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Mat_4:23-24 serve by way of introduction to the Sermon on the Mount, where the description is manifestly exaggerated as regards the time of the first ministry of Jesus, and betray the work of a later hand in the redaction of our Gospel. Comp. Mat_9:35.
The synagogues were places of assembly for public worship, where on Sabbaths and feast days (at a later period, also on the second and fifth days of the week, Jerusalem Megillah, f. 75. 1; Babylonian Bava Cama, f. 82. 1) the people met together for prayer, and to listen to the reading of portions of the Old Testament, which were translated and explained in the vernacular dialect. With the permission of the president, any one who was fitted might deliver addresses. Vitringa, de synagoga veterum, Franecker 1696; Keil, Archäol. § 30; Leyrer in Herzog’s Encykl. XV. p. 299 ff.; Keim, Gesch. J. I. p. 432 ff.
αὐτῶν ] of the Galileans.
πᾶσαν ] every kind of sickness which was brought to Him. See Hermann, ad Viger. p. 728, μαλακία , weakness, deprivation of strength through sickness. Herod. Vit. Hom. 36, and often in the LXX. Comp. μαλακίζομαι and μαλακιῶ , Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 389. In the N. T. only in Matthew (Mat_10:35, Mat_10:1).
ἐν τῷ λαῷ ] belongs to θεραπ . Comp. Act_5:12; Act_6:8.
Observe that such summary accumulations of the activity of Jesus in healing as Mat_5:23 f. (Mat_8:16, Mat_12:15) are not mentioned in John’s Gospel. They are, moreover, especially at so early a date, not in keeping with the gradual progress of the history, although explicable enough in the case of a simple historian, who, easily anticipating the representation which he had formed from the whole history, gives a summary statement in the account of a single portion of the narrative.