Matthew 4:23-25

Jesus’ Healing Ministry

4:23 Jesus ¹  went throughout all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, ²  preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of disease and sickness among the people. 4:24 So a report about him spread throughout Syria. People ³  brought to him all who suffered with various illnesses and afflictions, those who had seizures, ⁴  paralytics, and those possessed by demons, ⁵  and he healed them. 4:25 And large crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, ⁶  Jerusalem, ⁷  Judea, and beyond the Jordan River. ⁸ 

Matthew 9:35-36

Workers for the Harvest

9:35 Then Jesus went throughout all the towns ⁹  and villages, teaching in their synagogues, ¹⁰  preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and sickness. ¹¹  9:36 When ¹²  he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were bewildered and helpless, ¹³  like sheep without a shepherd.

Matthew 12:15

God’s Special Servant

12:15 Now when Jesus learned of this, he went away from there. Great ¹⁴  crowds ¹⁵  followed him, and he healed them all.

Matthew 14:35-36

14:35 When the people ¹⁶  there recognized him, they sent word into all the surrounding area, and they brought all their sick to him. 14:36 They begged him if ¹⁷  they could only touch the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.

Matthew 15:30-31

15:30 Then ¹⁸  large crowds came to him bringing with them the lame, blind, crippled, mute, and many others. They ¹⁹  laid them at his feet, and he healed them. 15:31 As a result, the crowd was amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking, and the blind seeing, and they praised the God of Israel.

Mark 6:55-56

6:55 They ran through that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever he was rumored to be. ²⁰  6:56 And wherever he would go – into villages, towns, or countryside – they would place the sick in the marketplaces, and would ask him if ²¹  they could just touch the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.

¹ tn Grk “And he.”

² sn Synagogues were places for Jewish prayer and worship, with recognized leadership (cf. Luke 8:41). Though the origin of the synagogue is not entirely clear, it seems to have arisen in the postexilic community during the intertestamental period. A town could establish a synagogue if there were at least ten men. In normative Judaism of the NT period, the OT scripture was read and discussed in the synagogue by the men who were present (see the Mishnah, m. Megillah 3-4; m. Berakhot 2).

³ tn Grk “And they”; “they” is probably an indefinite plural, referring to people in general rather than to the Syrians (cf. v. 25).

⁴ tn Grk “those who were moonstruck,” possibly meaning “lunatic” (so NAB), although now the term is generally regarded as referring to some sort of seizure disorder such as epilepsy (L&N 23.169; BDAG 919 s.v. σεληνιάζομαι).

⁵ tn The translation has adopted a different phrase order here than that in the Greek text. The Greek text reads, “People brought to him all who suffered with various illnesses and afflictions, those possessed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics.” Even though it is obvious that four separate groups of people are in view here, following the Greek word order could lead to the misconception that certain people were possessed by epileptics and paralytics. The word order adopted in the translation avoids this problem.

⁶ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated before each of the places in the list, since English normally uses a coordinating conjunction only between the last two elements in a series of three or more.

⁷ map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

⁸ tn “River” is not in the Greek text but is supplied for clarity. The region referred to here is sometimes known as Transjordan (i.e., “across the Jordan”).

⁹ tn Or “cities.”

¹⁰ sn See the note on synagogues in 4:23.

¹¹ tn Grk “and every [kind of] sickness.” Here “every” was not repeated in the translation for stylistic reasons.

¹² tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

¹³ tn Or “because they had been bewildered and helpless.” The translational issue is whether the perfect participles are predicate (as in the text) or are pluperfect periphrastic (the alternate translation). If the latter, the implication would seem to be that the crowds had been in such a state until the Great Shepherd arrived.

¹⁴ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.

¹⁵ tc א B pc lat read only πολλοί (polloi, “many”) here, the first hand of N reads ὄχλοι (ocloi, “crowds”), while virtually all the rest of the witnesses have ὄχλοι πολλοί (ocloi polloi, “great crowds”). In spite of the good quality of both א and B (especially in combination), and the testimony of the Latin witnesses, the longer reading is most likely correct; the shorter readings were probably due to homoioteleuton.

¹⁶ tn Grk “men”; the word here (ἀνήρ, anhr) usually indicates males or husbands, but occasionally is used in a generic sense of people in general, as here (cf. BDAG 79 s.v. 1.a, 2).

¹⁷ tn Grk “asked that they might touch.”

¹⁸ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “Then.”

¹⁹ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.

²⁰ tn Grk “wherever they heard he was.”

²¹ tn Grk “asked that they might touch.”