Matthew 17:14-23

The Disciples’ Failure to Heal

17:14 When ¹  they came to the crowd, a man came to him, knelt before him, 17:15 and said, “Lord, have mercy on my son, because he has seizures ²  and suffers terribly, for he often falls into the fire and into the water. 17:16 I brought him to your disciples, but ³  they were not able to heal him.” 17:17 Jesus answered, ⁴  “You ⁵  unbelieving ⁶  and perverse generation! How much longer ⁷  must I be with you? How much longer must I endure ⁸  you? ⁹  Bring him here to me.” 17:18 Then ¹⁰  Jesus rebuked ¹¹  the demon and it came out of him, and the boy was healed from that moment. 17:19 Then the disciples came ¹²  to Jesus privately and said, “Why couldn’t we cast it out?” 17:20 He told them, “It was because of your little faith. I tell you the truth, ¹³  if you have faith the size of ¹⁴  a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; nothing ¹⁵  will be impossible for you.”

17:21 [[EMPTY]] ¹⁶ 

Second Prediction of Jesus’ Death and Resurrection

17:22 When ¹⁷  they gathered together in Galilee, Jesus told them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. ¹⁸  17:23 They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised.” And they became greatly distressed.

[17:14]  ¹ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.

[17:15]  ² tn Grk “he is moonstruck,” possibly meaning “lunatic” (so NAB, NASB), 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).

[17:16]  ³ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “but” to indicate the contrast present in this context.

[17:17]  ⁴ tn Grk “And answering, Jesus said.” This is somewhat redundant and has been simplified in the translation.

[17:17]  ⁵ tn Grk “O.” The marker of direct address, ὦ (w), is functionally equivalent to a vocative and is represented in the translation by “you.”

[17:17]  ⁶ tn Or “faithless.”

[17:17]  ⁷ tn Grk “how long.”

[17:17]  ⁸ tn Or “put up with.” See Num 11:12; Isa 46:4.

[17:17]  ⁹ sn The pronouns you…you are plural, indicating that Jesus is speaking to a group rather than an individual.

[17:18]  ¹⁰ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “Then.”

[17:18]  ¹¹ tn Or “commanded” (often with the implication of a threat, L&N 33.331).

[17:19]  ¹² tn Grk “coming, the disciples said.” The participle προσελθόντες (proselqontes) has been translated as a finite verb to make the sequence of events clear in English.

[17:20]  ¹³ tn Grk “For truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.” Here γάρ (gar) has not been translated.

[17:20]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “faith as,” “faith like.”

[17:20]  ¹⁵ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.

[17:21]  ¹⁶ tc Many important mss (א* B Θ 0281 33 579 892* pc e ff¹ sy^s,c sa) do not include 17:21 “But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.” The verse is included in א² C D L W Ë^1,13 Ï lat, but is almost certainly not original. As B. M. Metzger notes, “Since there is no satisfactory reason why the passage, if originally present in Matthew, should have been omitted in a wide variety of witnesses, and since copyists frequently inserted material derived from another Gospel, it appears that most manuscripts have been assimilated to the parallel in Mk 9.29” (TCGNT 35). The present translation follows NA²⁷ in omitting the verse number as well, a procedure also followed by a number of other modern translations.

[17:22]  ¹⁷ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[17:22]  ¹⁸ tn The plural Greek term ἀνθρώπων (anqrwpwn) is considered by some to be used here in a generic sense, referring to both men and women (cf. NRSV “into human hands”; TEV, CEV “to people”). However, because this can be taken as a specific reference to the group responsible for Jesus’ arrest, where it is unlikely women were present (cf. Matt 26:47-56; Mark 14:43-52; Luke 22:47-53; John 18:2-12), the word “men” has been retained in the translation. There may also be a slight wordplay with “the Son of Man” earlier in the verse.