Matthew Henry

As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: “Behold, I will send My messenger ahead of You, who will prepare Your way.”

“Quotations are here borrowed from two prophecies--that of Isaiah, which was the longest, and that of Malachi, which was the latest (and there were above three hundred years between them), both of whom spoke to the same purport concerning the beginning of the gospel of…”

Early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up and slipped out to a solitary place to pray.

“He prayed, prayed alone; to set us an example of secret prayer. Though as God he was prayed to, as man he prayed.”

Then a leper came to Jesus, begging on his knees: “If You are willing, You can make me clean.”

“His address is not in the form of prayer, yet Christ answered it as a request. Note, Affectionate professions of faith in Christ, and resignations to him, are the most prevailing petitions for mercy from him, and shall speed accordingly. (1.)”

And immediately the leprosy left him, and the man was cleansed.

“What to do when we have received mercy from Christ. We must with his favours receive his commands. When Christ had cured him, he strictly charged him; the word here is very significant, embrimesamenos -- graviter interminatus--prohibiting with threats.”

“Which is easier: to say to a paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, pick up your mat, and walk’?

“This was a suitable argument in itself. He could not have cured the disease, which was the effect, if he could not have taken away the sin, which was the cause.”

While Jesus was dining at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with Him and His disciples—for there were many who followed Him.

“Fitly did he make the day of his espousals to Christ a festival day. This was also to testify his respect to Christ, and the grateful sense he had of his kindness, in snatching him from the receipt of custom as a brand out of…”

Jesus replied, “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while He is with them? As long as He is with them, they cannot fast.

“His disciples from the first inured themselves to hardships, and thus found it easier to bear strict and frequent fasting, but it was not so with Christ's disciples; their Master came eating and drinking, and had not bred them up to the difficult services of…”

Jesus replied, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need?

“This, it is said, David did in the days of Abiathar the High-Priest; or just before the days of Abiathar, who immediately succeeded Abimelech his father in the pontificate, and, it is probable, was at that time his father's deputy, or assistant, in the office…”

Then Jesus declared, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

“The sabbath is a sacred and divine institution; but we must receive and embrace it as a privilege and a benefit, not as a task and a drudgery.”

Jesus looked around at them with anger and sorrow at their hardness of heart. Then He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.”

“Note, The sin of sinners is very displeasing to Jesus Christ; and the way to be angry, and not to sin, is it be angry, as Christ was, at nothing but sin.”

For He had healed so many that all who had diseases were pressing forward to touch Him.

“They pressed upon him, to touch him, as many as had plagues. Diseases are here called plagues, mastigas -- corrections, chastisements; so they are designed to be, to make us smart for our sins, that thereby we may be made sorry for them, and may…”

And the scribes who had come down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and, “By the prince of the demons He drives out demons.”

“Satan is not cast out, he only goes out by consent. There was nothing in the manner of Christ's casting out devils, that gave any cause to suspect this; he did it as one having authority; but so they will have it, who resolve not…”

Truly I tell you, the sons of men will be forgiven all sins and blasphemies, as many as they utter.

“Many of those who reviled Christ on the cross (which was a blaspheming of the Son of man, aggravated to the highest degree), found mercy, and Christ himself prayed, Father, forgive them; but this was blaspheming the Holy Ghost, for it was by the Holy…”

Night and day in the tombs and in the mountains he kept crying out and cutting himself with stones.

“Men in frenzies often wound and destroy themselves; what is a man, when reason is de throned and Satan en throned? The worshippers of Baal in their fury cut themselves, like this madman in his.”

For Jesus had already declared, “Come out of this man, you unclean spirit!”

“Here is an instance of the power and authority with which Christ commanded the unclean spirits, and they obeyed him, ch. i. He said, Come out of the man.”

“What is your name?” Jesus asked. “My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.”

“Military powers; a legion is a number of soldiers in arms. The devils war against God and his glory, Christ and his gospel, men and their holiness and happiness. They are such as we are to resist and wrestle against, Eph. vi.”

As He was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed by the demons begged to go with Him.

“Those that are freed from the evil spirit, cannot but covet acquaintance and fellowship with Christ. Christ would not suffer him to go with him, lest it should savour of ostentation, and to let him know that he could both protect and instruct him at…”

A synagogue leader named Jairus arrived, and seeing Jesus, he fell at His feet

“Now among the many that applied themselves to him, I. Here is one, that comes openly to beg a cure for a sick child; and it is no less a person than one of the rulers of the synagogue, one that presided in the synagogue-worship…”

So Jesus went with him, and a large crowd followed and pressed around Him.

“Here is another, that comes clandestinely to steal a cure (if I may so say) for herself; and she got the relief she came for.”

For she kept saying, “If only I touch His garments, I will be healed.”

“She believed that he cured, not as a prophet, by virtue derived from God, but as the Son of God, by a virtue inherent in himself.”

His disciples answered, “You can see the crowd pressing in on You, and yet You ask, ‘Who touched Me?’”

“He needed not that any should inform him, for he had presently his eye upon her. Note, As secret acts of sin, so secret acts of faith, are known to the Lord Jesus, and are under his eye.”

While He was still speaking, messengers from the house of Jairus arrived and said, “Your daughter is dead; why bother the Teacher anymore?”

“Be not afraid, only believe. We may suppose Jairus at a pause, whether he should ask Christ to go on or no; but have we not as much occasion for the grace of God, and his consolations, and consequently of the prayers of our ministers…”

So He could not perform any miracles there, except to lay His hands on a few of the sick and heal them.

“Note, By unbelief and contempt of Christ men stop the current of his favours to them, and put a bar in their own door. He marvelled because of their unbelief,”

And He was amazed at their unbelief. And He went around from village to village, teaching the people.

“We never find Christ wondering but at the faith of the Gentiles that were strangers, as the centurion ( Matt. viii. 10 ), and the woman of Samaria, and at the unbelief of Jews that were his own countrymen.”

They also drove out many demons and healed many of the sick, anointing them with oil.

“Some think this oil was used medicinally, according to the custom of the Jews; but I rather think it was used as a sign of miraculous healing, by the appointment of Christ, though not mentioned; and it was afterward used by those elders of the…”