NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R. Seyda

GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

CHAPTER EIGHT

Part II (con’t)

Verses 14-16: Then Jesus went to Peter’s house. He saw that Peter’s mother-in-law was in bed with a high fever. He touched her hand, and the fever left her. Then she stood up and began to serve Him. That evening people brought to Jesus many people who had demons inside them. He spoke and the demons left the people. He healed all those who were sick.

Both Mark¹ and Luke² note that Jesus went into the synagogue to teach because it was a Sabbath day. But Matthew picks up the story after Jesus finished teaching in the synagogue and went to Peter’s house where He found Peter’s mother-in-law sick in bed and healed her. It is worthwhile to note that in the healing of the leper in verse 3, Jesus touched his hand, and here He touched the hand of Peter’s mother-in-law. From the teaching of the Rabbis we learn this to be a common practice when praying for the sick.

We read this story³: “Rabbi Hiyya ben Abba fell ill and Rabbi Johanan went in to visit him. He asked him: Do you welcome your sufferings? He replied: Neither they nor their reward.⁴ He said to him: Give me your hand. He gave him his hand and he raised him.”⁵ The touching of the hand in order to heal is mention two more times in this same writing. The touching of the hand by Jesus occurs again in the next chapter.⁶

Chrysostom is very complimentary of Peter and how Jesus ended up going into his house. He writes: “I ask you, please take note herein of Peter’s reverence towards Jesus. For although he had his wife’s mother at home lying ill, and very sick of a fever, he did not draw Him into his house, but waited first for the teaching to be finished, then for all the others to be healed; and only when He came in, asked Him. Therefore, from the beginning it teaches us to prefer the things of all others to one’s own. Also, neither did Peter bring Jesus in, but He entered of His own accord (after the centurion had said, ‘I am not worthy that You should come under my roof:’ to show how much favor He bestowed on His disciple. And think of what sort of houses these fishermen lived in; but for all that, He did not hesitate to enter into their tiny huts, teaching us by all means to trample human pride under foot.”⁷

Since this all happened on the Sabbath, it helps explain why the people with relatives who were sick or possessed by demons waited until evening before they brought them to Jesus for healing. Since the Sabbath started after sundown on Friday, it was now after sundown on Saturday and the Sabbath had come to an end. According to Jewish tradition, the Sabbath was calculated to start and finish when it got dark enough for three stars to be seen.⁸

This is confirmed in other Jewish writings where we read: “How many stars must come out so that it is deemed night? Rabbi Pinhas in the name of Rabbi Abba bar Pappa, ‘If one sees one star, it is certainly day. If one sees two stars, there is doubt whether it is night. If one sees three stars, it is certainly night’.”⁹ Rabbi Maimonides goes on to say: “The stars mentioned are not large stars that can be seen during the day or small stars that are seen only at night, but of moderate size. When such three medium-sized stars are seen, it is surely night.”¹⁰

Jesus did not rebuke these people because they waited until the Sabbath ended just to prove his point that man is lord of the Sabbath.¹¹ He accepted them as they were. This is certainly a lesson for us today when dealing with others who are tied to their family’s religious traditions. A good friend of mine who was working in a country that was strongly Roman Catholic, decided to start his Sunday services after the morning masses were over so the people could go there first before coming to his worship service. It worked great, and those who became evangelical believers soon weaned themselves from their previous religious system and then suggested that their worship services start earlier. But for Matthew, it was our Lord’s fulfillment of Scripture, not Jewish tradition, that was important.

Verse 17: So Jesus made clear the full meaning of what Isaiah the prophet said: “He took away our diseases and carried away our sicknesses¹².”

Peter’s house may have been our Lord’s destination as He came down off the mountain side. Perhaps because Peter had already received word that his mother-in-law was sick. Since Matthew notes that after Peter’s mother-in-law was healed, she served Jesus a meal, and that by evening time others came to the house to be healed, Jesus must have arrived there sometime in the afternoon, because according to Jewish tradition the last meal is served toward the Sabbath’s end, and is most often a light lunch. However, these meals are always prepared ahead of time so there is no work on the Sabbath.¹³

Matthew tells us that at Peter’s house Jesus expelled demons and healed many who were sick. Most of us have seen the list of Jesus’ miracles. But these are only those that were given individual treatment as stories in the Gospels. Matthew does not say how many were healed on this occasion, but it did make a big enough impression that Matthew commented on how this fulfilled what the prophet Isaiah spoke about the Messiah. This is the first time Matthew quotes from the portion of Isaiah where the Messiah is portrayed as a servant of Adonai who would suffer for the sins of the people.¹⁴ One verse reads: “Surely He took up our pain and bore our suffering.”¹⁵

Apollinaris, the early church Bishop of Laodicea, has this to say about Isaiah’s prophecy: “In this saying Isaiah pointed toward the cross. But why was this saying employed by the Evangelist at this point when he was speaking of His healings?” Apollinaris asked this question because the natural application of this prophecy was toward Jesus’ suffering, though here it is applied to Jesus’ healing. But Apollinaris goes on to say: “This was to show that it was not in His activity alone but in His passion, His willingness to suffer, that Christ became the source of healing to humanity. By the indignities He endured and by His own death He prepared life for all humanity. He subdued those who were evilly disposed against themselves.”¹⁶

Chrysostom also has this to say on the subject: “Do you see how the multitude, by this time was growing in faith? For even when time was getting short they could not bring themselves to depart, nor did they think it unreasonable to bring their sick to Him at evening time. But I ask you to make note of what a great a multitude of people that were healed the gospel writers quickly over, not mentioning one by one, and giving us an account of them, but in one word spanned an unspeakable sea of miracles.”¹⁷

Had Matthew, Mark, Luke and John given individual accounts of all those that Jesus healed during His ministry here on earth, I’m sure it would have expanded the size of their gospels scrolls so that they became unwieldy and hard to handle.¹⁸

Then Chrysostom goes on: Then lest the greatness of the wonder should drive us again to unbelief, that even so great a number of people and their various diseases could be delivered and healed by Him in one moment of time, He brings in the prophet to bear witness to what is going on: indicating the abundance of the proof we have, in every case, out of the Scriptures; such, that from the miracles themselves we have no more; and He says, that Isaiah also spoke of these things; ‘He took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.’ He did not say, ‘He did away with them,’ but ‘He took and carried them;’ which seems to me to be spoken rather of sins, by the prophet, in harmony with John, where he said, ‘Behold the Lamb of God, that bares the sins of the world¹⁹.’ How then does the evangelist here apply it to diseases? Either by citing the passage in the historical sense, or to show that most of our diseases arise from sins of the soul. For if the sum of all, death itself, has its root and foundation from sin, much more the majority of our diseases also: since our very capability of suffering did itself originate there.”²⁰

In one sense, Chrysostom is correct. Before Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, there was neither sin nor sickness. Only after they sinned was the curse of death applied, and disease then entered the human blood stream after God took away His protective hand. But to say that all sicknesses today are the cause of some sin a person committed, would be a misinterpretation of what Matthew is saying here. That is the reason why we see that in Isaiah’s prophecy on the Messiah, not only does he note how the sacrifice and suffering of the Messiah would pay the ransom for our sins, and that His blood would cover them, but also that by His stripes we are healed. Matthew’s intention was to prove that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, and this was another occasion to make that point.

By indicating that these miracles were part of the Messiah’s ministry, let us look at why the Jews may have had difficulty in accepting Jesus of Nazareth as the one called the Messiah. In the Babylonian Talmud we find an interesting debate concerning what the Messiah’s name would be. One Rabbinical School says: “His name is Shiloh,²¹ for it is written, until Shiloh comes.²². Another Rabbinical School says: “His name is Yinnon,²³ for it is written, His name shall endure for ever: e’er the sun was, his name is Yinnon.”²⁴ Yet another Rabbinical School maintains: His name is Haninah,²⁵ as it is written, Where I will not give you Haninah”.²⁶ Others say: His name is Menachem²⁷ the son of Hezekiah, for it is written, Because Menahem who would relieve my soul, is far.”²⁸ The Rabbis said: His name is ‘the leper scholar,’ as it is written, Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him a leper, smitten of God, and afflicted.”²⁹

Following this, Rabbi Nahman said: “If the Messiah is one of those living today, it might be one like myself, as it is written, For their nobles will be come from among them, and their governors will proceed from out of their midst.”³⁰ Rab said: if Messiah is currently alive, it has to our holy Master”.³¹ And in Jewish Messianic writings we find it said: “There is one temple that is called the temple of the sons of afflictions; and when the Messiah comes into that temple, and reads all the afflictions, all the griefs, and all the chastisements of Israel, which come upon them, then all of them will come upon him: and if there was any that would lighten them off of Israel, and take them upon himself, there is no son of man that can bear the chastisements of Israel, because of the punishments of the law; as it is said, ‘surely he hath borne our griefs’”.³² In another version of the same manuscript we read this conclusion: “As long as Israel were in the Holy Land, by means of the Temple service and sacrifices they averted all evil diseases and afflictions from the world. Now it is the Messiah who is the means of averting them from mankind until the time when a man quits this world and receives his punishment”.³³

Since the New Testament often refers to Isaiah 53 as belonging to the experience of Jesus as the Messiah, we see that among many Jews it was also understood as being Messianic in its theme, since the main teachers in the Zohar were active between 150-200 AD. Thus it appears that Matthew was following the teaching of the Rabbis in applying Isaiah’s words to Jesus as the Messiah. Too bad that these same Jews did not recognize Jesus for who He really was, the Messiah, the one who came to take all their sin, shame, and suffering on Himself so they could be free.