Matthew 8:8-26

Notes

Matthew 8:8 . Not worthy. "The proud hill tops let the rain run off; the lowly valleys are richly watered." Augustine.

Matthew 8:14 . "Peter's wife was still living twenty-five years afterwards, when St. Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthian Church, 1 Corinthians 9:5 . Probably all the apostles were young men, not much over thirty." Conder.

Matthew 8:21 . Suffer me first. "These words imply, what St. Luke expressly records, that Jesus had laid on him the command to follow him, which accounts for the subsequent rebuke. The command, moreover ( Luk 9:60 ), to go and preach the gospel, implies that this was not his first call, but that he had been a disciple for some considerable time. Some special occasion, therefore, is indicated; perhaps that of the news being brought of the father's death. The explanation, that the disciple wished to go and reside with his father until his death, though ancient, is plainly wrong (as Stier and Alford show); the father was just dead, and he wished to postpone obedience to Christ's command to filial respect. Had this brief delay been granted, another hindrance, equally pressing, might have presented itself. The Lord's reply, though at first sight it surprises us by its sternness, simply carries out the principle that no plea whatever can bar Christ's claim to immediate obedience: no 'first' can take precedence of that." Ibid.

Matthew 8:26 . Rebuked the winds and the sea. "This seems to have been almost, so to say, our Lord's formula in working miracles; the fever ( Luk 4:39 ), the frenzy of the demoniac ( Mar 9:25 ), the tempest, are all treated as if they were hostile and rebel forces that needed to be restrained. St. Mark, with his usual vividness, gives the very words of the rebuke: 'Peace, be still' literally, be dumb, be muzzled, as though the howling wind were a maniac to be gagged and bound," Ellicott's Test.