Matthew 9: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Jesus returns to his own town and heals a paralyzed man, telling him first that his sins are forgiven, which the scribes call blasphemy. He calls Matthew, a tax collector, and eats with tax collectors and sinners; he answers questions about why his disciples do not fast. He raises a ruler's daughter, heals a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years, gives sight to two blind men, and frees a man who could not speak, while the Pharisees say he drives out demons by the ruler of demons. The chapter ends with Jesus traveling to teach and heal, and telling his disciples to ask God to send workers into the harvest.

Claim by Claim

1. 9:1
   • Jesus got into a boat.
   • Jesus crossed over the water.
   • Jesus came into his own city.
2. 9:2
   • People brought to Jesus a paralyzed man lying on a bed.
   • Jesus saw their faith.
   • Jesus said to the paralyzed man to take courage.
   • Jesus called the paralyzed man son.
   • Jesus said to the paralyzed man that his sins are forgiven.
3. 9:3
   • Certain of the scribes said within themselves that this man blasphemes.
4. 9:4
   • Jesus knew their thoughts.
   • Jesus asked why they think evil in their hearts.
5. 9:5
   • Jesus asked which is easier, to say your sins are forgiven, or to say arise and walk.
6. 9:6
   • Jesus said this was so that they might know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins.
   • Jesus then said to the paralyzed man to arise.
   • Jesus told him to take up his bed.
   • Jesus told him to go to his house.
7. 9:7
   • The man arose.
   • The man departed to his house.
8. 9:8
   • The multitudes saw it.
   • The multitudes were afraid.
   • The King James says the multitudes marvelled.
   • The multitudes glorified God.
   • God had given such authority to men.
9. 9:9
   • Jesus passed on from there.
   • Jesus saw a man sitting at the tax booth.
   • The man was named Matthew.
   • Jesus said to him to follow him.
   • The man arose.
   • The man followed Jesus.
10. 9:10
    • Jesus was reclining at table in the house.
    • Many tax collectors and sinners came.
    • They reclined at table with Jesus and his disciples.
11. 9:11
    • The Pharisees saw it.
    • The Pharisees asked his disciples why their teacher eats with tax collectors and sinners.
12. 9:12
    • Jesus heard it.
    • Jesus said that the healthy have no need of a physician.
    • Jesus said that those who are sick need a physician.
13. 9:13
    • Jesus told them to go and learn what it means that God desires mercy and not sacrifice.
    • Jesus said he did not come to call the righteous.
    • Jesus said he came to call sinners.
    • The King James says he came to call sinners to repentance.
14. 9:14
    • The disciples of John came to Jesus.
    • They asked why they and the Pharisees fast but his disciples do not fast.
    • The King James says they asked why they and the Pharisees fast often.
15. 9:15
    • Jesus asked whether the companions of the bridegroom can mourn while the bridegroom is with them.
    • Jesus said days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them.
    • Jesus said that then they will fast.
16. 9:16
    • No one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment.
    • The patch pulls away from the garment.
    • A worse tear results.
17. 9:17
    • Men do not put new wine into old wineskins.
    • If they do, the wineskins burst.
    • If they do, the wine is spilled.
    • If they do, the wineskins are ruined.
    • Men put new wine into new wineskins.
    • Both the wine and the wineskins are preserved.
18. 9:18
    • While Jesus was speaking these things to them, a certain ruler came to him.
    • The ruler bowed down before him.
    • The ruler said his daughter had just died.
    • The ruler asked Jesus to come and lay his hand on her.
    • The ruler said that then she would live.
19. 9:19
    • Jesus arose.
    • Jesus followed the ruler.
    • Jesus' disciples followed as well.
20. 9:20
    • A woman had a flow of blood for twelve years.
    • The woman came up behind Jesus.
    • The woman touched the fringe of his garment.
21. 9:21
    • The woman said within herself that if she only touches his garment she will be made whole.
22. 9:22
    • Jesus turned around.
    • Jesus saw her.
    • Jesus told her to take courage.
    • Jesus called her daughter.
    • Jesus said her faith had made her whole.
    • The woman was made whole from that hour.
23. 9:23
    • Jesus came into the ruler's house.
    • Jesus saw the flute players.
    • Jesus saw the crowd making a commotion.
24. 9:24
    • Jesus told them to withdraw.
    • Jesus said the girl is not dead.
    • Jesus said the girl is sleeping.
    • They laughed at him in scorn.
25. 9:25
    • The crowd was put outside.
    • Jesus went in.
    • Jesus took hold of the girl's hand.
    • The girl arose.
26. 9:26
    • The report of this went out into all that land.
27. 9:27
    • Jesus passed on from there.
    • Two blind men followed him.
    • The two blind men cried out.
    • They asked the Son of David to have mercy on them.
28. 9:28
    • Jesus came into the house.
    • The blind men came to him.
    • Jesus asked them whether they believe that he is able to do this.
    • They said to him yes, Lord.
29. 9:29
    • Jesus touched their eyes.
    • Jesus said that it be done to them according to their faith.
30. 9:30
    • Their eyes were opened.
    • Jesus sternly charged them.
    • Jesus said that they should see that no one knows about it.
31. 9:31
    • They departed.
    • They spread the report about him in all that land.
32. 9:32
    • As they were going out, people brought to Jesus a mute man.
    • The mute man was possessed by a demon.
33. 9:33
    • The demon was cast out.
    • The mute man spoke.
    • The multitudes marvelled.
    • The multitudes said it was never so seen in Israel.
34. 9:34
    • The Pharisees said that he casts out demons by the ruler of the demons.
35. 9:35
    • Jesus went about all the cities and villages.
    • Jesus taught in their synagogues.
    • Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom.
    • Jesus healed every sickness and every disease.
    • The King James says he healed every sickness and disease among the people.
36. 9:36
    • Jesus saw the multitudes.
    • Jesus was moved with compassion for them.
    • The multitudes were harassed and cast down.
    • The King James says they fainted and were scattered abroad.
    • They were like sheep having no shepherd.
37. 9:37
    • Jesus said to his disciples that the harvest is plentiful.
    • Jesus said the laborers are few.
38. 9:38
    • Jesus told them to pray to the Lord of the harvest.
    • Jesus said to pray that he send out laborers into his harvest.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

9:1

"A ship" here is a fishing boat on the Sea of Galilee, an inland lake about thirteen miles long, not a seagoing vessel. "His own city" means Capernaum, the lakeside town Jesus had settled in after leaving Nazareth.

9:2

"Palsy" in 1611 English covered paralysis of any kind, not only the shaking that the word suggests now. The "bed" is a light sleeping mat or pallet, thin enough to roll up and carry, which is why the man can pick it up himself in verse 6.

9:3

To blaspheme is to speak of God in a way that insults him, or to claim for yourself what belongs to God alone; under the law of Moses it was a capital charge. "Said within themselves" means they thought it rather than said it aloud.

9:4

In Hebrew usage the heart is where a person thinks, decides and plans, not just where they feel. "Evil in your hearts" means the reasoning going on inside them, which is why Jesus answers thoughts rather than words. KJV "wherefore" simply means why.

9:6

"Son of man" is the title Jesus uses for himself all through Matthew. In ordinary Aramaic the phrase means simply "a human being," but it is also the figure in Daniel 7:13 who is given lasting authority by God, and both senses are available here. "Power" translates a word meaning authority or right, not physical strength. The King James parenthesis marks a sentence that breaks off before it is finished.

9:9

"The receipt of custom" was a tax and customs booth, set on a trade road or at a harbor, where duty was collected on goods passing through. Men bid for the right to run one and made their living from whatever they could take above the required amount.

9:10

"Sat at meat" means simply was eating a meal; diners reclined on low couches around a table rather than sitting upright on chairs. "Publicans" are tax collectors, local men working inside the Roman revenue system; they were widely regarded as collaborators and cheats, which is why they are paired with "sinners" as one category of the disreputable.

9:11

The Pharisees were a lay movement committed to keeping the law of Moses in exact detail, including its rules about food and about who one ate with, which is what makes a shared meal the point at issue. "Master" in 1611 English means teacher or master of a craft, not owner.

9:12

"Whole" in the King James means healthy or sound, not complete. The same word runs on into verses 21 and 22, where "made whole" means healed.

9:13

"I will have mercy, and not sacrifice" quotes Hosea 6:6. "I will have" there means "I want" or "I desire," not a prediction about the future. In Hebrew a pairing like this often means "this far more than that" rather than an outright rejection of the second thing.

9:14

Fasting meant going without food for a set stretch of time as an act of mourning or devotion. The law of Moses required it on only one day a year, but strict Pharisees fasted twice a week by custom, and John's followers kept a similarly severe discipline. John is John the Baptist, who had a circle of disciples of his own.

9:15

"The children of the bridechamber" is a Hebrew style phrase for the groom's wedding party, the friends who attended him and kept the celebration going. A village wedding feast ran about a week, and taking part in it set aside the usual religious obligations, fasting included.

9:16

"New cloth" means cloth that has not yet been shrunk. Sewn onto a garment that has already been washed and shrunk, it pulls tight the first time it gets wet and rips away, taking the old fabric with it. "The rent" means the tear.

9:17

"Bottles" here are wineskins, bags sewn from whole animal hides. Wine that is still fermenting gives off gas and stretches whatever holds it. A new skin still has give in it; one already stretched by an earlier batch has gone stiff and splits.

9:18

This "ruler" is an official of the local synagogue, a layman responsible for the building and for the order of its meetings, and a man of standing in the town. Mark's account of the same event names him Jairus. "Worshipped him" in the King James often means no more than kneeling or bowing low before a superior, the ordinary posture of someone making a request.

9:20

"An issue of blood" is a continuous flow of blood from the womb. Under the law of Moses (Leviticus 15) such a discharge left a woman ritually unclean for as long as it lasted, and whatever she touched became unclean as well, which is why she comes up from behind and says nothing. "The hem of his garment" is the tassel at the corner of the outer cloak, which Israelite men wore at the command of Numbers 15:38.

9:21

"Whole" in the King James Version means healthy or healed, not "all of something."

9:22

"Made thee whole" translates a single Greek verb that covers rescuing, healing and saving. English has to choose one of the three; "healed" catches only part of what the word carries.

9:23

"Minstrels" are flute players. Hired musicians and professional mourners were expected at a death, and even a poor household was held to owe at least two flutes and one wailing woman. The noise is the formal beginning of mourning, and it shows that the household already counts the girl as dead.

9:24

"Give place" means make room, get out. "The maid" means simply the girl, an unmarried young female. "Laughed him to scorn" means mocked him openly.

9:26

"The fame hereof went abroad" means the report of it spread through the district. "Fame" in 1611 English is news or rumor, not celebrity, and "abroad" means widely, not overseas.

9:27

"Thou son of David" addresses Jesus as the promised king descended from David, the line God had promised would rule Israel. It is a claim about who he is, not a remark about his family tree.

9:30

"Straitly charged" means ordered sternly. "Straitly" comes from "strait," meaning narrow or tight, and has nothing to do with "straight."

9:32

"Dumb" in 1611 English means unable to speak and carries no suggestion of stupidity. The King James writes "devil" where the Greek has "demon," a lesser hostile spirit, distinct from the single figure called Satan.

9:33

Israel was the land where God's people lived. It was their name as a people too.

9:34

"The prince of the devils" means the chief or ruler of the demons. The charge is that Jesus's power over them comes from being in league with their leader rather than from God. At 12:24 Matthew supplies the name used for him, Beelzebub.

9:35

A synagogue is the local assembly and the building it met in, where the community gathered on the sabbath to read and discuss the scriptures; a visiting man of standing could be invited to speak, which is how Jesus gets a hearing town by town. "Gospel" translates a word meaning good news or public announcement, the sort of report a herald brings.

9:36

"They fainted, and were scattered abroad" renders two Greek words meaning harassed or mauled, and thrown down and left lying. The picture is sheep torn at by predators and abandoned where they fall, not people who have merely grown tired.

9:37

Harvest was urgent seasonal work: a ripe crop stands only a short while, and a farmer short of hands loses it. "Labourers" are the hired day workers a landowner takes on for the reaping.

9:38

"The Lord of the harvest" is the owner of the field, the one with the standing to hire the reapers and send them out.