Vv. 23-25. Summary account of the Galilean ministry. A colourless general statement serving as a mere prelude to chapters v.-ix. It points to a ministry in Galilee, varied, extensive, and far-famed, conceived by the evangelist as antecedent to the Sermon on the Mount; not necessarily covering a long period of time, though if the expression ‘“ teaching in their synagogues” be pressed it must imply a good many weeks (vide on Mk.).
94
bCh. ἰχ.45 θεραπεύων πᾶσαν νόσον καὶ πᾶσαν " µαλακίαν ἐν τῷ had.
24. Kal
¢ Ch. xiv. 1; ἀπῆλθεν 1 ἡ "ἀκοὴ αὐτοῦ cis ὅλην τὴν Συρίαν: καὶ προσήνεγκαν
ν. 6. - » ‘ η 4 Ch. viii. αὐτῷ πάντας τοὺς ἁκακῶς ἔχοντας, ποικίλαις νόσοις καὶ " βασάνοις 16; ix. 12 .2 + κ , . συνεχοµένους, Kai? δαιµονιζομένους, καὶ ’ σεληνιαζομένους, Kai Lk. xvi. ‘ , > ’ . > °'8, Ὑπαραλυτικούς: καὶ ἐθεράπευσεν αὐτού. 25. καὶ ἠκολούθησαν
Ε6, ανί]. 15. , - αὐτῷ
ὄχλοι πολλοὶ ἀπὸ τῆς Γαλιλαίας καὶ Δεκαπόλεως καὶ ‘lepo-
σολύμων καὶ Ἰουδαίας, καὶ πέραν τοῦ ᾿Ιορδάνου.
1 So in BD (W.H.), εξηλθεν in NC.
2 BC omit και, which isin C?D. The force of και = and especially.
The ministry embraced three functions : διδάσκων, κηρύσσων, θεραπεύων (ver. 23), teaching, preaching, healing. Jesus was an evangelist, a master, and a healer of disease. Matt. puts the teaching function first in accordance with the character of his gospel. The first gospel is weak in the evangelistic element com- pared with the third: διδαχή is more prominent than κήρνγµα. he healing function is represented as exercised on a large scale: πᾶσαν νόσον καὶ πᾶσαν µαλακίαν, every form of disease and ailment. Euthy. Zig. defines νόσος as the chronic subversion of health (ἡ
ονία παρατροπὴ τῆς τοῦ σώματος teas), μαλακία as the weakness in which it begins (4px) Χανγώσεως σώματος, προάγγελος νόσον). The subjects of healing are divided into two classes, ver. tg. ‘They brought to Him πάντας τ. «. ty. ποικίλαις νόσοις, all who were afflicted with various diseases (such as fever, leprosy, blindness); also those βασάνοις σννεχοµένους, seized with dis- eases of a tormenting nature, of which three classes are named—the καὶ in T. R. Ὀείοτεδαιμον. is misleading; the follow- ing words are epexegetical : vilopé- νους, σεληνιαζομένους, π ντικούς = demoniacs, epileptics (their seizures following the phases of the moon), paralytics. These forms of disease are
aphically called torments. (βάσανος, ia, a touch-stone, {αρ Lydius, as in Pindar, Pythia, x. 105: Πειρῶντι δὲ καὶ χρυσὸς ἐν βασάνῳ πρέπει καὶ νόος ὀρθός; then an instrument of torture to extract truth; then, as here, tormenting forms of disease.) The fame, 4 ἀκοὴ, of such a marvellous ministry naturally spread widely, «lg ὅλην τὴν Σνρίαν, throughout the whole province to which Palestine belonged, among Gentiles as well as Jews. Crowds gathered around the wonderful Man from all quarters: west, east, north, south; Galilee, Decapolis on the eastern side of the lake, Jerusalem
and Judaea, Peraea. With every allow ance for the exaggeration of a popular account, this speaks to an extraordinary impression.
Cuapters V.-VII. THE SERMON ON THE Mount. This extended utterance of Jesus comes upon us as a surprise. Nothing goes before to prepare us to expect anything so transcendently great. The impressions made on che Baptist, the people in Capernaum Synagogue (Mk. i. 27), and the four fishermen, speak to wisdom, power, and personal charm, but not so as to make us take the sermon as a thing of course. Our surprise is all the greater that there is so little ante- cedent narrative. By απ effort of imagination we have to realise that much went before—preaching, teaching, interviews with disciples, conflicts with Pharisees, only once mentioned hitherto (iii. 7), yet here the leading theme of discourse.
The sermon belongs to the didache, not to the banana sone is here the Master, not the Evangelist. He ascends the hill to get away from the crowds below, and the disciples, now become a considerable band, gather about Him. Others may not be excluded, but the pa- θηταὶ are the audience proper. The dis- course may represent the teaching, not of a single hour or day, but of a period of retirement from an exciting, exhausting ministry below, and all over Galilee ; rest being sought in variation of work, evangelist and teacher alternately. A better name for these chapters than the Sermon on the Mount, which suggests a concio ad populum, might be The Teach- ing on the Hill. It may be a combina- tion of several lessons. One very outstanding topic is Pharisaic righteous- ness. Christ evidently made it His business in one of the hill lessons to define controversially His position in reference to the prevailing type οι piety, which we may assume to have been to