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§9 A Ministry of Compassion (Matt. 9:1–38)

9:1–8 / Jesus leaves the region of Gadara on the east shore of Galilee and returns by boat to Capernaum (cf. Mark 2:1). There, some men bring to him a paralytic, lying on a mat. In Jesus’ day most people slept on mattresslike pads on the floor. Thus the mat would be a sort of pallet or stretcher that could be carried without undue difficulty. When Jesus saw their faith, that is, their confidence that he could restore the paralyzed man to health, he said, Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.

In the ancient world there was a widespread belief that sickness was the result of sin. Barclay cites Rabbi Chija ben Abba as representative of this point of view: “No sick person is cured from sickness, until all his sins are forgiven him” (vol. 1, p. 327). In John 9 Jesus’ disciples ask concerning the blind man, “who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (v. 2). Note that Jesus makes no necessary connection between sin and sickness. He responds, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned” (John 9:3).

Since it was widely accepted that only God could forgive sin (cf. Isa. 43:25), the point of view of the scribes seemed irrefutable. Jesus, in declaring that the sins of the paralyzed man were forgiven, was blaspheming (v. 3). The only alternative would be that Jesus was a divine being, and that was a conclusion they chose not to accept. As the official exponents of the law it was their duty to be on the lookout for heretical teaching. The punishment for blasphemy was stoning (m. Sanh. 7.4).

Jesus perceived their inward reasoning and proposed a test. Since they accepted the premise that sickness was the result of sin, if a person had the power to heal, then his authority to forgive the sin that caused the sickness would have to be accepted. Jesus therefore says, But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins … (v. 6). It is noteworthy that nowhere else except in Luke 7:48 is Jesus pictured as forgiving sins. He was named Jesus because he would “save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21), but this forgiveness would come as a result of his atoning death (26:28), not from a ministry of absolution. Jesus’ reference to himself as the Son of Man is more than a simple substitute for “I.” It contains overtones of supernatural authority and celestial dignity.

Jesus turns to the paralyzed man and orders him to rise, take up his mat and go home. The moment of truth has come. The man “sprang to his feet” (Phillips) and headed for home. Those who witnessed the miracle were struck with awe and praised God that such authority was given to men. Some commentators see in this statement a reference to later Christians, who would declare sins forgiven and perform miraculous cures to substantiate that pronouncement (Gundry, p. 165). Others take it as an indication that the crowd understood Son of Man (v. 6) in the sense of “man” (Tasker, p. 96).

9:9 / As Jesus leaves Capernaum (cf. Mark 2:1), he sees a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth alongside the road. In Jesus’ day heavy taxes were levied upon the people for all sorts of things. In addition to the three main taxes (ground tax, income tax, and poll tax), duty was imposed upon all imported goods. Every caravan that used the main roads and the ships that came into harbor were taxed. Matthew was one of a widely despised group who collected taxes from the Jewish people and turned them over to Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and Perea. His booth was probably along the great highway that led from Damascus to the sea. Some writers, perhaps because of Mark 2:13–14, put his place of business near the sea, in which case he would collect duty on goods shipped in from the territory under the jurisdiction of Philip. Although tax gatherers were not necessarily ceremonially unclean, their involvement with pagan currency and their reputation for dishonesty caused law-abiding Jews to keep their distance.

In both Mark (2:14) and Luke (5:27) Matthew is named Levi, although this latter name occurs in none of the listings of the twelve apostles (Matt. 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13). Either Matthew is the name given to Levi when he became a disciple or both names belonged to the same person from the beginning. When Jesus says to the tax gatherer, Follow me, Matthew immediately leaves his place of business and follows the Lord.

9:10–13 / We next see Jesus as host to a number of tax collectors and “sinners.” These were common people who paid little or no attention to the strict requirements of ceremonial law. The NIV places the affair at Matthew’s house (as suggested in the Lucan parallel, 5:29), although the Greek text of Matthew simply says “in the house” with Jesus as the probable antecedent. However, for Jesus to have a house would run counter to his statement in Matthew 8:20 that “the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” While they were reclining at dinner (a style popular in the Greco-Roman world and copied by wealthy Jews) the Pharisees came and asked Jesus’ disciples why their teacher ate with “irreligious people” (Goodspeed). They intended to undermine the faith of the disciples.

Jesus overheard their query and answered ironically that it was not those in good health but the sick who require the help of a doctor. The healthy were the Pharisees who saw themselves as having no need, although their true condition was quite the opposite (cf. Rev. 3:17–18). The sick were the outcasts, who recognized their need for healing. Green (p. 104) quotes a similar saying attributed to Diogenes (a fourth century B.C. Cynic philosopher): “Neither does a physician who is capable of giving health practice among those who are well.”

Jesus counsels the Pharisees to go and learn (a common rabbinic formula) what the Scripture means when it says that God desires mercy, not sacrifice. The quotation is from Hosea 6:6. Jesus’ ministry to the ceremonially unacceptable is an act of mercy, and this pleases God more than the Pharisees’ fastidious attention to sacrificial offerings. Mercy translates the Hebrew ḥesed, a word rich in meaning and conveying the idea of strong covenant faithfulness and love. Jesus then interprets his earlier statement by adding, I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners (v. 13). The pronouncement reveals a consciousness of having come to this world from a heavenly sphere. There is no reason to assign this insight to the faith of the early church (as some do), unless one begins with the assumption that Jesus was no more than a man or that he was unaware of his divine origin.

9:14–17 / Jesus is still at table with tax collectors and “sinners” (v. 10) when a group of followers of John the Baptist come and ask him why his disciples do not fast. Pharisees apparently fasted twice a week (cf. Luke 18:12; Didache 8), and John’s disciples fasted as well. In the previous paragraph the question was whether Jesus should be eating with outcasts; now the question is whether he should be eating at all! (Hill, p. 175). His failure to satisfy the religious scruples of sectarians would become a continuing irritant.

Jesus answers with a reference to the Jewish wedding feast. In that setting it would be inappropriate for the guests to mourn while [the bridegroom] is with them (v. 15). Later, when the bridegroom was taken from them, there would be time for fasting. In this figure Jesus is the bridegroom, and his disciples are the guests. The Old Testament often pictures the relationship of God and his people as a marriage (Hos. 2:16–20; Isa. 54:5–6; cf. 2 Cor. 11:2; Rev. 21:9f.). The messianic wedding feast is under way: now is the season for joy, not mourning. The reference to a day when the bridegroom will be taken away anticipates the death of Jesus. Some modern commentators feel this reveals the point of view of the early church (Filson, p. 140; Green, p. 104). The argument is only as strong as one’s conviction that Jesus would not have been able at this point in his ministry to predict his own demise.

Two illustrations from everyday life point up the essential discontinuity between the old forms of worship in Judaism and the new spirit of the messianic age. No one takes a piece of un-shrunk (Gk. agnaphos) cloth to patch a hole in an old garment, because upon washing it would shrink and tear away, leaving the hole worse than ever. Likewise you do not put fresh wine in old wineskins, because as it ferments the pressure will break the hardened skins and both wine and wineskin will be spoiled. In context, the new cloth and fresh wine represent the joyous spirit of the new age. Old garments and hardened wineskins are the restrictive forms of previous worship. In Romans 7:6 the same two Greek words are used to compare the “old [palaiotēti] way of a written code” and the “new [kainotēti] way of the Spirit.” Gundry notes that Matthew emphasizes the preservation of the wineskins, which points up Matthew’s stress on the coming of Jesus to fulfill the Law and the Prophets rather than to destroy them (p. 171).

9:18–19 / As Jesus continues to teach, a Jewish ruler comes to him in behalf of his daughter who has just died. Kneeling before Jesus, he declares that if Jesus will but come and touch her she will be restored to life. This ruler of the synagogue (as Mark and Luke both identify him) was an important person in the Jewish community. To seek the help of one who would be considered a dangerous heretic by the orthodox indicated how desperate he was. His faith in the power of Jesus to perform such an act suggests that those in the synagogue were fully aware of the activity and claims of Jesus. Jesus’ response is immediate. He rises from the table and, accompanied by his disciples, starts toward the home of the ruler.

It is often noted that Matthew’s accounts are considerably shorter than Mark’s. This narrative is only one third the length of Mark’s. Differences between the accounts are often mentioned. However, since it is not the primary purpose of this work to comment on the relationships among the Synoptics, our discussion will focus on the account as it occurs in Matthew.

9:20–22 / While Jesus was on the way to the ruler’s house, a woman who had for twelve years suffered with chronic bleeding approached Jesus from behind and touched the border of his robe. The edge (kraspedon) of Jesus’ robe may refer to one of the tassels, which, according to Numbers 15:37–41 (cf. Deut. 22:12), were to be worn on the four corners of the outer garment. The tassels would remind the people of the commandments of God. The woman’s flow of blood made her ritually unclean (Lev. 15:19–33), which accounts for her coming to Jesus from behind. She kept saying (elegen is imperfect) to herself that if she were able to touch his robe she would be healed.

Jesus turns and says, “Cheer up; your confidence in me has brought you healing.” The perfect tense (sesōken) suggests that the woman was healed even before Jesus spoke. Yet it was Jesus’ presence and power, not the woman’s faith, that effected the cure. Faith plays the vital role of releasing the divine activity (Tasker, p. 100).

9:23–26 / Following this “miracle within a miracle” Jesus continues to the house of the Jewish official. Upon arriving, he finds the characteristic disturbance created by professional mourners, which included flute players (Gk. aulētai). The Talmud indicates that even the poor were expected to provide two flute players and one wailing woman (b. Ketub. 46b). In ancient times, because of the rapid decomposition of the body, it was important that the corpse be buried within a few hours of death.

Jesus orders everyone to leave, declaring that the girl is not dead but asleep. That the people understood his words literally is seen in their reaction—“They laughed derisively at Him” (Berkeley). Although the figure of sleep is used in both the Old and New Testaments for death (Dan. 12:2; 1 Thess. 5:10), the Greek verb here (katheudō, “is sleeping”) is not found elsewhere in the New Testament in that sense. Thus Barclay, for instance, understands the girl to be in a coma, from which state Jesus brought her back and thereby kept her from being buried alive (vol. 1, p. 345). It is far more likely that she had in fact died and that Jesus, the giver of life, raised her from the dead.

9:27–31 / Isaiah 35 tells of a coming day when God will open the eyes of the blind and unstop the ears of the deaf (v. 5). Matthew’s account of Jesus as the giver of sight says, in effect, that the day of messianic deliverance has arrived.

As Jesus walks along, two blind men follow him and call for mercy. The title they apply to him, Son of David, was messianic, but in the popular mind meant little more than wonderworker. Jesus apparently paid scant attention to their cries and went inside. Seeing them follow him inside, he asks if they believe in his power to heal their blindness (v. 28), a common malady in the ancient world. Lack of sanitary conditions made blindness from infection widespread.

In response to their affirmative answer Jesus touched their eyes, and their sight was restored. Moffatt translates, “As you believe, so your prayer is granted.” The attitude of faith allows the giver of sight to pronounce the authoritative word. Jesus now sternly warns them (embrimaomai suggests strong emotion; in some early texts it was used of the snorting of horses) not to tell anyone. It would hinder the true messianic work of Jesus should he gain undue fame as a healer. The blind men, however, not being able to contain themselves, spread the news everywhere.

9:32–34 / Matthew alone records this next unit about the healing of the demoniac who could not speak, although the statement in verse 34 about the prince of demons (Beelzebub) is found in Mark 3:22 and in Luke 11:15. It fulfills the promise of Isaiah that “the eyes of the blind [will] be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped” (Isa. 35:5).

As Jesus and the others left the house where the two blind men had been healed, Jesus was met by a group who brought to him a mute. The Greek (kōphos) can mean either deaf or unable to speak (or both) but in this context stresses the inability to speak. The man’s condition was the result of a demon. When Jesus drove out the demon the man began to talk, and everyone was astonished. They exclaimed, Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel. The reaction of the religious leaders was quite different. Instead of acknowledging the power of God at work, they decided that it was by the power of the prince of the demons that Jesus had performed the exorcism. The contrast in how the healing was perceived is Matthew’s major point.

9:35–38 / From 9:35 through 10:42 we have Matthew’s second large collection of sayings. Verse 35 is virtually equivalent to 4:23, which introduced the previous collection, chapters 5–7 (since there were no chapter divisions in ancient manuscripts, writers used other methods to indicate internal structure). Once again Jesus’ itinerant ministry is described as teaching, preaching, and healing (v. 35).

As Jesus looked out on the surrounding crowds, he was deeply moved with compassion. They appeared as sheep without a shepherd, “distracted and dejected” (Weymouth). The Greek errimmenoi means helpless. The image of shepherdless sheep occurs repeatedly in the Old Testament. Micaiah tells the king of Israel, “I saw all Israel scattered on the hills like sheep without a shepherd” (1 Kings 22:17: cf. Num. 27:17). It was used by Jesus (John 10:1–18) and the early church (1 Pet. 2:25) as well.

In the helplessness of the crowd Jesus sees an opportunity for the proclamation of the kingdom. So he tells his disciples to pray that the Lord of the harvest will send workers to gather in the lost. Since the figure of the harvest often occurred in connection with judgment (Isa. 17:11; Matt. 13:30), some feel that the summons to the disciples was to warn people of approaching doom and to call them to repentance. The context suggests the more positive note of the approaching kingdom (see 10:7–8).