Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Luke 4:40
Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them.
40 44. Healing the Sick at Evening
40. when the sun was setting ] Sunset ended the Sabbath, and thus enabled Jews, without infringing on the many minute ‘ abhoth ’ and ‘ toldoth ’ i. e. primary and subordinate rules of sabbatic strictness to carry their sick on beds and pallets. (Joh 5:11-12; see Life of Christ, i. 433.) This twilight scene of Jesus moving about with word and touch of healing among the sick and suffering, the raving and tortured crowd (Mat 4:24), is one of the most striking in the Gospels, and St Matthew quotes it as a fulfilment of Isa 53:4.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Luk 4:40; Luk 4:42
Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick
Now when the sun was setting
When the sun set another sun arose.
The eventide of nature brought the morning of restoration. Nature perishes: Grace is eternal. Come to Christ when you can–early in the day, or in the shades of evening–He is ever ready. In Luk 4:42 mark an attempt to localise Christ. This is often done even now. But He is not to be parochially or congregationally shut in. He is the light of every life. He must gather His sheep from every hill, and call His own from unexpected places. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The miracles of healing at Capernaum
These words form a very vivid contrast with what is recorded in the former part of this chapter. In Nazareth He did no mighty works. Could not, not would not. It was not because the people there didnt want help. It was as bad to be sick up there as in Capernaum. But it was because of their unbelief. Then in wonderful contrast comes this story of Capernaum. That contrast we can still make. We may have this Nazareth, Jesus in the midst with all His healing power, and yet our hearts unblessed; or it may be to us Capernaum, and Jesus moving in and out amongst us, laying His hands on every one of us and making us whole.
I. THE SCENE HERE PICTURED. The sun was setting; the mountains were lifting up their heads into the golden crimson, and the lake was bathed in the sunset hues. Across the rocky paths came wearied ones from the inland villages with withered limbs; blind men groping their way and asking piteously if they were right; deaf men trying to read the signs of His coming in everybodys face; and, across the lake, boat-loads of sick ones, the glassy surface of the lake just broken by the ripple of the oar; and thus they came, until what a sight it was about the gate of the city!
II. FOLLOW THE MASTER THROUGH THE WARDS OF HIS HOSPITAL. NOW the whisper runs through the crowd, He comes. He comes–those eyes of His all filled with compassion; and moving about amongst them, He laid His hands on every one of them. No poor woman was thrust away outside; no poor little child was forgotten.
1. Notice that the power of the Lord is a healing power–not to condemn the world. And
2. See how the Lord uses this power–with what gentleness.
3. Notice how the Lord deals with men in their individuality–every one of them.
III. Look AT THE SICK ONES. First, here is a heathen woman. Here stands a sturdy Roman soldier who has been maimed in some fight, &c. In Christs hospital every case is peculiar. (New Outlines of Sermons on New Testament.)
Gods Kingdom
Which kingdom? There is
(1) the kingdom of nature;
(2) that of providence;
(3) that of glory.
But none of these is the kingdom I am going to talk about. There is another kingdom, the kingdom of His grace, the kingdom in the hearts of men, called the kingdom of God in my text.
I. THIS KINGDOM IS ONE; THE KINGDOMS OF THE EARTH ARE MANY. The kingdom of God does not resemble any of these. It is a spiritual kingdom.
II. THE KINGDOMS OF THIS WORLD ARE NOT HAPPY, THE KINGDOM OF GRACE IS.
III. THE KINGDOMS OF EARTH ARE MAINTAINED BY FORCE; THE THRONE OF GODS KINGDOM IS ESTABLISHED IN THE AFFECTIONS OF ITS SUBJECTS.
III. THE KINGDOMS OF EARTH DECAY; THE KINGDOM OF GOD NEVER.
IV. Practical questions:
1. Are we members of this kingdom?
2. If not, are we willing to become members? (E. G. Gange.)
Imposition of hands
This rite is a symbol of any kind of transmission, whether of a gift or an office (Moses and Joshua, Deu 34:9), or of a blessing (the patriarchal blessings), or of a duty (the transfer to the Levites of the natural functions of the eldest son in every family), or of guilt (the guilty Israelite laying his hands on the head of the victim), or of the sound, vital strength enjoyed by the person who imparts it (cures). It is not certainly that Jesus could not have worked a cure by His mere word, or even by a simple act of volition. But, in the first place, there is something profoundly human in this act of laying the hand on the head of any one whom one desires to benefit. It is a gesture of tenderness, a sign of beneficial communication such as the heart craves. Then this symbol might be morally necessary. Whenever Jesus avails Himself of any material means to work a cure–whether it be the sound of His voice, or clay made of His spittle–His aim is to establish in the form best adapted to the particular case, a personal tie between the sick person and Himself; for He desires not only to heal, but to effect a restoration to God, by creating in the consciousness of the sick a sense of union with Himself, the organ of Divine grace in the midst of mankind. This moral aim explains the variety of the means employed. Had they been curative means (of the nature of magnetic passes, for example) they could not have varied so much. But as they were addressed to the sick persons soul, Jesus chose them in such a way that His action was adapted to its character or position. In the case of a deaf mute, He puts His fingers into his ears; He anointed the eyes of a blind man with His spittle, &c. Thus their healing appeared as an emanation from His person, and attached them to Him by an indissoluble tie. Their restored life was felt to be dependent on His. (F. Godet, D. D.)
The Great Physician
We have here a picture of Jesus as the Great Physician of soul and body, the Divine restorer of health to both body and mind. It is never to be forgotten how He thus met the sufferings of humanity, and brought effective deliverance as none other ever could or ever will bring, to a world ever groaning and travailing in pain. And what He did then, He is doing still. We cannot now see His earthly Form, nor do we look for miracles to be wrought upon us; but each of us has his own peculiar care or trouble, and needs the Divine Physician to relieve his distress.
1. True, there are earthly reliefs, and it is our duty to make proper use of them; but they are all more or less temporary and fleeting.
(1) For the body: medical relief and advice, &c. Yet these can give no immunity from disease. And most remedies soon lose their power.
(2) For the mind: distraction, pleasure, &c. These also are but the results of the experience of others, but they have no last in them, and they may only make the pain worse to bear than before.
2. True also, that if present relief is not to be had, we may still be buoyed up by earthly hope. But alas! how often is this but hope deferred, which makes the heart sick; and how often is the miserable and weary sufferer brought to such a state that the only earthly hope left him is the hope that he may soon be done with earth altogether, and his poor pained body be laid to rest in the grave! Oh, how vain are all earthly hopes, and how doomed to disappointment are those who trust in them. But, thank God! our Christian philosophy is not so cold. We have more than this.
I. A PRESENT HELP. We have learned that present, earthly, personal comfort is not such a grand object after all; that there are higher things, and better things, within our reach. What are these? Growing better, being sanctified, making this life not an end but a beginning and preparation for a higher and better life. Not only so, but we can go to Jesus as truly as could the friends at Capernaum, and help to take our sufferers there. Nor have we far to go. He is always at hand, and always accessible. Moreover, He is unchangeable; not like earthly friends and comforts, but always the same; the truest help in any and every kind of suffering–whether of mind, body, or estate, as many a soul has proved, in sickness, poverty, anxiety, loneliness.
II. A FUTURE HOPE. If, in spite of every aid, the burdens of life press heavily on us, we have more than the silence of the grave to look for; we know that while our body sleeps, our soul is with Christ in paradise, and that one day there will be a happy reunion. Conclusion: Let us first find the way ourselves to this present help and future hope, and then we shall be able to point our friends to it and to Jesus who is indeed our only help and our only hope. And then, one word more for our comfort. You will remember that our blessed Lord was not done with the sufferers when He laid His hands upon them and conferred present relief in trouble. They might go home with glad hearts, and enjoy the blessing of God, but a time would come when they might again suffer in body or in mind, and when they would at last have to give up all hope of earthly remedy. But Jesus was not forgetting them. Tired and wearied as He was, He rose up a great while before day, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed. He was blessing them even more in His absence than while with them in bodily presence. Even so is it still with the sufferers and with the healed. Jesus is not only ever blessing us with divine comfort and strength, but He is pleading for us with the Father. He knows the pain of each heart, and He will bless us and it for our good if we will but go to Him. (George Low, M. A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 40. When the sun was setting] And consequently the Sabbath ended, for before this it would have been unlawful to have brought their sick to be healed.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
See Poole on “Mar 1:32“, and following verses to Mar 1:34, where we met with the same things.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
Now when the sun was setting,…. And so the sabbath was over; [See comments on Mt 8:16].
all they that had any sick, with divers diseases, brought them unto him; that is, as many of the inhabitants of Capernaum as had sick persons in their houses, let their diseases be what they would, brought them to Christ in Simon’s house; which, sabbath being over, they might do consistent with their laws, and the traditions of the elders, and without any just offence to the Scribes and Pharisees, who were tenacious of them; and they were encouraged to do so, partly through the dispossessing the unclean spirit in their synagogue that day, which many of them had been witnesses of; and partly through the cure of Peter’s wife’s mother, which they had heard of:
and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them; without the use of medicine, by the mere imposition of his hands; which was accompanied with such power and virtue from him, as to remove, at once, every disease; nor did he refuse any person, how unworthy soever they might be in themselves, and how obstinate their disease might be.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
When the sun was setting ( ). Genitive absolute and present participle (, late form of ) picturing the sunset scene. Even Mr 1:32 has here the aorist indicative (punctiliar active). It was not only cooler, but it was the end of the sabbath when it was not regarded as work (Vincent) to carry a sick person (Joh 5:10). And also by now the news of the cure of the demoniac of Peter’s mother-in-law had spread all over the town.
Had (). Imperfect tense including all the chronic cases.
With divers diseases ( ). Instrumental case. For “divers” say “many coloured” or “variegated.” See on Matt 4:24; Mark 1:34.
Brought (). Constative summary second aorist active indicative like Mt 8:16, , where Mr 1:32 has the imperfect , brought one after another.
He laid his hands on every one of them and healed them ( ). Note the present active participle and the imperfect active , picturing the healing one by one with the tender touch upon each one. Luke alone gives this graphic detail which was more than a mere ceremonial laying on of hands. Clearly the cures of Jesus reached the physical, mental, and spiritual planes of human nature. He is Lord of life and acted here as Master of each case as it came.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
When the sun was setting. The people brought their sick at that hour, not only because of the coolness, but because it was the end of the Sabbath, and carrying a sick person was regarded as work. See Joh 5:10. Diseases [] . See on Mt 4:23. Wyc., Sick men with divers languishings.
Laid his hands on. Peculiar to Luke.
Everyone. “Implying the solicitude and indefatigableness of this miraculous ministry of love” (Meyer).
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Now when the sun was setting,” (dunontos de tou heliou) “Then as the sun was setting,” on that busy sabbath day, after which time of sunset friends of the afflicted had liberty to bring them directly to Jesus.
2) “All they that had any sick with divers diseases,” (hapantes hosoi eichon asthenountas nosois poikilais) “All those who had ailing ones with diseases,” of diverse or different nature, expressed as possessed with devils, Mat 8:16.
3) “Brought them unto him;” (egogon autous pros auton) “Brought them directly to him,” to Jesus, Mar 1:32.
4) “And he laid his hands on every one of them,” (ho de heni hekasto auton tas cheiras epititheis) “Then placing his hands on each one of them,” personally and individually, as he spoke to them, to the evil demons, Mat 8:16.
5) “And healed them.” (epherapeuen autous) “He healed them,” all that were sick, Mat 8:16. Keep in mind that miracles were primarily to prove or demonstrate that: 1) Jesus was the Son of God, had power on earth to forgive sins,” and 2) Men might believe in Him as the Savior and be saved, Joh 2:11; Mar 2:10; Joh 3:1-2; Joh 20:30-31.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(40, 41) Now when the sun was setting.See Notes on Mat. 8:16-17. Common to St. Luke and St. Mark are the divers diseases, and the silence imposed on the demoniacs. The words of the demoniacs, Thou art the Son of God, and they knew that He was the Christ, are peculiar to this Gospel.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Jesus Continues To Relieve The Oppressed and Afflicted (4:40).
‘And when the sun was setting, all those who had any sick with different kinds of diseases brought them to him, and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them.’
Once the Sabbath was over, and the sun was setting, many sick people were now brought to Jesus with many different kinds of diseases. They dared not bring them on the Sabbath because the Scribal regulations said that the only healings allowed on the Sabbath were those of necessity. Nor could they have carried the sick people’s mattresses on the Sabbath. And He laid His hands on every one of them and healed them. Now His power was being revealed by a touch. The laying on of hands was not a normal Jewish method of healing, but none other healed like Jesus. It indicated that He was identifying Himself with the sick person as the One Who bore their sicknesses and carried their diseases (Isa 53:4; compare Mat 8:17). Note that it is only Luke who notices the details of the method of healing. But Jesus never laid hands on a demon possessed person. He healed them by a word of command.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Cures on the Sabbath evening:
v. 40. Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto Him; and He laid His hands on every one of them, and healed them.
v. 41. And devils also came out of many, crying out, and saying, Thou art Christ, the Son of God. And He, rebuking them, suffered them not to speak; for they knew that He was Christ. With the setting of the sun the Sabbath was over, and therefore all Sabbath commands no longer binding. It was then that people, as many of them as had sick relatives and friends that were afflicted with any diseases, began to lead and to carry them to Jesus. The miracle of the morning had convinced them that they had a powerful Healer in their midst, and they were only too willing to take advantage of that fact. Jesus had compassion upon them: upon every one of the sick He laid His hands and thus cured them. What purpose the Lord had in mind in permitting Himself to be imposed upon with all this wholesale healing is shown by Mat 8:17. The one greatest disease, which the Lord has taken upon Himself and borne, is sin; all sickness, all evil, comes from sin, is a punishment of sin. When Jesus therefore laid His hands upon any sick person, it implied: Thou art a sinner, I am the Savior of sinners; I take the curse and consequence of sin from thee, let this be an admonition to thee to abstain from the service of sin. At the same time, demons came out from those possessed at the very presence of Jesus, screaming loudly and revealing the Lord’s identity as the Christ. But these revelations Jesus stopped summarily, since He desires no praise and confession from the devil nor from all those that have placed themselves in the service of the devil.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
40. ] . . . . . is a detail peculiar to Luke, and I believe indicating the same as above: as also the . . implied in the other Evangelists, but not expressed.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Luk 4:40-41 . Sabbath evening cures (Mat 8:16-17 , Mar 1:32-34 ). . .: Lk. selects the more important part of Mk.’s dual definition of time. With sunset the Sabbath closed. is present participle of the late form = . : laying His hands on each one , a touch peculiar to Lk., pointing, Godet thinks, to a separate source at Lk.’s command; much more certainly to Lk.’s desire to make prominent the benevolent sympathy of Jesus. Jesus did not heal en masse , but one by one, tender sympathy going out from Him in each case. Intrinsically probable, and worth noting. This trait in Lk. is in its own way as valuable as Mt.’s citation from Isaiah (Luk 8:17 ), and serves the same purpose.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Luk 4:40-41
40While the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to Him; and laying His hands on each one of them, He was healing them. 41Demons also were coming out of many, shouting, “You are the Son of God!” But rebuking them, He would not allow them to speak, because they knew Him to be the Christ.
Luk 4:40 “While the sun was setting” This meant it was the end of the Sabbath. The Jews count the day from twilight in the evening to the next twilight following (cf. Gen 1:5). Many Jews felt even healing on the Sabbath was inappropriate.
“brought them to Him” The people had seen Jesus’ power in the synagogue (Luk 4:31-37) and had heard His words of compassion and prophecy. Jesus now shows by His actions that He has both the power and the compassion of YHWH!
“laying His hands on each one of them” Note the laying on of hands was for the sick, never the demon possessed (cf. Luk 4:41).
SPECIAL TOPIC: LAYING ON OF HANDS IN THE BIBLE
“healing them” Notice that Jesus cured all who came! Also notice the distinction between the medical problems of Luk 4:40 and the demon possession of Luk 4:41. These actions reveal the gracious, loving, kind heart of God for humanity and the compassion and power of God’s Messiah.
Luk 4:41 “many” From the English text it seems that Jesus healed all of those with physical ailments, but only some of those with demons. There are two possible solutions:
1. There is a volitional aspect to deliverance/exorcism.
2. The Bible uses “all” and “many” interchangeably (cf. Isa 53:6, “all” vs. Isa 53:11-12, “many” or the parallelism of Rom 5:18, “all” and Rom 5:19, “many”).
“the Son of God” See Special Topic at Luk 1:35.
“not allow them to speak” This is another reason that Jesus did not allow their testimony. The people had a false view of His Messianic task (nationalism). These demons were not witnessing to support Jesus, but allowing the religious leaders to claim that His power came from Satan, not God.
“they knew Him to be the Christ” Demons have theological knowledge (cf. Jas 2:19), but they do not have a personal faith relationship with the Father or the Son. Here is a good example of knowledge without faith being futile (cf Mat 7:21-23). See Special Topic: Messiah at Luk 2:11.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
when the sun, &c. They waited for the end of the Sabbath. laid His hands, &c. Peculiar to Luke.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
40.] . . . . . is a detail peculiar to Luke, and I believe indicating the same as above: as also the . . implied in the other Evangelists, but not expressed.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Luk 4:40. , on every one) Implying the great facility with which He performed His cures. Thus they were the more deeply moved to faith as individuals. [Jesus has the same care for individual souls. Hast thou experienced that care?-V. g.]
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
when: Mat 8:16, Mat 8:17, Mar 1:32-34
and he: Luk 7:21-23, Mat 4:23, Mat 4:24, Mat 11:5, Mat 14:13, Mar 3:10, Mar 6:5, Mar 6:55, Mar 6:56, Act 5:15, Act 19:12
Reciprocal: Gen 48:14 – and laid Mar 5:23 – lay thy hands Luk 13:13 – he laid Act 28:8 – laid
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
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By evening the fame of Jesus had reached so far that many afflicted persons had been gathered together, and when they were brought to him he healed them all.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
The evangelist here declares sundry other cures wrought by our Saviour: he healed the sick, and dispossessed the devils. In our Saviour’s time we read of many possessed with devils, and of but few either before or afterwards.
Probably, 1. Because Satan, perceiving the Messiah to be come in the flesh to destroy his kingdom, did rage the more, and discover greater malice and enmity against mankind.
2. Perhaps Almighty God suffered Satan at that time to possess so many, that Christ might have occasion to manifest his divine power by casting Satan out. And accordingly we find our Saviour dispossessing all that were possessed by Satan. It is added, That he suffered not the devils to speak, because they knew him; that is, Christ would not be made known to be the Son of God by the preaching of the devil, lest the world should from thence take occasion to think that our Saviour held a correspondence with those wicked spirits, and that the miracles which he wrought were performed by the devil’s assistance, as being one in combination with him.
Possible from the devils owning Christ to be the Holy One of God, the Pharisees concluded that there was a compact and agreement between them; and thereupon their affirmation was grounded. He casteth out devils by Beelzebub the prince of devils.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
4 th. Luk 4:40-41.
Here we have one of those periods when the miraculous power of Jesus was most abundantly displayed. We shall meet again with some of these culminating points in the course of His ministry. A similar rhythm is found in the career of the apostles. Peter at Jerusalem (Act 5:15-16), and Paul at Ephesus (Luk 19:11-12), exercise their miraculous power to a degree in which they appear to have exhibited it at no other time in their life; it was at the same time the culminating point of their ministry of the word.
The memory of this remarkable evening must have fixed itself indelibly in the early tradition; for the account of this time has been preserved, in almost identical terms, in our three Syn. The sick came in crowds. The expression, when the sun was setting, shows that this time had been waited for. And that not because it was the cool hour, as many have thought, but because it was the end of the Sabbath, and carrying a sick person was regarded as work (Joh 5:10). The whole city, as Mark, in his simple, natural, and somewhat emphatic style, says, was gathered together at the door.
According to our narrative, Jesus made use on this occasion of the laying on of hands. Luke cannot have invented this detail himself; and the others would not have omitted it if it had belonged to their alleged common source of information. Therefore Luke had some special source in which this detail was found, and not this alone. This rite is a symbol of any kind of transmission, whether of a gift or an office (Moses and Joshua, Deu 34:9), or of a blessing (the patriarchal blessings), or of a duty (the transfer to the Levites of the natural functions of the eldest sons in every family), or of guilt (the guilty Israelite laying his hands on the head of the victim), or of the sound vital strength enjoyed by the person who imparts it (cures). It is not certainly that Jesus could not have worked a cure by His mere word, or even by a simple act of volition. But, in the first place, there is something profoundly human in this act of laying the hand on the head of any one whom one desires to benefit. It is a gesture of tenderness, a sign of beneficial communication such as the heart craves. Then this symbol might be morally necessary. Whenever Jesus avails Himself of any material means to work a cure, whether it be the sound of His voice, or clay made of His spittle, His aim is to establish, in the form best adapted to the particular case, a personal tie between the sick person and Himself; for He desires not only to heal, but to effect a restoration to God, by creating in the consciousness of the sick a sense of union with Himself, the organ of divine grace in the midst of mankind. This moral aim explains the variety of the means employed. Had they been curative means,of the nature of magnetic passes, for example,they could not have varied so much. But as they were addressed to the sick person’s soul, Jesus chose them in such a way that His action was adapted to its character or position. In the case of a deaf mute, He put His fingers into his ears; He anointed the eyes of a blind man with His spittle, etc. In this way their healing appeared as an emanation from His person, and attached them to Him by an indissoluble tie. Their restored life was felt to be dependent on His. The repetition of the act of laying on of hands in each case was with the same view. The sick person, being thus visibly put into a state of physical dependence, would necessarily infer his moral dependence. The Alex. readings , laying on, , He healed, must be preferred. The aor. (in the T. R.) indicates the completed act, the imperf. its indefinite continuation: Laying His hands on each of them, He healed, and kept on healing, as many as came for it.
The demoniacs are mentioned in Luk 4:41 among the sick, but as forming a class by themselves. This agrees with what we have stated respecting their condition. There must have been some physico-psychical disorganization to afford access to the malign influence. The words are correctly omitted by the Alex.; they have been taken from the second part of the verse.
From the fact that the multitude translated the exclamation of the devils, Thou art the Son of God, into this, It is the Christ, we have no right to conclude that the two titles were identical. By the former, the devils acknowledged the divine character of this man, who made them feel so forcibly His sovereign power. The latter was the translation of this homage into ordinary speech by the Jewish multitude. Was it the design of the devil to compromise Jesus by stirring up a dangerous excitement in Israel in His favour, or by making it believed that there was a bond of common interest between His cause and theirs? It is more natural to regard this exclamation as an involuntary homage, an anticipation of that compulsory adoration which all creatures, even those which are under the earth, as St. Paul says (Php 2:10), shall one day render to Jesus. They are before the representative of Him before whom they tremble (Jam 2:19). Jesus, who had rejected in the desert all complicity with their head, could not think of deriving advantage from this impure homage.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
Luk 4:40-44. Other Healings (Mar 1:32-39*, Mat 8:16 f.*, Mat 4:23-25*).The medical interest of Lk. here appears strongly. He distinguishes ordinary ailments from cases of demoniacal possession. Luk 4:43 is an announcement made earlier by Mk. (Mar 1:15); Lk. has had to defer it through his treatment of the Nazareth episode.
Luk 4:43. I was sent is less original than Mk.s came I forth (i.e. from Capernaum).
Luk 4:44. Galilee. The true reading is Juda (mg.), which is thus used in the wide sense of all Jewish territory (cf. Luk 6:17, Luk 7:17, Luk 23:5), and so includes Galilee, to which the context refers. Spitta argues keenly for the ordinary interpretation of the term and a Judan ministry such as we have in the Fourth Gospel (cf. Luk 5:17, where the two are distinguished).
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
Jesus’ healing of many Galileans after sundown 4:40-41 (cf. Matthew 8:16-17; Mark 1:32-34)
Having recorded two individual healings, Luke now mentioned a group of people that Jesus healed. Again Luke omitted some details that the other synoptic writers included but added others to stress other points for his particular readers.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
The Jewish crowds waited to come to Jesus until the Sabbath ended at sundown. Luke did not draw attention to the Sabbath but noted the sun setting as the background for what followed. Luke distinguished between the sick and the demon possessed. He did not think demons were responsible for all disease, as some Greeks did. However, he would have acknowledged that sin is responsible for all sickness ultimately. Luke alone also mentioned Jesus laying His hands on those who came to Him for healing. This demonstrates Jesus’ compassion for the afflicted and the fact that the healing came from Him. It was common in pagan Hellenistic accounts of supposedly miraculous healings for healers to lay their hands on the sick. [Note: Marshall, The Gospel . . ., p. 196.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
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Chapter 16
THE MIRACLES OF HEALING.
IT is only natural that our Evangelist should linger with a professional as well as a personal interest over Christs connection with human suffering and disease, and that in recounting the miracles of healing He should be peculiarly at home; the theme would be in such thorough accord with his studies and tastes. It is true he does not refer to these miracles as being a fulfillment of prophecy; it is left for St. Matthew, who weaves his Gospel on the unfinished warp of the Old Testament, to recall the words of Isaiah, how “Himself took our infirmities and bare our diseases”; yet our physician-Evangelist evidently lingers over the pathological side of his Gospel with an intense interest. St. John passes by the miracles of healing in comparative silence, though he stays to give us two cases which are omitted by the Synoptists-that of the noblemans son at Capernaum, and that of the impotent man at Bethesda. But St. Johns Gospel moves in more ethereal spheres, and the touches he chronicles are rather the touches of mind with mind, spirit with spirit, than the physical touches through the coarser medium of the flesh. The Synoptists, however, especially in their earlier chapters, bring the works of Christ into prominence, traveling, too, very much over the same ground, though each introduces some special facts omitted by the rest, while in their record of the same fact each Evangelist throws some additional coloring.
Grouping together the miracles of healing-for our space will not allow a separate treatment of each-our thought is first arrested by the variety of forms in which suffering and disease presented themselves to Jesus, the wideness of the ground, physical and psychical, the miracles of healing cover. Our Evangelist mentions fourteen different cases, not, however, as including the whole, or even the greater part, but rather as being typical, representative cases. They are, as it were, the nearer constellations, localized and named; but again and again in his narrative we find whole groups and clusters lying farther back, making a sort of Milky Way of light, whose thickly clustered worlds baffle all our attempts at enumeration. Such are the “women” of chap. 8. ver. 2 {Luk 8:2}, who had been healed of their infirmities, but whose record is omitted in the Gospel story; and such, too, are those groups of cures mentioned in {Luk 4:40; Luk 5:15; Luk 6:19; Luk 7:21}, when the Divine power seemed to culminate, throwing itself out in a largesse of blessing, fairly raining down its bright gifts of healing like meteoric showers.
Turning now to the typical cases mentioned by St. Luke, they are as follows: the man possessed of an unclean demon; Peters wifes mother, who was sick of a fever; a leper, a paralytic, the man with the withered hand, the servant of the centurion, the demoniac, the woman with an issue, the boy possessed with a demon, the man with a dumb demon, the woman with an infirmity, the man with the dropsy, the ten lepers, and blind Bartimaeus. The list, like so many lines of dark meridians, measures off the entire circumference of the world of suffering, beginning with the withered hand, and going on and down to that “sacrament of death,” leprosy, and to that yet further deep, demoniacal possession. Some diseases were of more recent origin, as the case of fever: others were chronic, of twelve or eighteen years standing, or lifelong, as in the case of the possessed boy. In some a solitary organ was affected, as when the hand had withered, or the tongue was tied by some power of evil, or the eyes had lost their gift of vision. In others the whole person was diseased, as when the fires of the fever shot through the heated veins, or the leprosy was covering the flesh with the white scales of death. But whatever its nature or its stage, the disease was acute, as far as human probabilities went, past all hope of healing. It was no slight attack, but a “great fever” which had stricken down the mother-in-law of Peter, the intensive adjective showing that it had reached its danger point. And where among human means was there hope for a restored vision, when for years the last glimmer of light had faded away, when even the optic nerve was atrophied by the long disuse? And where, among the limited pharmacopoeias of ancient times, or even among the vastly extended lists of modern times, was there a cure for the leper, who carried, burned into his very flesh, his sentence of death? No, it was not the trivial, temporary cases of sickness Jesus took in hand; but He passed into that innermost shrine of the temple of suffering, the shrine that lay in perpetual night, and over whose doorway was the inscription of Dantes “Inferno,” “All hope abandon, ye who enter here!” But when Jesus entered this grim abode He turned its darkness to light, its sighs to songs, bringing hope to despairing ones and leading back into the light of day these captives of Death, as Orpheus is fabled to have brought back to earth the lost Eurydice.
And not only are the cases so varied in their character, and humanly speaking, hopeless in their nature, but they were presented to Jesus in such a diversity of ways. They are none of them arranged for, studied. They could not have formed any plan or routine of mercy, nor were they timed for the purpose of producing spectacular effects. They were nearly all of them impromptu, extemporary, events, coming without His seeking, and coming often as interruptions to His own plans. Now it is in the synagogue, in the pauses of public worship, that Jesus rebukes an unclean devil, or He bids the cripple stretch out his withered hand. Now it is in the city: amid the crowd, or out upon the plain; now It is within the house of a chief Pharisee, in the very midst of an entertainment; while at other times He is walking on the road, when, without even stopping in His journey, He wills the leper clean, or He throws the gift of life and health forward to the centurions servant, whom He has not seen. No times were inopportune to Him, and no places were foreign to the Son of man, where men suffered and pain abode. Jesus refused no request on the ground that the time was not well chosen, and though He did again and again refuse the request of selfish interest or vain ambition, He never once turned a deaf ear to the cry of sorrow or of pain, no matter when or whence it came.
And if we consider His methods of healing we find the same diversity. Perhaps we ought not to use that word, for there was a singular absence of method. There was nothing set, artificial in His way, but an easy freedom, a beautiful naturalness. In one respect, and perhaps in one only, are all similar, and that is in the absence of intermediaries. There was no use of means, no prescription of remedies; for in the seeming exception, the clay with which He anointed the eyes of the blind, and the waters of Siloam which He prescribed, were not remedial in themselves; the washing was rather the test of the mans faith, while the anointing was a sort of “aside,” spoken, not to the man himself, hut to the group of onlookers, preparing them for the fresh manifestation of His power. Generally a word was enough, though we read of His healing “touch,” and twice of the symbolic laying on of hands. And by the way, it is somewhat singular that Jesus made use of the touch at the healing of the leper, when the touch meant ceremonial uncleanness. Why does He not speak the word only as He did afterwards at the healing of the “ten?” And why does He, as it were, go out of His way to put Himself in personal contact with the leper, who was under a ceremonial ban? Was it not to show that a new era had dawned, an era in which uncleanness should be that of the heart, the life, and no longer the outward uncleanness, which any accident of contact might induce? Did not the touching of the leper mean the abrogation of the multiplied bans of the Old Dispensation, just as afterwards a heavenly vision coming to Peter wiped out the dividing-line between clean and unclean meats? And why did not the touch of the leper make Jesus ceremonially unclean? For we do not read that it did, or that He altered His plans one whir because of it. Perhaps we find our answer in the Levitical regulations respecting the leprosy. We read in {Lev 14:28} that at the cleansing of the leper the priest was to dip his right finger in the blood and in the oil, and put it on the ear, and hand, and foot of the person cleansed. The finger of the priest was thus the index or sign of purity, the lifting up of the ban which his leprosy had put around and over him. And when Jesus touched the leper it was the priestly touch; it carried its own cleansing with it, imparting power and purity, instead of contracting the defilement of another.
But if Jesus touched the leper, and permitted the woman of Capernaum to touch Him, or at any rate His garment, He studiously avoided any personal contact with those possessed of devils. He recognized here the presence of evil spirits, the powers of darkness, which have enthralled the weaker human spirit, and for these a word is enough. But how different a word to His other words of healing, when He said to the leper, “I will; be thou clean,” and to Bartimaeus, “Receive thy sight!” Now it is a word sharp, imperative, not spoken to the poor helpless victim, but thrown over and beyond him, to the dark personality, which held a human soul in a vile, degrading bondage. And so while the possessed boy lay writhing and foaming on the ground, Jesus laid no hand upon him; it was not till after He had spoken the mighty word, and the demon had departed from him, that Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up.
But whether by word or by touch, the miracles were wrought with consummate ease; there were none of those artistic flourishes which mere performers use as a blind to cover their sleight of hand. There was no straining for effect, no apparent effort. Jesus Himself seemed perfectly unconscious that He was doing anything marvelous or even unusual. The words of power fell naturally from His lips, like the falling of leaves from the tree of life, carrying, wheresoever they might go, healing for the nations.
But if the method of the cures is wonderful, the unstudied ease and simple naturalness of the Healer, the completeness of the cures is even more so. In all the multitudes of cases there was no failure. We find the disciples baffled and chagrined, attempting what they cannot perform, as with the possessed boy; but with Jesus failure was an impossible word. Nor did Jesus simply make them better, bringing them into a state of convalescence, and so putting them in the way of getting well. The cure was instant and complete; “immediately” is St. Lukes frequent and favorite word; so much so that she who half an hour ago was stricken down with malignant fever, and apparently at the point of death, now is going about her ordinary duties as if nothing had happened, “ministering” to Peters many guests. Though Nature possesses a great deal of resilient force, her periods of convalescence, when the disease itself is checked, are more or less prolonged, and weeks, or sometimes months, must elapse before the spring-tides of health return, bringing with them a sweet overflow, an exuberance of life. Not so, however, when Jesus was the Healer. At His word, or at the mere beckoning of His finger, the tides of health, which had gone far out in the ebb, suddenly returned in all their spring fullness, lifting high on their wave the bark which through hopeless years had been settling down into its miry grave. Eighteen years of disease had made the woman quite deformed; the contracting muscles had bent the form God made to stand erect, so that she could “in no wise lift herself up”; but when Jesus said, “Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity,” and laid His hands upon her, in an instant the tightened muscles relaxed, the bent form regained its earlier grace, for “she was made straight, and glorified God.” One moment, with the Christ in it, was more than eighteen years of disease, and with the most perfect ease it could undo all the eighteen years had done. And this is but a specimen case, for the same completeness characterizes all the cures that Jesus wrought. “They were made whole,” as it reads, no matter what the malady might be; and though disease had loosened all the thousand strings, so that the wonderful harp was reduced to silence, or at best could but strike discordant notes, the hand of Jesus has but to touch it, and in an instant each string recovers its pristine tone, the jarring sounds vanish, and body, “mind and soul according well, awake sweet music as before.”
But though Jesus wrought these many and complete cures, making the healing of the sick a sort of pastime, the interludes in that Divine “Messiah,” still He did not work these miracles indiscriminately, without method or conditions. He freely placed His service at the disposal of others, giving Himself up to one tireless round of mercy; but it is evident there was some selection for these gifts of healing. The healing power was not thrown out randomly, falling on any one it might chance to strike; it flowed out in certain directions only, in ordered channels; it followed certain lines and laws. For instance, these circles of healing were geographically narrow. They followed the personal presence of Jesus, and with one or two exceptions, were never found apart from that presence; so that, many as they were, they would form but a small part of suffering humanity. And even within these circles of His visible presence we are not to suppose that all were healed. Some were taken, and others were left, to a suffering from which only death would release them. Can we discover the law of this election of mercy? We think we may.
(1) In the first place, there must be the need for the Divine intervention. This perhaps goes without saying, and does not seem to mean much, since among those who were left unhealed there were needs just as great as those of the more favored ones. But while the “need” in some cases was not enough to secure the Divine mercy, in other cases it was all that was asked. If the disease was mental or psychical, with reason all bewildered, and the firmaments of Right and Wrong mixed confusedly together, making a chaos of the soul, that was all Jesus required. At other times He waited for the desire to be evoked and the request to be made; but for these cases of lunacy, epilepsy, and demoniacal possession He waived the other conditions, and without waiting for the request, as in the synagogue {Luk 4:34} or on the Gadarene coast, He spoke the word, which brought order to a distracted soul, and which led Reason back to her Jerusalem, to the long-vacant throne.
For others the need itself was not sufficient; there must be the request. Our desire for any blessing is our appraisement of its value, and Jesus dispensed His gifts of healing on the Divine conditions, “Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find.” How the request came, whether from the sufferer himself or through some intercessor, it did not matter; for no request for healing came to Jesus to be disregarded or denied. Nor was it always needful to put the request into words. Prayer is too grand and great a thing for the lips to have a monopoly of it, and the deepest prayers may be put into acts as well as into words, as they are sometimes uttered in inarticulate sighs, and in groans which are too deep for words. And was it not truest prayer, as the multitudes carried their sick and laid them down at the feet of Jesus, even had their voice spoken no solitary word? And was it not truest prayer, as they put themselves, with their bent forms and withered hands right in His way, not able to speak one single word, but throwing across to Him the piteous but hopeful look? The request was thus the expression of their desire, and at the same time the expression of their faith, telling of the trust they reposed in His pity and His power, a trust He was always delighted to see, and to which He always responded, as He Himself said again and again, “thy faith hath saved thee.” Faith then, as now, was the sesame to which all Heavens gates fly open; and as in the case of the paralytic who was borne of four, and let down through the roof, even a vicarious faith prevails with Jesus, as it brings to their friend a double and complete salvation. And so they who sought Jesus as their Healer found Him, and they who believed entered into His rest, this lower rest of a perfect health and perfect life; while they who were indifferent and they who doubted were left behind, crushed by the sorrow that He would have removed, and tortured by pains that His touch would have completely stilled.
And now it remains for us to gather up the light of these miracles, and to focus it on Him who was the central Figure, Jesus, the Divine Healer. And
(1) the miracles of healing speak of the knowledge of Jesus. The question, “What is man?” has been the standing question of the ages, but it is still unanswered, or answered but in part. His complex nature is still a mystery, the eternal riddle of the Sphinx, and Oedipus comes not. Physiology can number and name the bones and muscles, can tell the forms and functions of the different organs; chemistry can resolve the body into its constituent elements, and weigh out their exact proportions; philosophy can map out the departments of the mind; but man remains the great enigma. Biology carries her silken clue right up to the primordial cell; but here she finds a Gordian knot, which her keenest instruments cannot cut, or her keenest wit unravel. Within that complex nature of ours are oceans of mystery which Thought may indeed explore, but which she cannot fathom, paths which the vulture eye of Reason hath not seen, whose voices are the voices of unknown tongues, answering each other through the mist. But how familiar did Jesus seem with all these life-secrets! How intimate with all the life-forces! How versed He was in etiology, knowing without possibility of mistake whence diseases came, and just how they looked! It was no mystery to Him how the hand had shrunk, shriveling into a mass of bones, with no skill in its fingers, and no life in its clogged-up veins, or how the eyes had lost their power of vision. His knowledge of the human frame was an exact and perfect knowledge, reading its innermost secrets, as in a transparency, knowing to a certainty what links had dropped-out of the subtle mechanism, and what had been warped out of place, and knowing well just at what point and to what an extent to apply the healing remedy, which was His own volition. All earth and all heaven were without a covering; to His gaze; and what was this but Omniscience?
(2) Again, the miracles of healing speak of the compassion of Jesus. It was with no reluctance that He wrought these works of mercy; it was His delight. His heart was drawn towards suffering and pain by the magnetism of a Divine sympathy, or rather, we ought to say, towards the sufferers themselves; for suffering-and pain, like sin and woe, were exotics in His.
Fathers garden, the deadly nightshade an enemy had sown. And so we mark a great tenderness-in all His dealings with the afflicted. He does, not apply the caustic of bitter and biting words. Even when, as we may suppose, the suffering is the harvest of earlier sin, as in the case of the paralytic, Jesus speaks no harsh reproaches; He says simply and kindly, “Go in peace, and sin no more.” And do we not find here a reason why these miracles of healing were so frequent in His ministry? Was it not because in His mind Sickness was somehow related to Sin? If miracles were needed to attest the “Divineness of His mission, there was no need of the constant succession of them, no need that they should form a part, and a large part, of the daily task. Sickness is, so to speak, something unnaturally natural: It results from the transgression of some physical law, as Sin is the transgression of some moral law; and He who is mans Savior brings a complete salvation, a redemption for the body” as well as a redemption for the soul. Indeed, the diseases of the body are but the shadows, seen and felt, of the deeper diseases of the soul, and with Jesus the physical healing was but a step to the higher truth and higher experience, that spiritual cleansing, that inner creation of a right spirit, a perfect heart. And so Jesus carried on the two works side by side; they were the two parts of His one and great salvation; and as He loved and pitied the sinner, so He pitied and loved the sufferer; His sympathies all went out to meet him, preparing the way for His healing virtues to follow.
(3) Again, the miracles of healing speak of the power of Jesus. This was seen indirectly when we considered the completeness of the cures, and the wide field they covered, and we need not enlarge upon it now. But what a consciousness of might there was in Jesus! Others, prophets and apostles, have healed the sick, but their power was delegated. It came as in waves of Divine impulse, intermittent and temporary. The power that Jesus wielded was inherent and absolute, deeps which knew neither cessation nor diminution. His will was supreme over all forces. Natures potencies are diffused and isolated, slumbering in herb or metal, flower or leaf, in mountain or sea. But all are inert and useless until man distils them with his subtle alchemies, and then applies them by his slow processes, dissolving the tinctures in the blood, sending on its warm currents the healing virtue, if haply it may reach its goal and accomplish its mission. But all these potencies lay in the hand or in the will of Christ. The forces of life all were marshalled under His bidding. He had but to say to one “Go,” and it went, here or there, or any whither; nor does it go for naught; it accomplishes its high behest, the great Masters will. Nay, the power of Jesus is supreme even in that outlying and dark world of evil spirits. The demons fly at His rebuke; and let Him throw but one healing word across the dark, chaotic soul of one possessed, and in an instant Reason dawns; bright thoughts play on the horizon; the firmaments of Right and Wrong separate to infinite distances; and out of the darkness a Paradise emerges, of beauty and light, where the new son of God resides, and God Himself comes down in the cool and the heat of the days alike. What power is this? Is it not the power of God? Is it not Omnipotence?