CHAPTER 13
Matthew 9:18–34
LISTEN to the Story
18While he was saying this, a synagogue leader came and knelt before him and said, “My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live.” 19Jesus got up and went with him, and so did his disciples.
20Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. 21She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.”
22Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed at that moment.
23When Jesus entered the synagogue leader’s house and saw the noisy crowd and people playing pipes, 24he said, “Go away. The girl is not dead but asleep.” But they laughed at him. 25After the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took the girl by the hand, and she got up. 26News of this spread through all that region.
27As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!”
28When he had gone indoors, the blind men came to him, and he asked them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?”
“Yes, Lord,” they replied.
29Then he touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith let it be done to you”; 30and their sight was restored. Jesus warned them sternly, “See that no one knows about this.” 31But they went out and spread the news about him all over that region.
32While they were going out, a man who was demon-possessed and could not talk was brought to Jesus. 33And when the demon was driven out, the man who had been mute spoke. The crowd was amazed and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.”
34But the Pharisees said, “It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons.”
Listening to the Text in the Story: Leviticus 15:19–31; Numbers 15:38–41; 19:11–22; Deuteronomy 22:12; 1 Kings 17:17–24; 2 Chronicles 35:25; Isaiah 35:3–6, 10; 42:1–2, 6–9, 16; Jeremiah 9:17–21; Ezekiel 24:17; Amos 5:2, 16–17.
Jesus made people either mad or glad. There seemed to be no in between with him. To say he was a polarizing figure is merely stating the obvious—an observation that makes some of us uncomfortable. After all, as disciples of Jesus we want everyone to admire him, like him, follow him. But that’s not the case now, and it certainly wasn’t the situation back then. We may want to blame those hostile to Jesus for their own stubbornness, ignorance, or blind foolishness. They must be the ones who have the problem. For, if the truth is believable, everyone should trust in Christ—especially those who were eyewitnesses of everything he said and did. Why didn’t they see who Jesus was, especially since he was supposed to be the embodiment of every hero Israel ever hoped for? Shouldn’t it have been obvious? Not necessarily. Jesus did some things that were completely unexpected and downright offensive, like declaring forgiveness of sins without the necessary temple sacrifices or feasting with sinners when they should have been fasting. Furthermore, Jesus didn’t treat everyone the same. For some people, Jesus dropped everything to do what they wanted, giving them the “royal treatment”—whether a Jewish paralytic or Roman soldier, a synagogue leader or cursed leper, a demon-possessed boy or a Canaanite woman. Other people he ignored, not only Sadducees and Pharisees but also blind men and adoring crowds, rubbing many of them the wrong way. Jesus provoked a variety of different responses from many different kinds of people, depending as much upon what he was trying to do as what they were expecting from him. In many ways, Jesus was predictably unpredictable—something even Christians today are reticent to admit. To put it in modern terms, if Jesus had used a public-relations department, they would have been continuously frustrated with their client.
EXPLAIN the Story
I love the way Matthew set up the next series of stories with the phrase “while he was saying this” (Matt 9:18). That one little phrase bridges two groups of people—the sinners and the righteous—heightening the dramatic moment of Jesus’s “unpredictable” behavior.1 He had been talking to his disciples and the rest of the sinners dining with him about new wine requiring new wineskins when, at that very moment, a “leader of the synagogue” burst into the house and interrupted him with some terrible news: “My daughter has just died” (v. 18). Picture the scene. The Pharisees are standing outside, watching Jesus eating with these notorious sinners when they should have been fasting; the party is in full swing, everyone inside eating, drinking, laughing, storytelling; Jesus is adding a story of his own about wine and wineskins, expecting his dinner companions to make the connection. Then, all of the sudden, a well-respected leader of the synagogue blows past the crowd of Pharisees, falls at Jesus’s feet, and interrupts the teacher with his desperate plea and audacious request: “My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live” (v. 18). Now, what do you suppose was going through the minds of both groups, the outsiders and the insiders? Would the Pharisees outside muse to themselves about the foolish behavior of a desperate man who falls on his face before a blasphemer? Would Matthew and his friends inside marvel over the humility of the synagogue leader, or would they laugh at the ironic site of such an important man begging for Jesus’s help? Moreover, what would they expect Jesus’s response to be? Would Jesus ignore the man because he only helps sinners? Would he make an example of him, making a “righteous” man grovel over his pitiful condition? Did the Pharisees scoff with a loud “harrumph”? Did Matthew turn to his friends, relishing the reversal of roles, and say, “This ought to be rich! Look who’s the outsider now? Finally, he’s going to know what rejection feels like”? Or, did Jesus’s newest disciple pity the broken-hearted father who’s made such a ridiculous request, knowing that death is irreversible?
We’ll never know what any of the spectators thought that day. Yet one thing is certain: everyone was in for a surprise. And, once again, there would be all kinds of responses to what Jesus said and did: some glad, some mad.
Reverence and Humility
Like Mark and Luke, Matthew tells the following two episodes as one story: healing the bloody woman and raising the dead girl (Matt 9:18–26; Mark 5:22–43; Luke 8:41–56). Both episodes are linked by three factors: both beneficiaries were female, both were unclean, and both needed Jesus’s touch—one reaching out to touch the edge of his cloak, the other grasped by the hand of Jesus. At the same time, the main characters of the story—the synagogue leader and the menstruating woman2—couldn’t be more different, especially when it came to their social status. The leader of the synagogue was greatly respected because he played a significant role in the religious life of Capernaum. He was responsible for overseeing Sabbath services, organizing community events hosted by the synagogue, and probably secured resources needed for its operation, like procuring Torah scrolls, furniture, and maintenance of the building (if the synagogue had its own “prayer hall”).3 In other words, this was a high-profile man, accustomed to being treated with honor. So the actions he took to get Jesus to help him make perfect sense. When he found Jesus in the house, he didn’t wait around outside, hoping to get Jesus’s attention once the party was over (12:46). He didn’t send a messenger to Jesus, trying to broker an arrangement to get the healer to come to his house (Luke 7:3–5). No, this man took matters into his own hands, barged into the house, went straight to Jesus, interrupted his teaching, and asked for the impossible: to bring his little girl back from the dead. And yet, for all his boldness and his nothing-is-going-to-stop-me approach, there was the undeniable display of his reverent humility that made his appeal even more dramatic. This honorable man fell on his face before a rogue prophet and stated the matter plainly. No begging. No flattery. He simply stated the facts. His dead daughter would live again if Jesus touched her.
Obviously, the “woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years” didn’t take the same bold approach (Matt 9:20). She had been waiting outside the house for Jesus to come out, at least that’s the implication of Matthew’s version. Jesus and his disciples had no sooner left the house to follow the synagogue leader when “just then” the woman “came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak” (v. 20). The fact that she had been hiding in the crowd of onlookers and snuck up from behind as soon as Jesus left, hoping to touch the hem of his robe without being noticed, says as much about her as it does about Jesus. She didn’t barge into the house and confront him with her need. Imagine how strange that would have been. An unclean woman pushes through the Pharisees, defiling them with her impurity (Lev 15:19–27), enters the house, and interrupts the meal with an inappropriate comment and impertinent demand: “I’ve been menstruating for twelve years. No man will have me. I’ve had enough! Heal me, Jesus.” Instead, she took a more clandestine approach, knowing that her uncleanness was shameful and contagious. “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed” (Matt 9:21). She probably wanted to pull off the secret stunt for Jesus’s sake as much as hers, trying to avoid the embarrassment of asking for help when Jesus appeared to be in such a hurry. The Galilean prophet had already proven that he could reverse the polarity of holiness, making the unclean clean with the touch of his hand (recall the leper). Since Jesus wore the garments of a holy man, tassels hanging from the four corners of his robe (Num 15:38–39), the unclean woman must have figured that grabbing his holy tassels would do the trick. No bother. No delay. No one would know. But Jesus wouldn’t let her get away with it (Matt 9:22).
The way Matthew relates this story, the reasons Jesus outed the woman seem rather apparent. First, he wanted to make it plain that a woman like her—one of the “untouchables”—was a person of great faith. No more hiding in the shadows of her shame, she would become a living memorial to the healing power of faith. Jesus emphasized that it was her faith in him that “saved” her.4 Private faith became public knowledge, a lesson for everyone. Also, by calling attention to the fact that he was aware of her intent (“she said to herself”), Jesus revealed his miraculous knowledge of the secret of her heart. Finally, Matthew claimed that “the woman was healed at that moment”—the moment when Jesus said, “Your faith has healed you.” In other words, she wasn’t healed when she grabbed the tassels of his garment, as if they had magical powers (see, however, Matt 14:36). It was the affirmation of her faith by the power of his word that brought about her healing. Notice how many times Jesus points out the crucial role of faith when he heals people (see 8:10; 9:2, 22, 28–29; 15:28). For Matthew, then, faith in Jesus is the point of the story, the essence of our salvation. Of course, the synagogue leader had already demonstrated great faith by asking for the impossible. To stop a woman from bleeding to death saves a life; everyone knows that. But to save a girl who cannot bleed—death’s insignia—was unheard of, which is why the funeral was in full swing by the time Jesus and his disciples arrived at the synagogue leader’s home (9:23).
Contempt and Flattery
The mourners must have noticed when the father left his house soon after his daughter died. Israel had professional mourners (typically women), who were not only responsible for helping the family grieve over the deceased by wailing and playing laments on reed instruments, but they also determined when it was time to prepare the body for burial—essentially serving as experts in establishing the time of death (Jer 9:17–20).5 So, when Jesus shows up and says, “Go away. The girl is not dead but asleep” (9:24), it must have sounded to the mourners as if Jesus were accusing them of incompetence. Without even assessing the girl’s condition (it was the sight of the mourners whipping up a noisy crowd and playing pipes that provoked Jesus), the newcomer took over and cleared the house: “Get out of here, you bumblebees! You’ve started the funeral prematurely!” It’s no wonder that “they laughed at him,” contemptuous of his bold claim. They knew death’s pallor when they saw it: no breath, ashen face, clammy skin. Yet, they didn’t protest when Jesus threw them outside. Why would they? It was just a matter of time until the pretense of Jesus’s claim would soon be exposed as foolish nonsense. Within a few hours, they would be called in to finish what they started. Corpses don’t “wake up” from death. Yet that’s exactly what happened. Giving little detail, Matthew says that Jesus “took the girl by the hand, and she got up” (v. 25), which must have left everyone puzzling over the obvious question—the elephant in the room, as it were. Who was right, the mourners or Jesus? Was the girl dead or just sleeping? Ask the father. He knew she was dead; he had said so to Jesus. Yet whether it was Jesus or the experts who were right, it probably didn’t matter to the father. His daughter was alive! No wonder “news of this spread through all that region” (v. 26)—word that probably reached two blind men, who wouldn’t have been able to see it to believe it.
Isaiah anticipated the day when the blind would see the kingdom of God (Isa 35:3–6; 42:6–7, 16). To Isaiah it was another sign of God’s righteous reign on earth. So, when two blind men tried to get Jesus’s attention when he left the synagogue leader’s house, it appears as though Matthew has set up another fulfillment of prophecy—something he loved to do. However, Jesus ignored them, kept on walking, and didn’t bother to stop for a moment, which is a little surprising since up to this point Jesus seemed willing to heal everyone who came to him. It’s almost if he didn’t hear them cry out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!” (Matt 9:27). That certainly should have gotten his attention. These blind men could “see” who Jesus was, the true “Son of David,”6 the same messianic title that Matthew used to begin his Gospel: “This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David” (1:1). In fact, by calling out to him as “the Son of David,” they (of all people!) are the first characters in Matthew’s narrative world to recognize Jesus as “the Messiah.”7 They got it right! They know who Jesus is. Yet, Jesus wasn’t impressed by their perceptiveness. Their acclamation didn’t influence him one bit. Jesus appears ambivalent when he should have celebrated their messianic praise. Indeed, according to the way Matthew has set up this story—even his entire Gospel—Jesus should have stopped, turned around, walked up to these blind men who were following him, and used the opportunity to confirm their messianic claims by healing them in front of the crowd (which is exactly what happened later; see 20:29–34). Instead, to get what they wanted, the blind men had to pursue Jesus, following him until he stopped at someone’s house (9:28). Why?8
Flattery was a nuisance to those who constantly received it. But flattery was the only tool available to those who needed help from the rich and powerful. In the honor game the wealthy, the powerful, and the honorable were constantly approached by people who needed favors. Since honor was the most desirable commodity in the first-century world, the rich and the powerful were accustomed to receiving the praise of the people. This is the way the honor game worked: those who had honor wanted more of it, and those who needed help honored the rich and powerful—a social arrangement of need and desire. So, wherever the “haves” went, the “have-nots” were always jockeying for attention, trying to schmooze the rich and powerful with accolades. And, occasionally, it worked. Accepting the honorific praise, the rich would bestow “gifts” upon the needy, who would then be indebted to their patron and thereby willing to perform many tasks and duties at the beck and call of their “lord.” Of course, the farther down the social ladder, the less chance a person was of receiving any favors from the rich and powerful. The higher-ups had to be careful, doling out their gifts sparingly, not wanting to become “attached” to just anyone. That made the lowlife try even harder, heaping over-the-top praise upon the rich and powerful patrons, all the while knowing they had a slim chance of manipulating the honor game to their advantage.
So, when these two blind men tried to get Jesus’s attention by shouting out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David”—the most honorific title given to any Jewish man—Jesus ignored their attempt at flattery. He seemed to see through their intentions of manipulating the honor game even though the title was appropriate. Indeed, as the rest of the story reveals, Jesus assessed the situation accurately. These men were opportunists, relentless in their pursuit of getting what they wanted. They followed Jesus all the way into the house, boldly approaching him with the same chutzpah as the synagogue leader. Suspicious of their sincerity Jesus asked them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” to which they appropriately replied, “Yes, Lord” (9:28). Therefore, because of their faith Jesus healed them, but he also “warned them sternly, ‘See that no one knows about this’ ” (v. 30). But they didn’t obey their new “lord.”9 Instead, they broadcast the miracle “all over that region” (v. 31). Why did Jesus demand that his new clients keep the favor a secret? I think it’s because he refused to play the honor game, knowing that the newly sighted blind men would be compelled to boast about their patron—not only for his sake but also for theirs. After all, now they were “somebody,” beneficiaries of the most powerful man, the Messiah, the Son of David. In other words, they disobeyed Jesus because they wanted to take advantage of the situation—the same motivation that compelled them to flatter Jesus in the first place.
LIVE the Story
Matthew rounds out these episodes with a brief account that sets in sharp relief a contrast between the responses of the people and the Pharisees to Jesus’s healing ability (Matt 9:32–34). Just as the newly sighted blind men were exiting the house, a demon-possessed man was brought in to see Jesus. After Jesus cast out the demon, the man was able to talk, which caused the crowd (standing outside the house?) to respond with complete and utter amazement: “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel” (v. 33). Imagine what it must have felt like to be there, standing outside the house where Jesus was staying. To our eyes the scene would have reminded us of a new health clinic set up in the rough side of town, with sick people streaming through the doors looking for relief. Blind men enter the house; they come out seeing! Mute man enters the house; he comes out speaking! No one had ever seen anything like it. Who wouldn’t stand around all day and gawk at the spectacle, even celebrating the “good news”? Well, the Pharisees didn’t join in the praise. They had already dismissed Jesus as a blasphemer. It must have been unnerving for them to see him pull off miracle after miracle. Since they loved to stand around and offer commentary on what they saw, what could they say to rebut the people’s observation? So the Pharisees said, “It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons” (v. 34). Some people are so stubborn! Once they make up their minds about a person or a situation, there’s no going back, no admitting, “I could have been wrong.” No. They’ll ride the horse of their infallible opinion off a cliff just to prove that there’s no going back. Their mind is made up. In their righteous judgment, the Pharisees were convinced Jesus was a blasphemer. Nothing, not even the work of God, would change their minds.
I’ve often wondered how I would have responded to the miracles of Jesus. Would I have joined the Pharisees, keeping a safe distance from the mania, refusing to be swept up in the euphoria, trying to maintain some sense of objectivity? “Simple minds are easily swayed,” I would remind myself. “Some people are willing to believe anything.” Of course, my reluctance to believe the miraculous would have more to do with our presumption in the West that things like this don’t happen today. The Pharisees knew these miracles occurred. They simply dismissed them as inauthentic because, to their minds, Jesus had deceived the masses by using the wrong kind of power, giving the appearance of a divine work. We, on the other hand, dismiss the miraculous because “faith healers” make false claims to divine power. We’ve seen too many hucksters prey on desperate folks who are willing to play along with the charade of pseudohealings and gifts of clairvoyance. Conveniently, only those afflicted with hidden ailments like back pain, heart conditions, or cancer are staged for the audience. But secret cameras and hidden microphones used by investigative journalists have unmasked the sham of these religious salesmen, who play on the emotions of the crowd, tricking them into believing that “something happened.” The cold eye of the camera doesn’t lie. What looks like a miracle is really a sleight-of-hand stunt. No wonder we don’t see faith healers traveling across the country anymore, setting up tents to attract the masses to their healing shows. Television programs like 20/20 and Internet sites like snopes.com have shut down the circus of faith healings. Instead, we watch reality shows where trackers search for visual evidence of Sasquatch, and ghost hunters record paranormal activity by taking readings with their scientific equipment.
It says a lot about us that a New Testament scholar like Craig Keener has written the massive, two-volume work Miracles, numbering 884 pages, trying to convince readers that miracles still happen today.10 In addition to his own expertise, Keener has read thousands of articles and books of several academic disciplines—history, philosophy, psychology, anthropology—and catalogued hundreds of eyewitness accounts to consider one question: Do miracles happen?11 The rigor of his work, the sheer volume of his copious footnotes, the painstaking manner in which he leaves no stone (even pebble!) unturned is impressive beyond words. To sneak a peak into Miracles, hoping to make a quick assessment of his argument, is like trying to take a sip of water from a fire hydrant. There’s just too much to swallow. Yet, for all his hard work and patient erudition that produced such a remarkable study, I cannot help but wonder: Why did he write it? Obviously, we want it—especially scholars who love to read magnificent works like this (anything that challenges the status quo of New Testament scholarship will certainly attract attention). Furthermore, it would be foolish to underestimate the value of such a thorough study. Keener has a mind like a steel trap, and his work will appeal to others who have the same mental prowess, even those who disagree with his conclusions. And that’s the point. Equally gifted minds will not agree with him because arguments can only take you so far—something Keener knows all too well. In fact, Keener admits that the reason he’s convinced miracles happen today is because he’s seen them, especially in developing countries.12 And therein lies the rub. In places where medical help is scarce, miracles are reported.13 Where faith is required, the miraculous happens—but it’s still something that needs to be proven to people like us.
Like the two blind men Jesus met going home, I’ve never seen a miracle. I’ve heard many claim that God healed them, sometimes even recounting medical evidence to prove it, like before and after x-rays or c-scans. I’ve prayed for many people—especially when I was a pastor—that God would perform a miracle and heal the man who was in his final hours, dying of cancer, or the young lady who was brain dead due to a horrible automobile accident. But the miracle never happened. That’s when I would earn my salary, consoling family members who couldn’t understand why God didn’t heal their loved one when he had healed others. For them, it wasn’t difficult to believe in miracles; the hard part was holding on to their faith in God when the miraculous didn’t happen. Afterward, alone in my office, I wondered what it would have been like to witness a miracle that day, marveling over seeing a brain-dead girl rise from her bed or watching physicians puzzle over tests that confirmed that a man’s cancer was completely gone. Then I would think about what happened in Jesus’s day, the excitement of the crowds as they witnessed dozens of miracles, declaring, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel” (Matt 9:33). “Been seen.” “Wait a minute,” I say to myself, “the crowds didn’t actually see miracles. They saw the results, like formerly blind men walking out of the house or a man speaking after the exorcism.” Certainly, on rare occasions Jesus performed miracles in public, even for skeptical eyes (like the healing of the paralytic). Yet, in most cases only a few people saw the miracle, typically the afflicted and the disciples. The gathered crowd may have seen the results (once removed), but everyone else relied upon reports (twice removed): “News of this spread through all that region” (v. 26), including from those who received the miracle: “But they went out and spread the news about him all over that region” (v. 31). Interestingly, the same thing happens today: only a few of us have witnessed miracles (firsthand and once removed); the rest of us rely upon reports.
I had mixed emotions reading through pages and pages of eyewitness accounts in Keener’s Miracles. Sometimes I felt like a Pharisee, questioning the legitimacy of the account: “A shaman makes a girl who had been dead for days get up and play the drums. Really?”14 Most of the time, however, I kept repeating the monosyllabic exclamation, “Wow!” as I tried to wrap my mind around the wondrous stories of miracles that have been reported from all over the world. Keener is no fool, and neither are the ones who have witnessed these things, some of whom are even the hard-nosed, academic types that I run around with—reluctant witnesses to things scholars dismiss as fiction. (For scholars, the worst sin is to accept what is unreasonable.) Yet, witnesses can’t help but say what they saw. To deny the miraculous would be worse than fiction—a lie. At the same time, I can’t help it that I’ve never seen a miracle. Nevertheless, even though at times I find myself siding with the Pharisees in their skepticism, I want to join the crowd in amazement when believers report the miraculous. It’s because I believe God performs miracles today. Jesus was right; it takes faith to see miracles: “According to your faith let it be done to you” (v. 29).
“Have mercy on me, Son of David. I want to see.”
1. Nolland, Matthew, 394.
2. Matthew used the same term as the LXX (Lev 15:33) for menstruating women (see Nolland, Matthew, 395).
3. See Anders Runesson, “Synagogue,” DJG 904–6, who distinguishes between “public synagogues” (open to all) and “association synagogues” (established by certain groups, like the Pharisees).
4. Where the NIV translates “your faith has healed you,” Matthew literally wrote, “your faith has saved you.”
5. Keener, Matthew, 304–5.
6. Some scholars think that the blind men were referring to Jesus as “Solomon,” relying upon a legend that the “son of David” was given a magical ring to defeat demons (T.Sol. 1:5–7); see Luz, Matthew, 2:47–48; Keener, however, thinks not (Matthew, 306).
7. Bruner, Matthew, 1:434.
8. For several other possibilities, see ibid., 1:438–39.
9. “First-hand observation or experience of the supernatural scarcely guarantees faithful discipleship” (Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:138).
10. Craig S. Keener, Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011). Keener uses the argument of analogy to justify the credibility of New Testament accounts of miracles (inverting the typical Pentecostal approach to vindicating the miraculous): since miracles happen today, then they must have happened back then.
11. The bibliography runs from page 885 to page 1050 (small font, double column).
12. Ibid., 733.
13. This observation shows up several times throughout his work; for example: “Thus, a number of Westerners who began successfully praying for others to be healed first learned the practice in the Majority World, quite often in regions where many lacked access to adequate medical technology” (ibid., 229–30).
14. Ibid., 540 (Keener expresses skepticism too).