.¹⁰ Nevertheless, somehow this leper had been told about Jesus of Nazareth, and the news of His coming this way must have reached him before our Lord arrived. What is remarkable is that the leper did not wait for Jesus to get to him, he went out to meet Jesus. And whatever the leper had heard was enough for him to believe in the healing powers of Jesus. How could our Lord turn down such an expression of faith? While some who encountered Jesus cried out for attention, this man kneeled down and in a humble voice appealed to our Lord’s compassion.

Chrysostom makes an observation here on the leper’s conduct by saying: “Great was the understanding and the faith of him who drew so near. For he did not interrupt the session, nor break in while Jesus was teaching, but awaited the proper time, and approached Him. And not at random, but with much earnestness, and on His knees, he beseeches Him, as another evangelist says, and with the genuine faith and right opinion about Him.”¹¹ While I would not argue with the great preacher about the leper’s respect and faith in Jesus as the Messiah, it should also be taken into consideration that one main reason the leper did not interrupt Jesus while He was teaching came from the standing law that people infected with leprosy were not to come near anyone, or even into a city, without crying out a warning that they were unclean.¹² Had he come to Jesus on the mountain side, the people would have scattered and Jesus may not have taken so kindly to such an interruption. But he didn’t, he waited in faith and hope for his Healer to come. This should be a lesson for us all who go to God for healing, that once we ask Him, then to silently wait for His response.

Verse 3: Jesus touched the man. He said, “I want to heal you. Be healed!” Immediately the man was healed from his leprosy.

The Jewish opponents of Jesus were certainly amazed at what happened, because leprosy was a very visible disease. Even in one Jewish polemic document we are told that the people marveled at the miracles of Jesus, but this only emboldened Him to perform more of them. In fact, the writer quotes Jesus as saying: “Do you wonder at this? Bring a leper to me and I will cure him.” And when they brought a leper He restored him to health in like manner through the Name of God. When the people saw this, they fell down and worshiped Him, saying, “Verily, you are the Son of God.” And it came to pass, after the fifth day, that this bad news was brought to Jerusalem, the most holy city, and there everything that Yeshua was doing was spread around. The weak-minded rejoiced greatly; but the elders, the devout, and the wise wept bitterly; and in the larger and the smaller Sanhedrin courts there was painful mourning. At length they all resolved to send messengers to Yeshua, secretly wishing to themselves, “It may be that by the help of the Lord we will capture Him, bring Him to judgment, and condemn Him to death.”¹³ So even in defeat our Lord’s critics had to acknowledge His power to heal. But what our Lord says next goes against what these skeptics were implying, that Jesus did this just for show and to earn Him notoriety and popularity.

Chrysostom points out a very important aspect of the encounter between Jesus and the leper. He writes: “But Jesus did not merely say, ‘be thou clean,’ but He also ‘put forth His hand, and touched him;’ a thing especially worthy of inquiry. What for, because when cleansing him by will and word He also added the touch of His hand? It seems to me, for no other end, but that He might also signify by this, that He is not subject to the law, but is set over it; and that to the clean, henceforth, nothing is unclean.¹⁴ For this cause, we see, Elisha did not so much as see Naaman, but though he perceived that he was offended at his not coming out and touching him, observing the strictness of the law, he abides at home, and sends him to the Jordan river to wash. Whereas the Lord, to signify that He heals not as a servant, but as absolute master, does also touch. For His hand became not unclean from the leprosy, but the leprous body was rendered clean by the touch of His holy hand.”¹⁵

What a wonderful thought when applied to our own sinful leprosy! When we were touched by His hand in forgiveness, He did not become unclean but we became clean. The reason? Because all the stains of our sinfulness were crucified on the cross with His Son Jesus, whose blood washes us clean and our hearts become as white as snow. There is a chorus believer’s sang in Jamaica many years ago that goes: “When His wounded hand touched mine, when His wounded hand touched mine, my Jesus set me free through out eternity, when His wounded hand touched mine.” It has been over 40 years since I heard it sung in a Jamaican church in England, but it still sets my soul to rejoicing just thinking about it.

Verse 4: Then Jesus said to him, “Don’t tell anyone about what happened. But go and let the priest look at you. And offer the gift that Moses commanded for people who are made well. This will show everyone that you are healed.”

Some critics of those who say that the words of Jesus took the place of the Torah since He became the fulfillment of the Law, point to this and say that here Jesus still respects the law and orders the leper to follow the Torah. This is also one reason why certain Messianic Christians who follow both the Old and New Testaments, including all the Jewish Feasts and ceremonies, preach that the Law is still in effect. However, at the time Jesus met this leper, He had not yet instituted the New Covenant through the Last Supper, His death on the cross, and resurrection. So it was only proper that He give the leper these instructions. But even more so, in that the priests would then ask, “How were you healed?” and the leper could reply, “By the word and touch of Jesus of Nazareth.”

So at this point, let us recap how we reached this juncture in Jesus’ ministry. In chapter 5:1 we are told, “When Jesus saw the crowds of people there, He went up on a hillside and sat down.” Now Matthew tells us that with His teaching session over, He now comes down from that hillside. In chapter 4:23-25 we are told that Jesus was up in Galilee teachings in synagogues. On this occasion such a large crowd gathered from Galilee, Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and from across the Jordan River, that He was forced to take His teaching out to a mountainside.

Today, there is a domed Catholic-run Church of the Beatitudes on top of a the hill rising out the Sea of Galilee which is believed to be the location of Jesus’ sermon on the mount. While that is a possibility, there is also a town called Tabgha located in northern Israel on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee southwest of Capernaum that is also believed to be where the sermon on the mount took place. However, the Church of the Multiplication which was built in 1981 and operated by the Dominicans is also touted as the place where Jesus fed the 5000. Up until 1948, Tabgha was a small town populated by Muslim and Christian Palestinians, all of whom were expelled by the Jewish militia, which flattened Tabgha during the Israeli War of Independence. Tabgha remains a barren field to this day.

Cyril, the patriarch of the early church in Alexandria, Egypt, was a staunch supporter of God’s Word. He is therefore venerated by the Eastern Orthodox Church, Roman Catholic Church, Episcopal and Lutheran churches. In his study of this encounter between Jesus and the leper, he found a comparison between what happened to a healed leper under the Jewish Law, and what happened to him here when he met Jesus at the foot of the hill.

According to tradition, the priest would anoint the right ear, hand and foot with blood dipped into the blood mixed with water of one of two small birds with cedar wood, broken scarlet and hyssop. From this we may assume that this is where Jesus may have touched the leper, thereby eliminating any need for him to go see a priest, and since our Lord was the Lamb of God that would be sacrificed in the cross, He too would have blood mixed with water flow from His wounded side. No wonder Isaiah said so confidently, “By His bleeding wounds we are healed.”¹⁶ And now that Christ has ascended into heaven into the presence of God the Father where He makes intercession for all of us, that we therefore can equally clean by the touch of His hand.¹⁷