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Matthew

About this book
Chapter 8

1 After he came down from the mountain, large crowds followed him.⁠ 2 And a leper approached and bowed low before him, saying, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” 3 He stretched out his hand and touched him saying, “I am willing. Be clean!” Immediately his leprosy was cleansed. 4 Then Jesus said to him, “See that you do not speak to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest, and bring the offering that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” 5 When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him asking for help: 6 “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible anguish.” 7 Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.” 8 But the centurion replied, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof! Instead, just say the word and my servant will be healed. 9 For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave ‘Do this!’ and he does it.” 10 When Jesus heard this he was amazed and said to those who followed him, “I tell you the truth, I have not found such faith in anyone in Israel! 11 I tell you, many will come from the east and west to share the banquet⁠ with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven,⁠ 12 but the sons of the kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness,⁠ where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 13 Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go; just as you believed, it will be done for you.” And the servant was healed at that hour. 14 Now when Jesus entered Peter’s house, he saw his mother-in-law lying down, sick with a fever. 15 He touched her hand, and the fever left her. Then she got up and began to serve them. 16 When it was evening, many demon-possessed people were brought to him. He drove out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick. 17 In this way what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah was fulfilled: “He took our weaknesses and carried our diseases.”⁠ 18 Now when Jesus saw a large crowd around him, he gave orders to go to the other side of the lake. 19 Then an expert in the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” 20 Jesus said to him, “Foxes have dens, and the birds in the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”⁠ 21 Another of the disciples said to him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.”⁠ 22 But Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” 23 As he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. 24 And a great storm developed on the sea so that the waves began to swamp the boat. But he was asleep. 25 So they came and woke him up saying, “Lord, save us! We are about to die!” 26 But he said to them, “Why are you cowardly, you people of little faith?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and it was dead calm.⁠ 27 And the men were amazed and said, “What sort of person is this? Even the winds and the sea obey him!” 28 When he came to the other side, to the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were extremely violent, so that no one was able to pass by that way. 29 They cried out, “Son of God, leave us alone! Have you come here to torment us before the time?” 30 A large herd of pigs was feeding some distance from them. 31 Then the demons begged him, “If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs.” 32 And he said, “Go!” So they came out and went into the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep slope into the lake and drowned in the water. 33 The herdsmen ran off, went into the town, and told everything that had happened to the demon-possessed men. 34 Then the entire town came out to meet Jesus. And when they saw him, they begged him to leave their region.

Texts in conversation

Compare Isaiah 53:4 and Matthew 8:17

Hebrew Bible · New Testament

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Summary

Matthew 8 shows how the Gospels use Isaiah 53 to explain Jesus’ healings, interpreting the servant’s bearing of pain as support for others. This contrasts with later interpretive traditions that use Isaiah 53 to explain Jesus’ death.

Passages

Isaiah 53:4

Hebrew Bible
3 He was despised and rejected by people, one who experienced pain and was acquainted with illness; people hid their faces from him; he was despised, and we considered him insignificant. 4 But he lifted up our illnesses, he carried our pain; even though we thought he was being punished, attacked by God, and afflicted for something he had done. 5 He was wounded because of our rebellious deeds, crushed because of our sins; he endured punishment that made us well; because of his wounds we have been healed. 6 All of us had wandered off like sheep; each of us had strayed off on his own path, but the Lord caused the sin of all of us to attack him.
740–450 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Isaiah

Matthew 8:17

New Testament
15 He touched her hand, and the fever left her. Then she got up and began to serve them. 16 When it was evening, many demon-possessed people were brought to him. He drove out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick. 17 In this way what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah was fulfilled: “He took our weaknesses and carried our diseases.” 18 Now when Jesus saw a large crowd around him, he gave orders to go to the other side of the lake. 19 Then an expert in the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”
70–90 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Matthew

References

"... The references to what is usually called the Servant Song are absent from the earliest strata of the New Testament. It can thus be argued that the initial notion of Jesus’ beneficiary death—to the extent that it was linked to Jesus’ own views—seems not to have derived from Isaiah 53. For this investigation, which focuses not on the “earliest strata” but rather on the attitude characteristic of Luke/Acts, it is important that there are only scanty references to Isaiah 53 elsewhere in the Gospels—and not necessarily with an eye to the vicarious aspect of suffering! A brief review of relevant passages in the Gospels outside Luke will help to achieve a better appreciation of the latter’s contribution. First, a passage from Matthew 8:17 represents an instructive case of restricting the exegetical potential of the Servant Song to providing a justification for Jesus’ healing activities—in contradiction or at best only in anticipation of its function as a biblical proof text for the salvific meaning of the cross ..."
Serge Ruzer, Mapping the New Testament: Early Christian Writings as a Witness for Jewish Biblical Exegesis (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 207.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Isaiah 53:4 and Matthew 8:17

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