(24) Throughout all Syria.--The word is probably used popularly, rather than with the definite significance of the Roman province with which St. Luke uses it in Luke 2:2. Our Lord's ministry, with the one exception of the journey to the coasts of Tyre and Sidon (Matthew 15:21), was confined to what is commonly known as Palestine. Traces of the wider fame are, however, found in the mention of hearers from Idumaea, and Tyre, and Sidon among the crowds that followed Him (Mark 3:8); in the faith of the Syro-Ph?nician woman in His power to heal (Mark 7:26); perhaps in the existence of disciples at Damascus so soon after the Ascension (Acts 9:2); perhaps, also, in St. Peter's appeal to the friends of Cornelius at Caesarea, as knowing already the broad facts of our Lord's ministry and miraculous working (Acts 10:37).

Possessed with devils. . . . lunatick.--The phenomena of what is called possession, and the theories to which the phenomena have been referred, will best be discussed in dealing with the great representative instance of the Gadarene demoniacs (Matthew 8:28). Here it will be enough to notice (1) that the word rendered "devil" is not the same as that used for the Tempter in 4:1, but "demon" in the sense of an evil spirit, (2) that the possessed with demons are at once grouped with the "lunaticks," both exhibiting forms of mental disease, and distinguished from them. The latter term implies in the Greek, as in the Latin and our own, "moonstruck madness"--the belief that the moon exercised a disturbing influence on the brain (a coup de lune being dreaded by Eastern travellers almost as much as a coup de soleil), and that the intensity of the disturbance varied, when the disease had once set in, with the moon's changes.

Those that had the palsy.--Here the word (literally, the paralytics) points, not to a view of the cause of the disease, but to its conspicuous phenomena--the want of muscular power to control motion, and the consequent "looseness," in popular phraseology, of limbs or head.

Verse 24. - And his fame; Revised Version, and the report of him (ἡ ἀκοὴ αὐτοῦ). Our use of the word "fame" implies reputation and honour, which are not included under ἀκοή. Went throughout all (ver. 23) Syria; Revised Version, went forth into; ἀπῆλθεν εἰς. The expression not merely means that the report spread far and wide, but that it went beyond the expected limits of the Holy Land into the whole of Syria, i.e., probably, the Roman province with which Palestine was in some degree (Schurer, 1:2:46) incorporated. All sick people that were taken with divers diseases; Revised Version, grammatically, all that were sick, holden with, etc. Possibly, "all that were sick" is the genus of which the following expressions represent species; but Matthew 8:16 and Mark 1:32-34 suggest that the words all to diseases refer to bodily diseases only. The arrangement would then be

(1) bodily diseases,

(a) ordinary (ποικίλαις νόσοις),

(b) violent and painful cases (βασάνοις);

(2) mental diseases,

(a) supernatural,

(b) natural;

(3) incurable, affecting the body also. And those which were possessed with devils. Weiss, 'Life,' 2. pp. 76-88 (especially against Meyer), points out that our Lord shared the belief in the reality of possession by evil spirits, and that therefore, though some of the current ideas may have been superstitious, there must have been a basis of truth in the belief. See by all means Trench on the healing of the Gadarene demoniacs (Matthew 8:28). And those which were lunatick; Revised Version, and epileptic . - "epilepsy being supposed to return and increase with the increase of the moon" (Thayer, s.v. σεληνιάζεσθαι which occurs in the New Testament only here and in Matthew 17:15).

4:23-25 Wherever Christ went, he confirmed his Divine mission by miracles, which were emblems of the healing power of his doctrine, and the influences of the Spirit which accompanied it. We do not now find the Saviour's miraculous healing power in our bodies; but if we are cured by medicine, the praise is equally his. Three general words are here used. He healed every sickness or disease; none was too bad; none too hard, for Christ to heal with a word. Three diseases are named; the palsy, which is the greatest weakness of the body; lunacy, which is the greatest malady of the mind; and possession of the devil, which is the greatest misery and calamity of both; yet Christ healed all, and by thus curing bodily diseases, showed that his great errand into the world was to cure spiritual maladies. Sin is the sickness, disease, and torment of the soul: Christ came to take away sin, and so to heal the soul.And his fame went throughout all Syria,.... For his ministry and miracles, especially the latter; wherefore

they brought to him, that is, out of Syria, the sick. Syria was in some respects reckoned as the land of Israel, though in others not.

"The (m) Rabbins teach, that in three respects Syria was like to the land of Israel, and in three to the countries with out the land: the dust defiled, as without the land; he that sold his servant to (one in) Syria, was as if he sold him to one without the land; and he that brought a bill of divorce from Syria, as if he brought it from without the land: and in three things it was like to the land of Israel; it was bound to tithes, and to the observance of the seventh year; and he that would go into it, might go into it with purity and he that purchased a field in Syria, was as if he had purchased one in the suburbs of Jerusalem.''

All sick people, that were taken with divers diseases and torments. This expresses in general, the grievous and tormenting diseases with which the persons were afflicted, who were brought to Christ for healing: some particular ones follow;

and those which were possessed with devils; in body as well as in mind; of which there were many instances, permitted by God on purpose, that Christ might have an opportunity of showing his power over those evil spirits.

And those which were lunatic; either melancholy persons, or mad and distracted men; that retired from the conversation of men, into fields or desert places: or such, whose disorders were influenced by the change of the moon; such as those who are troubled with the falling sickness; so the Greeks (n) call such persons the word here used by the Evangelist.

And those that had the palsy. These were each of them such disorders, as were incurable by the art of medicine; or for which rarely, and with great difficulty, any manner of relief could be obtained; and

he healed them; without any means, by a word speaking; which showed him more than a man, and truly and properly God.

(m) T. Bab. Gittin, fol. 8. 1. 2. vid. Maimon. Hileb. Tumath Meth. c. 11. sect. 6. (n) Vid. Fabricii Bibl. Graec. vol. 2. l. 3. c. 26. p. 656-658.