Luke 4:38

And he arose out of the synagogue, and entered into Simon's house. And Simon's wife's mother was taken with a great fever; and they besought him for her.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(38, 39) And he arose out of the synagogue.—. See Notes on Matthew 8:14 Peculiar to St. Luke and indicating what we may venture to call accurate diagnosis, are the “great fever,” our Lord’s “rebuking” the fever, and the “immediate” rising to minister.

Benson Commentary

Luke 4:38-44. He entered into Simon’s house — See notes on Matthew 8:14-17; and Mark 1:29-35. When the sun was setting — And consequently the sabbath ended, which they considered as continuing from sunset to sunset; all that had any sick brought them — Fully persuaded that he could and would heal them; which he accordingly did; he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them — Like the Pharisees, they seem to have questioned whether it was lawful for him to do cures on the sabbath day. Reader, he is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever: he is still able to do cures, and is he not willing? Try him: bring thy sick soul, or even thy sick body, or that of thy relative or friend, to him in prayer, and have faith in him, that he can and will heal it. Remember, His eyes are over the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayers — None ever trusted in him and were confounded. See note on Mark 11:22-24.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

4:31-44 Christ's preaching much affected the people; and a working power went with it to the consciences of men. These miracles showed Christ to be a controller and conqueror of Satan, a healer of diseases. Where Christ gives a new life, in recovery from sickness, it should be a new life, spent more than ever in his service, to his glory. Our business should be to spread abroad Christ's fame in every place, to beseech him in behalf of those diseased in body or mind, and to use our influence in bringing sinners to him, that his hands may be laid upon them for their healing. He cast the devils out of many who were possessed. We were not sent into this world to live to ourselves only, but to glorify God, and to do good in our generation. The people sought him, and came unto him. A desert is no desert, if we are with Christ there. He will continue with us, by his word and Spirit, and extend the same blessings to other nations, till, throughout the earth, the servants and worshippers of Satan are brought to acknowledge him as the Christ, the Son of God, and to find redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

See this explained in the notes at Mark 1:21-39.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

Lu 4:38-41. Peter's Mother-in-law and Many Others, Healed.

(See on [1568]Mt 8:14-17.)

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Ver. 38,39. We met with this history both in Matthew and Mark. See Poole on "Matthew 8:14", and following verses to Matthew 8:15. See Poole on "Mark 1:29", and following verses to Mark 1:31.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And he arose out of the synagogue,.... That is, when he had dispossessed the unclean spirit, he rose up, and went out of the synagogue:

and entered into Simon's house; the house of Simon Peter, and which was also Andrew's; and in Beza's ancient copy, and in one of Stephens's, it is added, "and of Andrew"; who, though they were both natives of Bethsaida, yet, it seems, had an house at Capernaum, whither Christ went of his own accord, or by an invitation given him:

and Simons wife's mother was taken with a great fever. The Vulgate Latin version reads, "with great fevers". The fever is

"a disease, or rather a class of diseases, whose characteristic is a preternatural heat felt through the whole body, or, at least, the principal parts thereof, attended with other symptoms----"One" defines a fever, a strenuous endeavour, or effort of nature to throw off some morbific matter, that greatly incommodes the body.---- "Another", an augmented velocity of the blood; others, a fermentation of the blood; accompanied with a quick pulse and excessive heat.----The causes of fevers are innumerable, and the disease even often arises in the soundest bodies, where there was no previous morbific apparatus, as cachochymia, plethora, &c. but merely from a change of air, food, or other alteration in the non-naturals. A fever, "one" observes, is an inseparable companion of an inflammation. The symptoms are many: every fever, arising from any internal cause, is attended with a quick pulse, and unusual heat at different times, and in different degrees. Where these are intense, the fever is acute, where remiss, slow. The disease begins almost always with a sense of; chillness, and in its progress is chiefly distinguished by the velocity of the pulse: so that a too quick contraction of the heart, with an increased resistance, or impulse against the capillaries, furnishes the proper idea of a fever (z).''

The fever Peter's wife's mother lay ill of, is said to be a "great one"; which circumstance is the rather mentioned, to illustrate the miraculous cure of it by Christ; See Gill on Matthew 8:14.

And they besought him for her; either his disciples Peter, Andrew, James, and John, who were all present, or the other relations and friends of the sick person, which were in the house; who having heard of his casting out the unclean spirit in the synagogue, believed that he had power to heal this disease; and therefore intreat him, for her sake, and upon her account, that he would restore her health.

(z) See Chambers's Cyclopaedia in the word "Fever".

Geneva Study Bible

{7} And he arose out of the synagogue, and entered into Simon's house. And Simon's wife's mother was taken with a great fever; and they besought him for her.

(7) In that Christ heals the diseases of the body with only his word, he proves that he is God Almighty, sent for man's salvation.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

Luke 4:38-41. See on Matthew 8:14-16; Mark 1:29-34. Matthew places the narrative later, not till after the Sermon on the Mount.[91]

ἀπὸ τῆς συναγωγ.] He went from the synagogue into the house of Simon. The article before πενθερά is not needed. Winer, p. 108 f. [E. T. 148 ff.]. Luke, the physician, uses the technical expression for violent fever-heat: πυρετὸς μέγας (the opposite: μικρός). See Galen, De diff. febr. 1, in Wetstein.

ἠρώτησαν] they asked; Peter, to wit, and the members of the family,—hence it is not the plural introduced here without reason only from Mark 1:30 (Weiss).

ἐπάνω αὐτῆς] so that He was bending over her.

ἐπετίμ. τῷ πυρετῷ] the fever regarded as a hostile power, and as personal. Mark, whom Matthew follows, has not this detail; whereas both have the touching with the hand. A divergence in the tradition as to the miraculous method of cure.

αὐτοῖς] refers to Jesus, Simon, and the other members of the family. Comp. ἠρώτησαν, Luke 4:38.

Luke 4:40. ἀσθενοῦντας νόσοις] according to Matthew, demoniacs and sick persons (comp. Mark), with which Luke nevertheless also agrees at Luke 4:41.[92]

τὰς χεῖρας ἐπιτιθείς] Matthew has ΛΌΓῼ, with reference, however, to the demoniacs. In ἙΝῚ ἙΚΆΣΤῼ, which need not be pressed (Weiss, Holtzmann), are implied the solicitude and the indefatigableness of this miraculous ministry of love.

ΛΑΛΕῖΝ, ὍΤΙ] to speak, because. See on Mark 1:34.

[91] The arrangement in Luke, so far as he places (ch. 5) the call of Peter later, is in any case not arbitrarily produced, although he follows the tradition which (as Matthew) does not include the companionship of James and John (so Mark).

[92] All three also agree essentially as to the time of day (δύνοντος τοῦ ἡλίου). Until the evening Jesus had remained in the house of Simon, therefore the siek were first brought to Him there. Thus it was neither with a view to avoiding the heat of the sun, nor to choosing, from “delicacy of feeling,” as Lange supposes, the twilight for the public exhibition of infirmities.

Expositor's Greek Testament

Luke 4:38-39. Peter’s mother-in-law (Matthew 8:14-15, Mark 1:29-31).—Σίμωνος: another anticipation. In Mk. the call of Peter and others to discipleship has been previously narrated. One wonders that Lk. does not follow his example in view of his preface, where the apostles are called eye-witnesses, ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς.—ἦν συνεχομένη, etc.: Lk’.s desire to magnify the power comes clearly out here. “The analytic imperfect implies that the fever was chronic, and the verb that it was severe,” Farrar (C. G. T.). Then he calls it a great fever: whether using a technical term (fevers classed by physicians as great and small), as many think, or otherwise, as some incline to believe (Hahn, Godet, etc.), in either case taking pains to exclude the idea of a minor feverish attack.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

38, 39. The Healing of Simon’s Wife’s Mother

38. into Simon’s house] St Mark, nearly connected with St Peter, says more accurately “the house of Simon and Andrew” (Luke 1:29). This is the first mention of Peter in St Luke, but the name was too well known in the Christian Church to need further explanation. Peter and Andrew were of Bethsaida (House of Fish), (John 1:44; John 12:21), a little fishing village, as its name imports, now Ain et Tabijah or ‘the Spring of the Figtree,’ where, alone on the Sea of Galilee, there is a little strip of bright hard sand. St Luke does not mention this Bethsaida, though he mentions another at the northern end of the Lake (Luke 9:10). It was so near Capernaum that our Lord may have walked thither, or possibly Simon’s mother-in-law may have had a house at Capernaum. It is a remarkable indication of the little cloud of misunderstanding that seems to have risen between Jesus and those of His own house (Matthew 13:57; John 4:44), that though they were then living at Capernaum (Matthew 9:1; Matthew 17:24)—having perhaps been driven there by the hostility of the Nazarenes—their home was not His home.

Simon’s wife’s mother] “St Peter, the Apostle of Christ, who was himself a married man.” Marriage Service. She seems afterwards to have travelled with him (1 Corinthians 9:5). Her (most improbable) traditional name was Concordia or Perpetua (Grabe, Spicil. Patr. i. 330).

with a great fever] St Luke, being a physician, uses the technical medical distinction of the ancients, which divided fevers into ‘great’ and ‘little’ (Galen). For other medical and psychological touches see Luke 5:12, Luke 6:6, Luke 22:50-51; Acts 3:6-8; Acts 4:22; Acts 9:33, &c.

they besought him] not, as elsewhere, the imperfect (John 4:47), but the aorist, implying that they only had to ask Him once. St Mark confirms this when he says (Luke 1:30), “immediately they speak to Him about her.”

Bengel's Gnomen

Luke 4:38. Ἀναστὰς δὲ ἐκ, and having arisen from) An abbreviated expression [for Having arisen from His seat and gone out of the synagogue].

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 38. - And he arose out of the synagogue, and entered into Simon's house. And Simon's wife's mother was taken with a great fever; and they besought him for her. This abrupt mention of Peter (Simon) for the first time, without any explanatory notice, tells us that when St. Luke wrote his Gospel Peter was well known and honored in all the Churches. The Lord's choice of one who was already married, the subsequent favor showed to him, the high position evidently accorded to him in the Church of the first days, is a perpetual protest against the exaggerated asceticism which later was so earnestly taught in ecclesiastical Christianity. The epithet "great," applied to the fever, was a well-known technical term; it was used by Galen of fevers. There are several expressions in this Gospel which remind us that the author was a trained physician. Luke 4:38

Vincent's Word Studies

Taken (συνεχομένη)

Rev., holden. So Wyc. See on Matthew 4:24. The word is used nine times by Luke, and only three times elsewhere. Paul uses it of the constraining of Christ's love (2 Corinthians 5:14), and of being in a strait (Philippians 1:23). In Acts 28:8, it is joined with fever, as here, and is a common medical term in the same sense.

A great fever (πυρετῷ μεγάλῳ)

Another mark of the physician. The epithet great is peculiar to Luke. The ancient physicians distinguished fevers into great and small.