Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 9

Here again, the order of the narrated events varies so much in the three Gospels that the efforts of the harmonist are baffled.

It can be seen that (1) and (2) are grouped together in all three Gospels, as are the two events in (3). Beyond this, however, we cannot trace any systematic order, and the apparent notes of sequence are therefore misleading. In this case, St. Matthew makes the return to Capernaum follow the healing of the Gadarene demoniacs. St. Mark and St. Luke place it after the healing of the leper, but they seem uncertain about its exact position, using phrases like “after certain days” or “on one of the days.”

Ship—This is better translated as boat.

Into his own city—St. Mark definitively identifies this as Capernaum, which had become Jesus’s “own city” since His departure from Nazareth (Matthew 4:13). Nazareth, though the home of His childhood, is never described this way.

They brought to him — From the other Gospels we learn the following:

1. He was teaching in a house (Luke 5:17), apparently in an upper room, while the people stood listening in the courtyard.
2. The courtyard was so crowded that even the gateway leading into the street was filled (Mark 2:2).
3. Among the hearers were Pharisees and Doctors of the Law who had come not only from “every village of Galilee and Judea,” but also “from Jerusalem.”
4. The power of the Lord was present to heal them (Luke 5:17); that is, as He taught, the sick were brought to Him and were cured by either a word or a touch.

This last fact is important as one of the few traces in the first three Gospels of an unrecorded ministry in Jerusalem, and it throws light on much that follows. They had apparently come to see how the new Teacher, who had so startled them in Jerusalem, was carrying on His work in Galilee and, as far as they could, to hinder it.

A man sick of the palsy — St. Matthew and St. Mark use the popular term “paralytic;” St. Luke, with perhaps more technical precision, uses the participle of the verb, “who was paralysed.” The man was carried on a couch (St. Mark uses the Greek form of the Latin grabatum, the bed or mattress of the poor) by four bearers (Mark 2:3).

They tried to bring him through the door but were hindered by the crowd. So, they went outside, got on the roof, and removed part of it—a task made comparatively easy by the light structure of Eastern houses. They then let him down with ropes through the opening into the middle of the crowd, right in front of the Teacher (Mark 2:4; Luke 5:19). This persistence implied faith in His power to heal on the part of both the sick man and his bearers.

Son, be of good cheer — Better, child. The word implies, perhaps , comparative youth, or perhaps a fatherly tone of love and pity on the part of the speaker. Here, as elsewhere, pity is the starting point of our Lord’s work of healing, and He looked with infinite tenderness on the dejected expression of the sufferer, who had lost heart and hope.

Thy sins be forgiven thee — To modern ears, the English is ambiguous and suggests a prayer or a wish. The Greek, however, is either the present or the perfect passive of the indicative: “Thy sins are” or “have been forgiven thee.” The words were addressed, we must believe, to the secret yearnings of the sufferer. Sickness had made him conscious of the burden of his sins, perhaps having come (as such forms of nervous exhaustion often do) as the direct consequence of his sin. The Healer saw that the disease of the soul must first be removed, and then the time would come for restoring strength to the body.

This man blasphemes — The words were merely an echo of the charge brought at Jerusalem, that “He made Himself equal with God” (John 5:18), and may well have come from some of the same objectors. Mark and Luke give the grounds for their accusation: “Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

Abstractly speaking, they were affirming one of the first principles of all true religious belief. All sins are offenses against God, and therefore, although people may forgive trespasses as far as they themselves are concerned, the ultimate act of forgiveness belongs to God only. For a mere man to claim the right of forgiving so absolutely was to claim a divine attribute and therefore to blaspheme—that is, to utter words as disparaging to the majesty of God as open profanity.

What they forgot to take into account were two possibilities:

1. That God might delegate His power to His chosen servants, so that they, with sufficient evidence of that delegation, might rightly declare sins to be forgiven.
2. That the Teacher might Himself be one with God, and thus share in His perfections and prerogatives.

Based on either of these suppositions, the charge of blasphemy was fully answered. The sin of the scribes lay in their ignoring the fact that He had given sufficient proof of the first possibility, if not of the second as well.

Knowing their thoughts — The better manuscripts read “seeing,” as if by an immediate act of intuition. St. Mark adds his usual “immediately,” and both he and St. Luke use the word that implies full knowledge.

Why do you think evil? — Literally, evil things. The thoughts were evil because, in the face of the mighty works and divine wisdom of the Teacher, they were assuming He had wantonly spoken words that involved the most extreme form of sin against the God in whose name He taught.

Which is easier...? — The form of the question implies what we call an argument à fortiori. It was easier to say, Thy sins are forgiven thee, because those words could not be subjected to any outward test; only the sinner's own awareness could attest to their power. It was a bolder and harder thing to risk uttering words that challenged an immediate and visible fulfillment, yet He was content to speak them without fear of the result.

Viewed in their true relationship, the spiritual wonder was, of course, the greater. But here, as so often elsewhere, He puts Himself on the level of His hearers, condescending to speak to them according to their own way of thinking.