Peter and his family were evidently living in Capernaum when Jesus performed this miracle (4:13). People considered fever a disease in Jesus' day rather than a symptom of a disease (cf. John 4:52; Acts 28:8). Jesus healed Peter's mother-in-law with a touch. His touch did not defile the healer, but it healed the defiled (cf. v. 3). Matthew consistently stressed Jesus' authority in this brief pericope. He probably mentioned the fact that when Jesus healed the woman she immediately began to serve Him to illustrate the instantaneous effectiveness of Jesus power (cf. v. 26). Usually a fever leaves the body weak, but Jesus overcame that here.380
"Some see great significance in Matthew's deliberate rearrangement of these miracles. Since Matthew did not follow the chronological order, it seems he intended to illustrate the plan of his Gospel. Accordingly, the first miracle shows Christ ministering to the Jews. His mighty works bore testimony to His person, but His testimony was rejected. Consequently, He turns to the Gentiles, who manifest great faith in Him. Later, He returns to the Jews, represented by the mother-in-law of the apostle to the Jews. He heals her and all who come to Him. This third picture is that of the millennium, when the King restores Israel and blesses all the nations."381
By healing a leper who was a social outcast, a Gentile, and finally a woman, Jesus was extending His grace to people the Jews either excluded or ignored as unimportant. Jewish narrowness did not bind Jesus any more than disease and uncleanness contaminated Him.382
"He began with the unfit persons for whom there was no provision in the economy of the nation."383
This miracle shows Jesus' power to heal people fully, instantaneously and completely.
