[2290] The Greek term implies this. Besides its use in this narrative (St. Mark i. 27; St. Luke iv. 36, in the latter in the substantive form), it occurs in St. Mark x. 24, 32; Acts ix. 6; and as a substantive in Acts iii. 10.
[2291] This seems the better rendering.
[2292] Such is the meaning of the Greek word. I cannot understand, why the corresponding term in St. Luke should have been interpreted in The Speaker's Commentary' as typhoid fever.'
[2293] Shabb. 37 a.
[2294] The word is the same in both cases.
[2295] The term is the same. See the remarks of Volkmar (Marcus, pp. 99, 100).
[2296] Gen. xxii. 17, 18.
[2297] Is. liii.
[2298] I can scarcely find words strong enough to express my dissent from those who would limit Is. liii. 4, either on the one hand to spiritual, or on the other to physical sicknesses.' The promise is one of future deliverance from both, of a Restorer from all the woe which sin had brought. In the same way the expression taking upon Himself,' and bearing' refers to the Christ as our Deliverer, because our Substitute. Because He took upon Himself our infirmities, therefore He bore our sicknesses. That the view here given is that of the N.T., appears from a comparison of the application of the passage in St. Matt. viii. 17 with that in St. John i. 29 and 1 Pet. ii. 24. The words, as given by St. Matthew, are most truly a N.T. Targum' of the original. The LXX. renders, This man carries our sins and is pained for us;' Symmachus, Surely He took up our sins, and endured our labors;' the Targum Jon., Thus for our sins He will pray, and our iniquities will for His sake be forgiven.' (Comp. Driver and Neubauer, The Jewish Interpreters on Isaiah liii., vol. ii.) Lastly, it is with reference to this passage that the Messiah bears in the Talmud the designation, The Leprous One,' and the Sick One' (Sanh. 98 b). __________________________________________________________________
CHAPTER XV. SECOND JOURNEY THROUGH GALILEE - THE HEALING OF THE LEPER.
(St. Matt. iv. 23; viii. 2-4; St. Mark i. 35-45; St. Luke iv. 42-44; v. 12-16.)
A DAY and an evening such as of that Sabbath of healing in Capernaum must, with reverence be it written, have been followed by what opens the next section. [2299] To the thoughtful observer there is such unbroken harmony in the Life of Jesus, such accord of the inward and outward, as to carry instinctive conviction of the truth of its record. It was, so to speak, an inward necessity that the God-Man, when brought into contact with disease and misery, whether from physical or supernatural causes, should remove it by His Presence, by His touch, by His Word. An outward necessity also, because no other mode of teaching equally convincing would have reached those accustomed to Rabbinic disputations, and who must have looked for such a manifestation from One Who claimed such authority. And yet, so far from being a mere worker of miracles, as we should have expected if the history of His miracles had been of legendary origin, there is nothing more marked than the pain, we had almost said the humiliation, which their necessity seems to have carried to His heart. Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe;' an evil and adulterous generation seeketh a sign;' blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed' - such are the utterances of Him Who sighed when He opened the ears of the deaf, [2300] and bade His Apostles look for higher and better things than power over all diseases or even over evil spirits. [2301] [2302] So would not the Messiah of Jewish legend have spoken or done; nor would they who invented such miracles have so referred to them.
In truth, when, through the rift in His outward history, we catch a glimpse of Christ's inner Being, these miracles, so far as not the outcome of the mystic union of the Divine and the Human in His Person, but as part of His Mission, form part of His Humiliation. They also belong to that way which He had chosen in his initial conquest of the Tempter in the Wilderness, when He chose, not the sudden display of absolute power for the subdual of His people, but the painful, slow method of meeting the wants, and addressing Himself to the understanding and capacity of those over Whom He would reign. In this view, it seems as if we could gain a fresh understanding, not only of the expediency of His final departure, so far as concerned the future teaching of the disciples by the Holy Spirit, but of His own longing for the Advent of the Comforter. In truth, the two teachers and the two modes of teaching could not be together, and the Ascension of the Christ, as the end of His Humiliation, marked the Advent of the Holy Ghost, as bestowing another mode of teaching than that of the days of His Humiliation.