‏ Isaiah 33:24

24. sick--Smith thinks the allusion is to the beginning of the pestilence by which the Assyrians were destroyed, and which, while sparing the righteous, affected some within the city ("sinners in Zion"); it may have been the sickness that visited Hezekiah (Is 38:1-22). In the Jerusalem to come there shall be no "sickness," because there will be no "iniquity," it being forgiven (Psa 103:3). The latter clause of the verse contains the cause of the former (Mr 2:5-9).

‏ Matthew 9:2-5

‏ John 5:14

10-16. The Jews--that is, those in authority. (See on Joh 1:19.)

it is not lawful to carry thy bed--a glorious testimony to the cure, as instantaneous and complete, from the lips of the most prejudiced! (And what a contrast does it, as all our Lord's miracles, present to the bungling miracles of the Church of Rome!) In ordinary circumstances, the rulers had the law on their side (Ne 13:15; Jr 17:21). But when the man referred them to "Him that had made him whole" (Joh 5:11) as his authority, the argument was resistless. Yet they ingeniously parried the thrust, asking him, not who had "made him whole"--that would have condemned themselves and defeated their purpose--but who had bidden him "take up his bed and walk," in other words, who had dared to order a breach of the sabbath? It is time we were looking after Him--thus hoping to shake the man's faith in his Healer.

Copyright information for JFB