Mark i. 35. he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there Galilee. 36. Mark i. 37. 38. prayed. And Simon, and they that were with him, followed after him. And when they had found him, they said unto him, All men seek for thee. And he said unto them, Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also: for therefore came I forth. Luke iv.42. And the people sought him, and came unto him, and stayed him that he should not depart from them. 43. Matt.iv. 23. 24. 25. And he said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their And his fame went throughout all Syria, and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them. And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan. MATT. viii. 16. 16 When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils. MARK i. part of ver. 34. and ver. 39. 34 And he healed many-and cast out many devils; and- LUKE iv. part of ver. 40, 41, 42. and ver. 44. 40 Now when the sun-brought them unto him— 42 And when it was day, he departed, and went into a desart 44 And he preached in the synagogues of Galilee. Luke v. 12. SECTION X. Christ cures a Leper ". MATT. Viii. 2—4. MARK i. 40. to the end. LUKE V. 12—16. 7 The arguments of Newcome and Lightfoot have principally induced me to give this place to the cure of the leper, contrary to the authority of Doddridge, who has preferred the order of St. Matthew's Gospel, and arranged it after the sermon on the mount. The expression in St. Matthew's Gospel, on which this opinion is founded, is in Matt. viii. 1. karaťávri dè Mark i. 40. there came a leper to him Galilee. Luke v. 12. a man full of leprosy, who seeing Jesus, Mark i. 40. and kneeling down to him, beseeching him, Matt viii. 2. and worshipped him, Mark i. 40. and saying unto him, Matt. viii. 2. Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, αυτῷ ἀπὸ τοῦ ὄρους—and καὶ ἰδού. The same expression has in- It may be observed also in support of the arrangement now Lightfoot also has remarked, that St. Matthew was solicitous to proceed at once to the Sermon on the Mount, for which purpose he mentions several miracles together, without attending to the order in which they took place. Eichhorn has observed the same order. There does not appear to be sufficient reason for supposing that two lepers were cleansed. Both among Jews and Gentiles the leprosy has been considered as a most expressive emblem of sin, the properties and circumstances of the one pointing out those of the other. The leprosy, like sin, begins with a spot a simple hidden infection -soon spreading over the whole body, and communicating its contagious nature to every thing which it can either touch or influence. This disorder was deemed incurable by mere human means. Among the Jews God alone was considered able to remove it, and its cure was uniformly attributed to Divine Power. In like manner the contagion of sin, its guilt and its consequences, can only be removed by the hand of God: all means without his especial influence can be of no avail. In effecting the cure, our Lord asserted his sovereignty, by the phrase "I will-be thou clean." Our Saviour begins by prefiguring his power to forgive sin in its fullest extent by the cure of the leper-he soon afterwards publicly proclaims it in the case of the sick of the palsy, when he said" but that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sin," &c. (a) Chemnitius Harm. proleg. p. 17, 18. Jones' vindication of St. Matthew's Gospel-apud Newcome's notes to the Harmony, p. 14. Mark i, 41. and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou Galilee. 42. Matt. viii. 4. clean. And as soon as he he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed. And Jesus saith unto him, Mark i. 44. See thou say nothing unto any man, but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer, for thy cleansing, those things which Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them 28 43. 45. And he straightway charged him, and forthwith sent But he went out and began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter, 28 Christ commanded the leper not to tell any man till he had shewn himself to the priest, as a testimony unto them. He charges the man to be silent, on the subject of his cure, that the jealousy of the Romans, or of the Jewish rulers, should not be excited; and that his ministry should not be disturbed and interrupted by the clamors of the people, who sometimes in their zeal endeavoured to make him a king. He directed him also to the priest, and to offer the usual gift. In the Levitical law it was the office of the priest alone to cure this disease. The man was sent, therefore, that the pricst might look upon him, and declare him clean, and thus a legal proof might be given to the people, and a testimony be afforded to the priests themselves, that a greater than the priest was among them, who could heal all diseases by a word, and even the disease of the leprosy. But if the leper who had been cured had told the priest, before he was pronounced clean, that he had been healed by our Saviour, his jealousy might have refused to acknowledge the completion of the cure: and the man was therefore charged to be silent. Our Lord could not have offered a more evident proof of his divinity than this cure of the leper, for there was a prevalent tradition among the Jews, that when the Messiah should appear he should heal the leprosy. As some objections have been proposed concerning the propriety of our Lord's conduct in commanding the man whom he had cured of his leprosy to keep silence on the subject, I would direct the attention of the reader to the following admirable observations of the learned Witsius. Si ad ea quæ sequuntur attendamus, manifestum fiet, non esse indictum huic homini perpetuum silentium; sed duntaxat usque dum purgationem sui purgasset sacerdotibus, eamque testatam fecisset doni imperati oblatione. Nimirum non modo volebat Jesus divinæ legis retinens videri, quod erat revera : sed et miraculo suo fidem fieri ab ipsis sacerdotibus, et tum demum illud publicari. Ut autem fides ei fieret a sacerdotibus, præveniendi erant antequam fama miraculi in Galilæa; facti að Hierosolymitanorum aures perveniret, ne sacerdotes, quorum ea notio erat, invidiæ veneno tacti, aut leprosum eum fuisse, aut a lepra bona fide curatum esse, negarent. Ideo eum Jesus ivoiwc iibade, protinus facessere jussit, ne fama anteverteret, et silentium imperavit, donec se sacerdoti explorandum stitisset, et permissum ipsi esset munus suum offerre; quod non licebat nisi post solemnem sacerdotis declarationem. Ab eo tempore fas sanato fuit in urbem ingredi, &c. &c. &c.-Witsii, Meletemata Leidensia, Dissert. v. p. 253. Lake v. 15. But so much the more went there a fame abroad of Galilee. him, and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by him of their infirmities, Mark i. 45. insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into the Luke v. 16. and he withdrew himself into the wilderness and prayed; MATT. viii. part of ver. 2. ver. 3. and part of ver. 4. 2 And behold, there came a leper 3 And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. 4 See thou tell no man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. MARK i. part of ver. 40, and 44. 40-and-if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. LUKE iv. part of ver. 12. and ver. 13, 14. 12-saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. from him. 14 And he charged him to tell no man: but go and shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing, according as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. SECTION XI. The Paralytic cured; and the power of Christ to forgive sins asserted 29. MATT. ix. 2-8. Mark ii. 1. And again he entered into Capernaum after some days: Capernaum. and it was noised that he was in the house. 29 Where the Harmonists are all agreed in the arrangement of any particular event, which very frequently occurs, it will only be necessary to refer the reader to those Harmonists, by whose authority I am principally directed. The cure of the sick of the palsy is placed after that of the leper mentioned in Matt. viii. 2, 3, 4. by Doddridge, Newcome, Lightfoot, Pilkington, Eichhorn, and Bishop Richardson, apud Usher's Annals, p. 821. For the reasons why the order of St. Mark and St. Luke is adopted here, instead of that of St. Matthew, vide Doddridge, Fam. Exp. vol. i. p. 245. Mark connects this story with that of the leper; the word ivotoc, says Archbishop Newcome, fixes the order, (Mark ii. 2.) St. Luke does not specify the time, and St. Matthew, who seems to have deferred the narration of many facts, that the sermon on the mount might be introduced early to the Jewish reader, to whom he particularly addressed his Gospel, places several events between the cure of the leper and the paralytic. St. Luke relates the cure as happening only on a certain day, ἐγένετο ἐν μιᾷ τῶν ἡμερῶν. Our Lord asserts here, for the first time, his power to forgive 172 Mark ii. 2. Lake v. 17. 18. And straightway many were gathered together, inso- Capernaum, much that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door: and he preached the word unto them. And it came to pass on a certain day, as he was teaching, that there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come out of every town of Galilee, and Judea, and Jerusalem; and the power of the Lord was present to heal them. And behold, Mark ii. 3. they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, Mark ii. 3. which was born of four : Luke v. 18. 19. Mark ii. 4. and they sought means to bring him in, and to lay him And when they could not find by what way they might they could not come nigh him for the press; Luke v. 19. they went upon the house-top, and Mark ii. 4. Luke v. 19. Mark ii. 5. they uncovered the roof where he was; and when they let him down through the tiling, with his couch, into the When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the Matt. ix.2. be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee: sins, which he demonstrates also by another miracle, and de- The Jews believed that all disease was the consequence of -אין החולח נרפא מחוליו עד שמוחלין לו על כל עוונותיו,peccata remissa sunt a T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 55. 1. Midrach Kohelet, fol. 70. 4. apud Kimchi too, on Ps. xli. 5, has observed, When God shall Whitby, in Matt. ix. 3. supposes that the paralytic was suffering under the punishment of some particular sin, and the removal of the discase signified only the forgiveness of that particular offence. Whereas Lightfoot, on the contrary, argues that the restoration of the sick of the palsy was accompanied with the remission of all his past transgressions.-Vide Schoetgen, Horæ Hebraicæ, vol. i. p. 93. Lightoot. Whitby and Gill in loc. |