CHAPTER 10
Matthew 8:2–17
LISTEN to the Story
2A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”
3Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. 4Then Jesus said to him, “See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”
5When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. 6“Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”
7Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”
8The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
10When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. 11I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
13Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.
14When Jesus came into Peter’s house, he saw Peter’s mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. 15He touched her hand and the fever left her, and she got up and began to wait on him.
16When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. 17This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah:
“He took up our infirmities
and bore our diseases.”
Listening to the Text in the Story: Leviticus 13:1–14:32; Deuteronomy 30:2–10; 2 Kings 5:1–27; Psalm 107; Isaiah 19:18–25; 25:4–9; 43:5–13; 49:1–25; 53:4; 56:3–8; Malachi 1:11.
It’s easy to talk about mercy on a mountain, away from the mundane realities of a fallen world. God shows up on mountains. Sacred space is carved out on a mountain, a temple enshrining the holy presence of God. God’s people travel to a mountain to worship him. God’s word is delivered on a mountain. Everyone is conversant in holy talk on the mountain. Muddled thoughts seem to vanish in the crisp, clear mountain air. On the mountain, all things come into focus. Our vision clear, one can see for miles. Indeed, from such a lofty vantage point, it’s easy to look down upon our world with wistful hopefulness, believing the entire earth is sacred. But, come down from the mountain, and the harsh realities of a profaned world will slap you in the face, awakening you from your heavenly dream. The clarity—that singular moment on the mountain when we knew we saw the world as it should be—is lost in the valley. Words that seemed so solid, so reliable in the heights, sound like empty promises scattered on the cursed ground. Lofty goals and high ideals, dragged through the mud of everyday life, become soiled burdens that are too easily discarded. God’s presence may be undeniable on the mountain, but his absence in the valley causes even the faithful to wonder whether the glory of God extends to the ends of the earth, all the way down to the very bottom of our world.
I can’t help but wonder if several Galileans, listening to Jesus’s words, questioned what they heard that day on the mountain. It reminds me of one of my favorite scenes from the irreverent movie The Life of Brian, a satirical look at the life of Jesus and his followers. Jesus is off camera, delivering the Sermon. A large crowd has already gathered around him on the mountain. Near the edge of the crowd, an old man is having a hard time listening to the famous preacher. Craning his neck to hear the barely audible words, the old man turns in frustration to another bystander and asks incredulously, “Did he say, ‘Blessed are the cheesemakers’?” In my mind’s eye, I see the same thing happening when Jesus said in effect things like, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” and “Pluck out your eyes, cut off your hands,” and “Turn the other cheek,” and “Love your enemies,” and “Don’t judge.” We typically picture the crowd listening attentively, even reverently to Jesus. After all, this is the Son of God. But there must have been some people in the crowd—especially the Pharisees (if there were any there1)—who had a hard time swallowing what Jesus was feeding them that day. “Did he say, ‘Love your enemies’? Does he really believe the meek will inherit the land? How in Gehenna is that going to happen? ‘Don’t judge.’ Really? Don’t judge? We live in a profaned world, filled with unclean people. How are we supposed to do what God commanded—to remain pure and holy—without judging who is clean and who isn’t? Mercy rather than judgment, huh? Easy to say. Come down from the mountain and show us what that looks like. And, while you’re at it, why don’t you demonstrate how loving the Romans will convince them to leave the land God promised to us.” Yet, according to Matthew that’s exactly what Jesus did. He walked through the valley of the shadow of death and revealed that God is with us, especially the least of these. The mercy of God’s glorious kingdom shall reach the ends of the earth, even to the very bottom of the world. The cursed are blessed. Enemies are loved. “Yes, you heard him right,” Matthew would reply. “The miracles of mercy in the following chapters of my Gospel [see 8:2–9:34]2 prove that Jesus meant what he said on the mountain.”3
EXPLAIN the Story
The Pharisees could be rather fanatical—rightfully so—about maintaining holiness through purity. They were the descendants of a group that called themselves the Hasidim (“faithful ones”).4 Cleanness was a big deal to the Pharisees because God commanded Israel to avoid unclean things (food, people, clothing, homes). He, being a holy God, required a holy people. So, Leviticus (the handbook for priests) is filled with warnings about what not to touch as well as instructions regarding purification (Lev 11:1–15:33). But there’s one kind of uncleanliness that gets more press than the rest, requiring even more extreme measures to avoid contamination: leprosy. Apparently, all kinds of skin diseases fell into this broad category. Everything from boils to psoriasis to the dreaded Hansen’s disease5 (what we call “leprosy” today) was treated the same. Although contamination could occur from contact with other kinds of impurity—menstruating woman, mold, corpses—people with skin diseases were considered the most dangerous. Rather than hide their appearance (don’t we all try to cover up imperfections in our complexion?), they were required to magnify their pitiful state: disheveled hair, dressed in torn rags, they had to live alone, a safe distance from the clean. At all times, “lepers” were to look like the disease they carried. They were the embodiment of uncleanness, the quintessential “untouchables,” dead people walking.6 Yet, keeping up appearances of impurity wasn’t enough; whenever lepers ventured into villages of pure people, they had to announce their arrival by shouting, “Unclean, unclean!” (Lev 13:45–46). Is it any wonder that lepers were treated as the ultimate rejects of society? Ostracized by the pure, skin-diseased persons were thought to be condemned by God. After all, God was the one who was essentially saying through the law of Moses, “Stay away from these people!”7 To maintain holiness, the pure had to be protected from the unclean.
Those afflicted with various skin diseases were not the only unclean people moving about in a profaned world. Those who buried the dead were unclean (Lev 21:1–4). Mothers, after giving birth, were unclean (12:1–8). Married people, after copulation, were unclean (15:16–18). The difference, of course, was that these people could become clean again by submitting to purification rites. Lepers, on the other hand, could only be purified once the disease was gone, which had to be confirmed by the priest (14:3–32). In the meantime, anyone who touched the unclean was rendered unclean. Even coming in contact with something the unclean person touched, like their bed, chair, or clay pot, would make the clean unclean (15:1–12). That’s why one Jewish group, the Essenes, took matters into their own hands to avoid defilement. They withdrew from the world, living together in their own settlements, tucked away from a profaned world filled with unclean people and things.8 The Pharisees, on the other hand, believed such drastic measures were unnecessary. They took their campaign of holiness to the people, encouraging the pure to avoid defilement and the unclean to submit to purification rites.9 Evidently, Jesus had other ideas about how to negotiate a world of unclean people: neither withdrawing from the world nor avoiding the unclean was the way of holiness in the kingdom of God. Instead, he believed the merciful touch of a holy man made the unholy clean again.
Loving Your Neighbor
It is no coincidence, according to Matthew, that the first person Jesus encountered when he came down from the mountain was a leper. Here we have the perfect test case for Jesus’s teaching to see how the poor in spirit are blessed, how mercy triumphs over judgment. Leprosy was the visible definition of uncleanness, and a leper was the epitome of defilement. Therefore, the wisdom of holy judgment would compel any law-abiding Jew to avoid contact with this man.10 Indeed, the leper probably approached Jesus shouting, “Unclean! Unclean!” as the sea of humanity parted, making room for the walking corpse.11 After the leprous man knelt before Jesus, he made a very presumptuous statement. Notice, the leper didn’t ask, “Please, heal me, if you are able,” or “I beg of you, have mercy on me.” Rather, he stated matter-offactly, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean” (Matt 8:2, emphasis added). No request. No begging. He simply affirmed what was true: Jesus had the power to make him clean. The only question was whether Jesus was willing to extend mercy to someone like him.
If we think of the purity scale as a ladder reaching to heaven, then the priests and the Pharisees would be on the top rungs, and the sick and diseased would be dangling at the bottom of the ladder. With little hope of being restored, lepers couldn’t even climb the ladder of holiness; they were the dirt upon which the ladder stood. (You can’t make dirt clean.) So when the leper approached Jesus, he knew that Jesus could heal him, but was Jesus willing to make him clean? It’s one thing for Jesus to heal the sick and lame. But a leper? He was completely unclean, perpetually unholy, cursed by God because he had obviously disobeyed the law. How low would Jesus go to restore humanity? How long was the reach of his mercy? Jesus knew what was at stake, which explains why he touched the man before he pronounced him clean (v. 3). He didn’t have to do it. Jesus could have healed the man with the words, “Be clean!” and left it at that. Or, he could have let his words carry the message of his mercy: “I am willing.” But neither was enough. The simple gesture of touching the leper would speak louder than his words or even the miracle of making him clean. I imagine the crowd gasping in horror when Jesus did the unthinkable. I see with my mind’s eye the surprised look on the disfigured face of the leper when Jesus touched him. (I even let my imagination run wild, seeing Jesus give the poor man a big bear hug, but of course that would be truer of our culture than his.) Jesus knew what he was doing. The lesson is undeniable. Jesus reversed the polarity of holiness when he touched the leper and made him clean. Before, touching the wrong thing made a man unclean. Before, the unclean polluted the world with their impurity. Before, holy people avoided the unclean. But now, in the merciful kingdom of God the clean can make the unclean clean. Now, “holiness, not uncleanness, was understood to be contagious.”12 Now, holy people embrace the impure. Indeed, Jesus redefined what it meant to “be holy as God is holy”: show mercy.
The leper was a Jew, evident by the reminder Jesus gave to the healed man to obey the Mosaic law. Before, he was just “a man with leprosy” (v. 2). Now, his identity restored, he must have the priest confirm his cleanness so that he can be reintroduced to the world that was once dead to him—a process that took eight days (Lev 14:2–32).13 Why did Jesus tell this Jewish man to go to the temple first before he told anyone else (Matt 8:4)? For whose benefit? Jesus’s? The priest’s? The leper’s? We might find an ulterior motive in Jesus’s directive. Perhaps he’s trying to prove to the religious establishment that his way is better than theirs when it comes to keeping the law, spreading his fame to Jerusalem before he gets there. Or, he’s affirming the role of the priest—his beef wasn’t with them but the scribes and the Pharisees. Or, Jesus knew the only way the onetime leper would be restored to public life was to have him confirmed clean by the priest. All these reasons make sense, especially since Jesus said the man’s appearance in the temple would serve “as a testimony to them” (v. 4).14 At the same time, one cannot help but wonder: Why wouldn’t Jesus remind the man to go to the priest? God gave the law to Israel. Both Jesus and the cleansed leper were Jews. Of course there would be benefits to keeping the law, for Jesus, for the priest, and for the former leper. It’s why God gave the law to his people in the first place, teaching them to love their neighbors as themselves.
At the end of a long day (miracles, sermon, more miracles), Jesus finally went “home” to Capernaum, perhaps looking for a little rest (Matthew saw Peter’s house as Jesus’s home during his Galilean ministry; 9:1). But the day wasn’t over. Peter’s mother-in-law was sick with fever (8:14). Without a word or a request Jesus took the initiative, “touched her hand and the fever left her” (v. 15). In turn, the restored woman got up to “wait on him” and restore him. That Jesus touched her, another Jew, but didn’t touch the sick servant of the Roman soldier in the previous story (vv. 5–13, see below), was telling for Matthew. These two “touching” miracles (the leper and the feverish woman) form an inclusio, framing the way Jesus restored his own people. Indeed, the scene of many demonized and sick people showing up that night (v. 16) led Matthew to claim that Isaiah’s prophecy concerning Israel’s healing was coming true: “He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases” (v. 17, emphasis added; see Isa 53:4).15 Notice, in his vision of how the Suffering Servant would take on the sins of his people, Isaiah used insider language: “He was pierced for our transgressions. . . . We all, like sheep, have gone astray” (Isa 53:5–6, emphasis added). This redemptive work was for Israel. According to Matthew, all along Jesus was out to reclaim the lost sheep of Israel (Matt 10:5–6), not only healing a leper but also a woman sick with fever, his Jewish neighbors. That more Jews showed up at his door looking for help (8:16) was to be expected because of Isaiah’s prophecy. Yet, sandwiched between these miracles of Israel’s restoration is the story of God’s redemptive work extended through Israel to the gentiles as well (vv. 5–13)—something Isaiah also envisioned (Isa 19:18–25; 25:6–9; 56:6–8). It’s one thing to love your neighbor; it’s quite another when your neighbor happens to be your enemy: “When Jesus had entered Capernaum [Jesus’s hometown!], a centurion came to him” (Matt 8:5). According to Matthew’s arrangement, then, all of Isaiah’s prophecies were coming true because Jesus not only loved his Jewish neighbors but loved his enemies too. By weaving these stories together, Matthew’s claim is unmistakable: “He took up our infirmities” was not only a reference to Israel but to all humanity.
Loving Your Enemy
Once again, it is curious to me that neither the leper nor the centurion actually made a request of Jesus. In fact, if Matthew hadn’t set up the episode with the introductory participle (parakalōn, “asking”), one might get the impression—simply from his words—that the Roman soldier was barking an order at Jesus: “My servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly” (Matt 8:5–6). That doesn’t sound like a request at all. Accustomed to bossing people around (v. 9), it would make sense that a centurion responsible for nearly a hundred soldiers16 would expect an “inferior” subject of the Roman Empire to take care of the matter by simply calling attention to the problem. Even Jesus seemed to tease out the implications of this peculiar situation, making the inference, “Shall I come and heal him?” (v. 7).17 It’s almost as if Jesus were saying, “What does your problem have to do with me?” (see Luke 12:14 for a similar tone).18 Yet it’s quite apparent that the Roman soldier didn’t approach Jesus based on the cultural script of Rome’s domination of Palestine. It’s true. He never asked Jesus to do anything. But the reason he never asked Jesus for help is because he knew he wasn’t worthy of it (Matt 8:8). More than that, he knew that Jesus didn’t need to come to his house and lay hands on his servant (touch!) to heal him (v. 9). Like a soldier talking to another soldier, the centurion counted on Jesus recognizing what they had in common. The blunt tone, commands given; this is the way soldiers talk. Yes, the centurion was making huge assumptions, but it had nothing to do with Roman privilege or Jewish subservience. He was bolder than that! He not only presumed upon the mercy of Jesus—that he would be willing to help him—but especially the power of Jesus’s command. “Just say the word, and my servant will be healed” (v. 8). When a powerful soldier issues commands, things get done.
At this point, Jesus no longer saw a centurion, a powerful soldier, an enemy of Israel. Instead, standing before him was a man who had a faith greater than any Jew (including his disciples, v. 10). This surprised him. Jesus expected to find great faith among Abraham’s children. But a gentile, and a Roman soldier to boot? Overwhelmed by the man’s faith, Jesus applied Jewish talk about the gathering of the diaspora on the last day to this man and other gentiles who would join in the messianic feast reserved for Israel (vv. 11–12). To be sure, Isaiah made predictions of gentile inclusion, that Assyrians and Egyptians would show up in Jerusalem to worship the Lord (Isa 19:18–25). But the language of gathering the sheep of Israel from the far reaches of the earth—from the east to the west—bringing them back to the promised land to enjoy the justice of God’s reign on earth expressed a particularly Jewish hope (Isa 43:5–13; 49:1–25).19 Jesus, however, expanded the ethnic borders of the vision to include gentiles like this Roman soldier.20
It’s quite a daring move when you think about it. No longer an enemy of Israel destined for the wrath of God, Jesus claims a Roman soldier will sit down with the great heroes of Israel’s faith (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) and dine at the heavenly banquet on earth because he had faith in the Messiah. The ultimate outsider becomes the ultimate insider. Even more, Jesus predicted that some of the insiders—“sons of the kingdom,”21 his Jewish kinsmen?22—will be “thrown outside, into the darkness” on the last day (Matt 8:12). Therefore, the way Jesus saw it, gentile inclusion will mean Jewish exclusion, an idea Paul relied upon to explain the mysterious eschatology at work when God saves all nations (Rom 11:7–36). This isn’t “replacement” eschatology where gentiles occupy the place of Israel in the kingdom. Rather, much like John the Baptist and the prophets before him (Matt 3:9; Isa 10:22–23; Hos 2:23), Jesus was warning his people that “not all who are descended from Israel are Israel” (to use Paul’s phrase; Rom 9:6). Indeed, when it comes to the kingdom of heaven, Jesus believed God was prepared to reward faith wherever he found it, whether Jew or Roman. That’s exactly what he did, telling the soldier, “Let it be done just as you believed it would.” Then Matthew expectedly adds, “And his servant was healed at that moment” (Matt 8:13). Great faith, merciful reward. Powerful command, expected result. Enemy loved, kingdom come.
LIVE the Story
One of the purposes of this commentary series is to get us to see the power of narrative, trying to live the Gospel story as if it were the story of our lives (because it is!).23 There are several ways to accomplish this purpose. We can transport ourselves back to New Testament times, making the quantum leap by projecting ourselves into the Gospel narrative, identifying with one of the characters. Or, we can try to bring the narrative wrapped in first-century clothes into the twenty-first century—a thought experiment where we imagine what the Gospel story would look like today. Sometimes these “road trips” into the biblical world are round trips, going back in time, packing our bags with the “souvenirs” we found wearing first-century spectacles—trying to live the story on their terms—then coming back to the reality of our world by unpacking what we learned and changing the way we live (what Dodd called “the bold and even perilous attempt to translate the whole into contemporary terms”).24 This approach may sound a little foreign to us since most Bible studies depend upon a more propositional approach. Read the narrative. Extract the moral of the story. Apply the principle to our lives. Yet immersing ourselves into the narrative world of a story we’re reading (or watching) is a rather common experience. Think of what happens when we go to the movies. At first we’re aware of our surroundings, perhaps even taking inventory of the crowd. (“Sure hope those children settle down when the film starts!”) Once the lights go down and the flickering images appear on the screen, we are quickly transported to another time and place, living in the narrative world of the film, trying to find our place in the script, identifying with certain characters. We so embody the story that our palms get sweaty, our hearts fall in our chests, and we even jump out of our seats as if our emotions are somehow tied to the unfolding drama of the movie. Once the film is over, we carry the story with us, constantly thinking about why certain characters stay with us, why this or that plot twist continues to puzzle us, wondering what we would do given the same situation. That’s the power of narrative. It should happen every time we read the Bible, especially the Gospels, because it is the story of our lives.
When I think about these three episodes in Matthew’s Gospel—the leper, the centurion, and Peter’s mother-in-law—I can’t help but see myself and the people I love in the Gospel story. For example, my son has a mild, recurring skin problem, something he’s had to deal with ever since college. Then I read the story of the leper, and it dawns on me, “My goodness. If we were living in New Testament times, Andrew would be banished from society, sent away from even his family, because of a mild rash that won’t go away.” Then I think of the separation, the pain of seeing someone you love treated like they are cursed by God, known only by the “disease” they carry, and my heart falls to the ground in despair. Today, certain people are treated like lepers, cursed by God, and I think about the pain of such rejection. Gays. Muslims. The mentally ill. The righteous may dismiss them as “unclean” to be avoided at all costs, but I can’t help but think they are somebody’s son or daughter. “Love your neighbor as yourself” takes on new meaning when I remember that my children are somebody’s neighbors. I realize this is a touchy subject. I’m certainly not suggesting that gays are leprous or that Muslims will come to us asking to be made clean or that the mentally ill must be “healed” before they can serve the Lord. (Hardly.) Yet sometimes we treat them like they’re infectious, as if the only right thing for holy people to do is keep them away from us. But that’s not the Jesus way. Mercy is supposed to trump judgment when we love our neighbors. The holiness of love is supposed to be contagious in the kingdom of God. Jesus proved it when he touched the man.
I also see my wife in the story of the women healed of fever. The episode doesn’t get much attention in Matthew’s Gospel, and Peter’s mother-in-law probably would have wanted it that way. She’s the kind of person who stands in the background, out of the limelight, not wanting to bother anyone. She didn’t even ask Jesus for help. But Jesus sees. He knows. He recognizes those who would rather serve than be served. So I see Jesus, slight grin spreading across his face, taking in the sight of the woman who jumps at the chance to serve her Lord, and that’s when I think about my sweet wife, Sheri. Throughout our entire life together, countless times I’ve seen her jump at the chance to join in the behind-the-scenes work that’s required to serve others. She can’t stand the limelight. She hates it when anyone tries to recognize her. But her gratitude to the Lord is easily seen when she loves her neighbor as herself.
I see reflections of our two daughters, Emma and Grace, in other Gospel stories as well. But the hardest part is to see myself in the Gospel story. One doesn’t want to be pretentious and identify with Jesus or to be associated with his opponents, the Pharisees. Yet there are times when I catch a glimpse of my story in light of the Gospel. For example, like most white men I identify with the privileged position of the Roman centurion. Especially in Baptist life where men still run everything, there’s a seductive power in believing you’ve been given a divine birthright of authority. Indeed, some of us might even act like the Lord is there to serve us, to maintain our powerful positions. That’s why I’m particularly drawn to the part of the story when the soldier said, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof” (Matt 8:8). No doubt, this Roman soldier was a man who had blood on his hands. Yet he knows the only one who can help him is this man of mercy—a man who will have blood on his hands because of people like him, Roman soldiers, and people like me. Thinking about my past, even though I’ve never drawn a sword to kill my enemy, I realize I have blood on my hands too: hateful words, spiteful revenge, shameful derision, cutting sarcasm. So, inspired by the faith of a Roman centurion, I come to Jesus, talking like a soldier, needy like a leper: “I’m not worthy for you to come to my house. I don’t deserve anything you’ve done for me. All I know is that whenever you give the word, I am whole again. Say the word, Lord. I know you are willing. Make me clean.”
And he does.
Thank God for the mercy of Christ that heals a leprous heart and restores a murderous soul like mine.
Now, Lord, let us follow you down the mountain, loving our neighbors and our enemies just as you loved us: a leper, a woman, and a Roman soldier.
1. Scholars question whether the Pharisees would be seen often outside of Jerusalem where they lived; see Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief, 388–402; Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 306–8.
2. “Perhaps [Matthew] wished his readers to relate to the individual incidents in the light of the Sermon on the Mount” (Nolland, Matthew, 348).
3. According to France, half the miracles of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel appear in chapters 8–9 (Matthew, 300).
4. For a brief summary of the discussion regarding the origin of the Pharisees, see Lynn Cohick, “Pharisees,” DJG 673, 676–79.
5. Some scholars question whether anyone at the time suffered from Hansen’s disease (Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:10–11).
6. Indeed, curing leprosy was put on the same level as raising the dead (France, Matthew, 306).
7. Keener, Matthew, 261.
8. Josephus, War 2.8.4–5. The Essenes were also known to share all things in common, generously sharing their possessions with one another (Josephus, War 2.8.3–4).
9. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief, 440–43, 48–50.
10. Jesus ignored the purity “map” of the Pharisees, refusing to recognize the boundaries of clean and unclean (Malina and Rohrbaugh, Synoptic Gospels, 72–73).
11. According to Josephus, lepers were the same as dead persons (Josephus, Ant. 3.264).
12. Marcus J. Borg, Conflict, Holiness, and Politics in the Teachings of Jesus (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1998), 147.
13. France, Matthew, 308–9.
14. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:16.
15. “In Matthew, it is not the demons who first identify Jesus as the Holy One of God . . . but the authoritative Scripture” (Garland, Reading Matthew, 97).
16. Most scholars think that the centurion was under the charge of Herod Antipas since there is no record of a Roman legion occupying Palestine at this time. For further discussion, see Keener, Matthew, 263–65; France, Matthew, 311–12.
17. Some translate the phrase as a declarative, “I will go and heal him.” The Greek construction isn’t definitive, although most see the emphatic egō indicating an interrogative future; see Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:22.
18. “An outsider who would entreat his favor must first acknowledge the privilege of Israel” (Keener, Matthew, 267).
19. So also Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:27–28.
20. According to Keener, Jesus may have intended the association, but Matthew is the one who applied the eschatological gathering of the diaspora to the gentiles (Matthew, 269–70).
21. The NIV at 8:12 translates huioi as “subjects,” which may unnecessarily imply imperial overtones, i.e., the “subjects” of the kingdom would be the Romans.
22. Luz, Matthew, 2:9. Could the “sons of the kingdom” refer to Herod’s government?
23. Referring to the following pericope (8:23–27), Luz claims: “We can, indeed we must, put our own experiences in our story [the stilling of the storm] and be understood anew ‘in’ it. Only those who themselves are ‘in the ship’ can understand it correctly” (Matthew, 2:22 [emphasis his]).
24. C. H. Dodd, The Present Task in New Testament Studies: An Inaugural Lecture Delivered in the Divinity School on Tuesday 2 June 1936 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1936), 40. “The ideal interpreter would be one who has entered into that strange first-century world, has felt its whole strangeness, has sojourned in it until he has lived himself into it, thinking and feeling as one of those to whom the Gospel first came; and who will then return into our world, and give the truth he has discerned a body out of the stuff of our own thought” (ibid., 40–41).