(14) The blind and the lame.--These, as we see from Acts 3:2, and probably from John 9:1, thronged the approaches to the Temple, and asked alms of the worshippers. They now followed the great Healer into the Temple itself, and sought at His hands relief from their infirmities. If we were to accept the LXX. reading of the strange proverbial saying of 2Samuel 5:8, "The blind and the lame shall not come into the house of the Lord," it would seem as if this were a departure from the usual regulations of the Temple; but the words in italics are not in the Hebrew. Most commentators give an entirely different meaning to the proverb, and there is no evidence from Jewish writers that the blind and the lame were ever, as a matter of fact, excluded from the Temple. All that we can legitimately infer from the two passages is the contrast between the hasty, passionate words of the conquering king, and the tender compassion of the Son of David, to whom the blind and the lame were objects, not of antipathy, but pity.

Verse 14. - The blind and the lame came to him in the temple. This notice is peculiar to St. Matthew, though St. Luke (Luke 19:47) mentions that "he taught daily in the temple." An old expositor has remarked that Christ first as King purified his palace, and then took his seat therein, and of his royal bounty distributed gilts to his people. It was a new fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah (Isaiah 35:4-6), which spake of Messiah coming to open the eyes of the blind, to unstop the ears of the deaf, to make the lame man leap as an hart. For acts of sacrilege which profaned the temple precincts, he substituted acts of mercy which hallowed them; the good Physician takes the place of the greedy trafficker; the den of thieves becomes a beneficent hospital. How many were the acts of healing, we are not told; but the words point to the relief of numberless sufferers, none of whom were sent empty away.

21:12-17 Christ found some of the courts of the temple turned into a market for cattle and things used in the sacrifices, and partly occupied by the money-changers. Our Lord drove them from the place, as he had done at his entering upon his ministry, Joh 2:13-17. His works testified of him more than the hosannas; and his healing in the temple was the fulfilling the promise, that the glory of the latter house should be greater than the glory of the former. If Christ came now into many parts of his visible church, how many secret evils he would discover and cleanse! And how many things daily practised under the cloak of religion, would he show to be more suitable to a den of thieves than to a house of prayer!And the blind and the lame came to him,.... The Syriac and Ethiopic versions read, "they brought unto him the blind and the lame". The blind could not come to him unless they were led, nor the lame, unless they were carried: the sense therefore is, they came, being brought to him:

in the temple; that part of it, the court of the Gentiles, and mountain of the house, out of which he had cast the buyers and sellers, &c. and in the room of them, were brought in these objects of his pity:

and he healed them; to the blind he restored sight, and caused the lame to walk; which miracles he wrought in confirmation of the doctrine he preached: for all the other evangelists relate, that he taught in the temple.