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Mat_12:10. The nature of the affection of the withered hand, in which there was a defective circulation (1Ki_13:4; Zec_11:17; Joh_5:3), cannot be further defined. It is certain, however, that what was wrong was not merely a deficiency in the power of moving the hand, in which case the cure would be sufficiently explained by our Lord’s acting upon the will and the muscular force (Keim).
The traditions forbade healing on the Sabbath, except in cases where life was in danger. Wetstein and Schoettgen on this passage.
εἰ ] in the New Testament (Winer, p. 474 [E. T. 639]; Buttmann, neut. Gr. p. 214 [E. T. 249]) is so applied, in opposition to classical usage (see Hartung, Partikell. II. p. 202 f.; Klotz, ad Devar. pp. 508, 511), that it directly introduces the words containing the question. Comp. Mat_19:3; Luk_13:22; Luk_22:49; Act_1:6; occurring also in the LXX., not in the Apocrypha. However, in the order of ideas in the mind of the questioner is to be found the logical connection, which has occasioned and which will explain the indirectly interrogative use of εἰ (I would like to know, or some such expression), just as we Germans are also in the habit of asking at once: ob das erlaubt ist? The character of the questions introduced by εἰ is that of uncertainty and hesitation (Hartung, 1. 1; Kühner, II. 2, p. 1032), which in this instance is quite in keeping with the tempting which the questioners had in view. Fritzsche’s purely indirect interpretation (“interrogarunt eum hoc modo, an liceret,” etc.) is precluded by λέγοντες , and the passages where the question is preceded by some form of address such as κύριε in Act_1:6; Luk_22:49.
ἵνα κατηγορ . αὐτοῦ ] before the local court ( κρίσις , Mat_5:21) in the town, and that on the charge of teaching to violate the law of the Sabbath.