Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Matthew 9:12

"But when he heard it, he said, They that are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick." — Matthew 9:12 (ASV)

These verses again connect Jesus’ healing ministry with his “healing” of sinners . The sick need a doctor and Jesus heals them; likewise the sinful need mercy and forgiveness, and Jesus heals them. The Pharisees were not so healthy as they thought (cf. 7:1–5); more important, they did not understand the purpose of Jesus’ mission. Expecting a Messiah who would crush the sinful and support the righteous, they had little place for one who accepted and transformed the sinner and dismissed the “righteous” as hypocrites. Jesus explained his mission in terms reminiscent of 1:21.

Jesus challenges the Pharisees to “go and learn” from Hos 6:6. Use of this formula may be slightly sarcastic—that those who prided themselves in their knowledge of and conformity to Scripture needed to “go and learn” what it means.

The Hebrew word for “mercy” (GK 2876) is close in meaning to “faithful covenant love,” which, according to Hosea, is more important than “sacrifice” (an aspect of ritual worship). As applied to the Pharisees by Jesus, therefore, the Hosea quotation was not simply telling them that they should be more sympathetic to outcasts and less concerned about ceremonial purity, but that they were being aligned with the apostates of ancient Israel in that they too were preserving the shell while losing the heart of the matter, as exemplified by their attitude to tax collectors and sinners. On Jesus’ final statement, see comment on Mk 2:17.