Matthew 9:6

The scribes. See p. 55, and on ch. 1:22. According to Luke (see on ch. 5:17) these “Pharisees and doctors of the law” came from all parts of “Galilee, and Judaea, and Jerusalem.” The coming of representatives from so many different places suggests that their presence upon this particular occasion was more than casual. The fact that these religious officials were from precisely the areas in which Jesus thus far had worked would seem to indicate that they were at Capernaum to investigate the One who had become the center of such intense public interest. The situation recalls the delegation that the leaders in Jerusalem dispatched to the Jordan to investigate the work of John the Baptist (John 1:19-28) two years previously. The present delegation from Judea, where Jesus had previously worked, may have been summoned to advise the leaders in Galilee regarding their course of action in view of Jesus’ more recent activities there.

These men were spies (see DA 267; cf. 213), and as if to remind them vividly of the healing of the paralytic at Bethesda (John 5:1-9), Jesus now healed another man suffering from the same disease. They did not have long to wait before finding what they were looking for — alleged evidence that Jesus was a blasphemer. His earlier statement before the Jewish leaders had been branded blasphemy (John 5:18); now He exercised publicly a divine prerogative that they likewise took to be blasphemy. This incident marks the first of Jesus’ several controversies with the Jewish authorities during His Galilean ministry.

Reasoning. Gr. dialogizomai, “to balance accounts,” “to converse,” “to debate,” “to argue.”