(34) Jesus Christ maketh thee whole.--Better, Jesus the Christ. We note the same anxiety to disclaim any personal power or holiness as the cause that wrought the supernatural healing as in Acts 3:12; Acts 4:9-10. In the assonance of the Greek words (Iesus i?tai se) we may, perhaps, trace a desire to impress the thought that the very name of Jesus testified that He was the great Healer. Such a paronomasia has its parallel in the later play upon Christiani and Chrestiani = the good or gracious people (Tertull. Apol. c. 3), perhaps also in St. Peter's own language that the Lord is not Christos only, but Chrestos = gracious (1Peter 2:3). The command seems to imply a reminiscence of the manner in which our Lord had wrought His work of healing in like cases (Matthew 9:6; John 5:8).

Make thy bed.--More accurately, make, or, arrange for thyself. He was to do at once for himself what for so many years others had done for him.

Verse 34. - Healeth thee for maketh thee whole, A.V.; straightway he arose for he arose immediately, A.V. Jesus Christ healeth thee. The juxtaposition, ἰᾶταί δε Ἰησοῦς, looks almost like an intentional play upon the sound. Some of the Fathers who did not know Hebrew derived the name Ἰησοῦς from ἰάομαι, and the Anglo-Saxon name for the Savior Haelend, the Healer, seems to have the same origin. Arise and make thy bed. Not (says Meyer), "Henceforth make thine own bed," but, as the force of the imperative script requires, maize thy bed now, both as a token of his miraculous cure, and that he might carry it away (Mark 2:9-12). AEneas is a Greek name, not identical with AEneas (Αἰνείας), but occurring in Thucydides and elsewhere. If it was a Hebrew name, it might be derived from עַיִן חָם, "(whom) the eye spareth." It is uncertain whether AEneas was a disciple or not.

9:32-35 Christians are saints, or holy people; not only the eminent ones, as Saint Peter and Saint Paul, but every sincere professor of the faith of Christ. Christ chose patients whose diseases were incurable in the course of nature, to show how desperate was the case of fallen mankind. When we were wholly without strength, as this poor man, he sent his word to heal us. Peter does not pretend to heal by any power of his own, but directs Eneas to look up to Christ for help. Let none say, that because it is Christ, who, by the power of his grace, works all our works in us, therefore we have no work, no duty to do; for though Jesus Christ makes thee whole, yet thou must arise, and use the power he gives thee.And Peter said unto him, Aeneas, &c. He called him by his name, which he might without divine revelation know, though he was a stranger to him, by the people of the house, where he was:

Jesus Christ maketh thee whole; Peter knew, by some secret impulse upon his mind, that Christ would cure this man by him as an instrument at this time, and therefore said these words; not as a prayer, as some render them, "may Jesus Christ heal thee", though was it so, it was a prayer of faith; but as a promise that he would, or rather as a declaration of the then present exertion of his power to heal him; which he ascribes not to himself, but to Christ, in whose name, and by whose power the apostles wrought all their miracles; Acts 3:12 "arise, and make thy bed"; which would be a full demonstration that he was perfectly whole:

and he arose immediately; and also, no doubt, made his bed, as the man at Bethesda's pool was bid by Christ, to take up his bed and carry it, as a proof of his soundness.