Matthew 8:1-4

Cleansing a Leper

8:1 After he came down from the mountain, large crowds followed him. 8:2 And a leper ¹  approached, and bowed low before him, saying, ²  “Lord, if ³  you are willing, you can make me clean.” 8:3 He stretched out his hand and touched ⁴  him saying, “I am willing. Be clean!” Immediately his leprosy was cleansed. 8:4 Then Jesus said to him, “See that you do not speak to anyone, ⁵  but go, show yourself to a priest, and bring the offering ⁶  that Moses commanded, ⁷  as a testimony to them.” ⁸ 

Matthew 10:8

10:8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, ⁹  cleanse lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give.

Matthew 10:2

10:2 Now these are the names of the twelve apostles: ¹⁰  first, Simon ¹¹  (called Peter), and Andrew his brother; James son of Zebedee and John his brother;

Matthew 5:7

5:7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Matthew 5:14

5:14 You are the light of the world. A city located on a hill cannot be hidden.

[8:2]  ¹ tn Grk “And behold, a leper came.” The Greek word ἰδού (idou) has not been translated because it has no exact English equivalent here, but adds interest and emphasis (BDAG 468 s.v. 1).

[8:2]  ² tn Grk “a leper approaching, bowed low before him, saying.”

[8:2]  ³ tn This is a third class condition. The report portrays the leper making no presumptions about whether Jesus will heal him or not.

[8:3]  ⁴ sn Touched. This touch would have rendered Jesus ceremonially unclean (Lev 14:46; also Mishnah, m. Nega’im 3.1; 11.1; 12.1; 13.6-12).

[8:4]  ⁵ sn The command for silence was probably meant to last only until the cleansing took place with the priests and sought to prevent Jesus’ healings from becoming the central focus of the people’s reaction to him. See also 9:30, 12:16, 16:20, and 17:9 for other cases where Jesus asks for silence concerning him and his ministry.

[8:4]  ⁶ tn Grk “gift.”

[8:4]  ⁷ sn On the phrase bring the offering that Moses commanded see Lev 14:1-32.

[8:4]  ⁸ tn Or “as an indictment against them.” The pronoun αὐτοῖς (autoi") may be a dative of disadvantage.

[10:8]  ⁹ tc The majority of Byzantine minuscules, along with a few other witnesses (C³ K L Γ Θ 700* al), lack νεκροὺς ἐγείρετε (nekrou" ejgeirete, “raise the dead”), most likely because of oversight due to a string of similar endings (-ετε in the second person imperatives, occurring five times in v. 8). The longer version of this verse is found in several diverse and ancient witnesses such as א B C* (D) N 0281^vid Ë^1,13 33 565 al lat; P W Δ 348 have a word-order variation, but nevertheless include νεκροὺς ἐγείρετε. Although some Byzantine-text proponents charge the Alexandrian witnesses with theologically-motivated alterations toward heterodoxy, it is interesting to find a variant such as this in which the charge could be reversed (do the Byzantine scribes have something against the miracle of resurrection?). In reality, such charges of wholesale theologically-motivated changes toward heterodoxy are immediately suspect due to lack of evidence of intentional changes (here the change is evidently due to accidental omission).

[10:2]  ¹⁰ sn The term apostles is rare in the gospels, found only here, Mark 3:14, and six more times in Luke (6:13; 9:10; 11:49; 17:5; 22:14; 24:10).

[10:2]  ¹¹ sn In the various lists of the twelve, Simon (that is, Peter) is always mentioned first (see also Mark 3:16-19; Luke 6:13-16; Acts 1:13) and the first four are always the same, though not in the same order after Peter.