Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Matthew 4:24 - 4:24
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
24. εἰς ὅλην τὴν Συρίαν. The fame passes to the north and east, rather than to the south. Galilee is connected by trade and affinity with Damascus rather than with Jerusalem.
βασάνοις … συνεχομένους. βάσανος is (1) a ‘touch-stone,’ the lapis Lydius by which the quality of gold and other metals was tested. The process is alluded to Herod. VII. 10. Cp. also Theognis 417, ἐς βάσανον δʼ ἐλθὼν παρατρίβομαι ὥστε μολίβδῳ | χρυσός. (2) Then ‘torture’ the touch-stone of justice, because no testimony was believed unless elicited by this means, comp. the same sequence of thought in the expression ‘to put to the question.’ (3) Hence a disease that racks and agonizes the limbs like the torture which many a poor Galilæan had experienced in the courts of law.
For the question of ‘demoniacal possession’ see ch. Mat 7:22.
συνέχειν is used specially of the pressure and constraint of disease and pain; cp. Luk 4:38, συνεχομένη πυρετῷ μεγάλῳ.
σεληνιαζομένους, ‘affected by the moon;’ the changes of the moon being thought to influence mad persons. The passage is important as distinguishing demoniacal possession from lunacy.
The only special instance of curing a lunatic is recorded in ch. Mat 17:14-21 and in the parallel passages, where the symptoms described are those of epilepsy. The origin of mental disease may often be traced to licentious living. Observe the frequent instances of unclean spirits met with in these districts.
The Christian Church has followed her divine Founder’s example in this tendance of bodily ailment. The founding of hospitals and the care of the sick are distinguishing features of Christianity and among the most blessed fruits of it. A deeper respect for life and a deeper sense of purity have followed as necessary consequences.
It is contended by some that the ‘several house’ of 2Ch 26:21 was a hospital. Possibly this was so, but the spirit of Judaism in this respect was not the spirit of Christianity. It may readily be acknowledged, however, that the Jews of the present day are the foremost in works of charity and tender regard for the sick.