THE MAN WITH THE WITHERED HAND (MATTHEW 12:9-14; MARK 3:4-6; LUKE 6:6-11)

 

                        While They watched (collage, 2009)

This is another example of a miracle which is attested in all the Synoptic Gospels. Jesus heals the withered hand of a man while in the synagogue on the Sabbath with disapproving Pharisees looking on. Since Matthew's version is the most complete narrative, we will go with it while recognizing two major departures from it in Mark and Luke:

At the start of the story, Luke gives the added detail that Jesus went into the synagogue in the first place in order to teach.

What Matthew reports in his verse 12 as a statement by Jesus to the Pharisees, Mark and Luke pose as a question: “Is it lawful on the sabbath to do good or to do harm?” And when the Pharisees refuse to answer, Mark adds that Jesus was grieved at their hard hearts.

Since what is involved in this story is a question regarding the Jewish law, the short discussion below will concentrate on the historical situation at the time. And as background, it is necessary to go back to the previously mentioned healing in Matthew 12:1-8. Robertson notes the arguments Jesus adduced there for his justification for working on the Sabbath:

    1. historical appeal to the example of David eating the consecrated bread (I Samuel 21:1-6)

    2. the Old Testament law of Numbers 28:9-10 regarding the priest's required duties they needed to carry out on the Sabbath.

    3. the voice of prophecy recorded in Hosea 6:6, stating “I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice.”

    4. the overall purpose of God in the Sabbath

    5. his right to do what he wished since the Messiah was the lord of the Sabbath

    6. In our passage at hand, another argument is offered by Jesus, namely, the common practice of the Jews to rescue animals in distress on the Sabbath

    7. And then John 7:20-24 adds a final precedent, the Jewish practice of circumcising newborn boys on the Sabbath.

Matthew 12:9-10

Kistemaker speculates: “Perhaps the clergy had told the man to come to the worship service and petition Jesus to heal him. If Jesus fell into their trap, they could accuse him of desecrating the Sabbath and bring him to court. In their legalistic minds they reasoned that only a patient whose life was in danger should be healed on the Sabbath; a man with a withered hand could wait until the next day...The Pharisees considered his shriveled right hand a blemish that restricted the man from fully participating anywhere in society and the synagogue. Instead of expressing sympathy and love, they looked down on him.”

F.F. Bruce quotes St. Jerome, who preserved a story from “the Gospel which the Nazarenes and Ebionites use, and which many regard as the original of Matthew.” It read, “I was a stonemason, earning my living with my hands. I pray you, Jesus, restore my health to me, so that I may not be shamefully reduced to begging for my food.”

At this point in the Gospel story, the Pharisees ask Jesus their trick question: “Is it lawful to cure on the Sabbath?” And actually, it turns out that the various Jewish sects at the time had differing opinions on that subject. In the Ten Commandments, they were obviously told not to work on the Sabbath, but how exactly was “work” defined and were any exceptions allowed? Dunn explains that detailed rules regarding acceptable activities “had already been well developed by the time of Jesus,” leading to differing conclusions by the Dead Sea community, the Essenes, and the Pharisees.

Matthew 12:11-12a
Jesus replies by appealing to them on the basis of rules governing the saving of animals in distress on the Sabbath. Pertinent to the example Jesus gives, Hock gives some interesting historical background information: “At times parallels from the [ancient Greek] romances do more than corroborate [NT texts]; they also clarify. For example, the brief mention of a pit into which a sheep might fall (Mt 12:11) finds clarification in Longus's romance [i.e. Daphnis and Chloe], where the practice of digging pits is more fully described: they are the work of a whole village, are six feet across and four times as deep, are camouflaged with branches and are designed to trap marauding wolves.”

Regarding the legal issue, the Pharisees were actually among the most liberal interpreters of the law and apparently saw nothing wrong with saving an animal which had fallen into a pit and couldn't get out. (Nixon)

But not all Jews applied the Sabbath law in the same way. Thus, “B. Shab. 128B and Bab. Metzia 326 were rabbinical rulings that allowed the rescue of an animal who had fallen in a pit or was in danger elsewise...the general principle was that it was contrary to the Law to allow an animal to continue to suffer without help.” (D. Hill)

However, as Dunn says, quoting the Dead Sea scroll labeled CD-AXI, 'No one should help an animal give birth on the Sabbath. And if [it falls] into a cistern or a pit, he should not take it out on the Sabbath...and any living man who falls into a place of water or into a [reservoir?], no one should take him out with a ladder or a rope or a utensil.” Dunn concludes, “So the episodes fit well into the context of Jesus' mission and give us a vivid impression of the sort of halakic [legal Talmudic] disputes that must have been a feature of the factionalism of Second Temple Judaism.”

And in reference to reason #7 above, another ruling in the Halakah was that circumcision was not only permissible, but demanded, on the eighth day after birth if it fell on a Sabbath, though there was no such exception given anywhere in the OT. (Maccoby)

Jesus employs the common argument from the lesser to the greater at this point to reason that a man is worth more than an animal, and therefore helping him on the Sabbath is certainly permitted.

C.A. Evans cites another ancient Jewish legal ruling that is even more to the point: “To be sure, the rabbis taught that the saving of life overrides the sabbath' (Mekilta on Exod. 31:31), after all, 'the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath' (Mark 2:27). (It is possible, of course, that the tradition in Mekilta is dependent upon Jesus.)...Obviously the difference between Jesus and his opponents lay in the interpretation and application of the sabbath laws; they did not dispute their validity.”

I can remember way back when I was in high school Sunday school class and one of our elders was a guest speaker. He gave us a pamphlet outlining the major problem with rock and roll music. It was based on a pagan jungle rhythm, and therefore listening to it was akin to worshiping a pagan deity. I argued with him on the point, but neither of us disputed the validity of the law prohibiting the worship of other gods.

Matthew 12:12b

Next both Mark and Luke's parallel accounts report that Jesus asked a second question (part of which is given as a concluding statement instead in Matthew): “Is it lawful on the Sabbath day to do good, or to do harm, to save a life, or to kill?” I will admit that I could never quite get the gist of what Jesus was driving at with this question.

The answer comes from an added comment given us by Luke, namely that Jesus could read the Pharisees' thoughts and knew that they were attempting to trap him. Thus, as Swift says, “they were using the sabbath with murderous intentions, plotting to kill Jesus. Which was more appropriate to the day, His healing or their plotting?”

And Short sees another aspect to Jesus' words that I would certainly never have read into them on my own: “He [Jesus] claimed that to refuse to heal the man would technically be a 'work' just as much as to cure him, and an evil one at that.”

Matthew 12:13-14

The incident concludes with Jesus healing the man, which does not in any way dissipate the Pharisees' hatred of Him.

Of course we are not immune to such nitpicking arguing even today. And at least some of it stems from the rabbinical practice of “building a hedge around the law,” to ensure that no one breaks the law itself. Dunn summarizes the problem with this practice: “The danger, then, is that an overprotective attitude toward an important law or legal ruling can actually constitute an abuse of the law itself. Secondary laws should not be allowed to obscure or hinder the fundamental obligations of relationship to God and to others [i.e. to love].”