12:9-13 Christ shows that works of mercy are lawful and proper to be done on the Lord's day. There are more ways of doing well upon sabbath days, than by the duties of worship: attending the sick, relieving the poor, helping those who need speedy relief, teaching the young to care for their souls; these are doing good: and these must be done from love and charity, with humility and self-denial, and shall be accepted, Ge 4:7. This, like other cures which Christ wrought, had a spiritual meaning. By nature our hands are withered, and we are unable of ourselves to do any thing that is good. Christ only, by the power of his grace, cures us; he heals the withered hand by putting life into the dead soul, works in us both to will and to do: for, with the command, there is a promise of grace given by the word.

Verse 13. - Then saith he to the man, Stretch forth thine hand. He is bid use his strength before he is told that it is given. The intellectual difficulties that might have occurred to him lose themselves fir the action. In the somewhat similar ease in Matthew 9:5, 6 there had been the preparation of forgiveness of sins. And he stretched it forth; and it was restored whole, like as the other. Power is linked to obedience. Whole; i.e. sound, in complete health and vigour. The word comes more often in the account of the man healed at the pool of Bethesda than in all the rest of the New Testament.

Then saith he to the man,.... That is, after he had looked round about upon them, to observe their countenances; and what answer they would make to his arguments; and with anger for their inhumanity and cruelty; being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, i.e. their unmercifulness to their fellow creatures, and the stupidity and blindness of their minds, being ignorant of the Scriptures, and of the sabbath, the nature, use, and Lord of it; which things are observed by the Evangelist Mark; then, in a commanding authoritative way, almighty power going along with his word, he says to the man who stood forth before him, and the Pharisees,

stretch forth thine hand, which was before contracted and shrivelled up;

and he stretched it forth with all the ease imaginable, and was, not only able to do this, but to make use of it any way;

for it was restored whole like as the other; his left hand, which had never been damaged. This was an instance of Christ's power; a proof of the lawfulness of healing on the sabbath day; and a rebuke to the Pharisees for their cruelty and uncharitableness. This man was an emblem of the inability of men to do anything that is spiritually good, and of the power and efficacy of divine grace to enable persons to stretch out their hands, and do things which they of themselves are not equal to.

13. Then saith he to the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth—the power to obey going forth with the word of command.

and it was restored whole, like as the other—The poor man, having faith in this wonderful Healer—which no doubt the whole scene would singularly help to strengthen—disregarded the proud and venomous Pharisees, and thus gloriously put them to shame.

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