But he said to them, What man shall there be of you who has one sheep, and if this fall into a pit on the sabbath, will not lay hold of it and raise [it] up?
The Pharisees had just asked whether it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath. Jesus answers with a question of His own about a sheep in a pit, and that simple picture shows what a suffering man is worth to God.
The Pharisees were not asking in good faith. They had a man with a withered hand in front of them and a plan already formed.
They wanted to find some new ground of accusation against Him. Their first try had failed. He had read their evil thoughts. His answer showed that He already knew the question they now put to Him: "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?" A terrible motive stands beside that question and shows the depths of Satan — "so that they might accuse Him." The question also reveals that they believed in His healing power.
Their quarrel was not really about God's day.
They were contesting God's right to show mercy. Having the man stand forth, He asked them a simple question that was fully to the point. Did the law allow a person to do good on the Sabbath days or to do evil? — to save life or to kill? As far as they were concerned, they would rather see someone die on the Sabbath than see him healed.
The sheep in His question belongs to the man himself. That detail is where the argument bites.
Of course they would rescue the poor sheep out of the pit, because it was their own sheep. They had no conscience about doing what was to their own advantage, even on the Sabbath day. And the Lord does not blame them. But He presses this piercing conclusion on them — "Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath."
Their instinct condemned them twice. They knew better, and they moved only where they stood to gain. The same pit also pictures the gospel.
A man knows by instinct that leaving a poor animal to suffer would not be of God. But their selfishness also comes out — it is their own sheep. Both counts condemn them. What a beautiful subject this is for preaching the gospel! We were in the pit, and the Lord went down into a horrible pit to rescue us.
The argument turns on what the day already allowed them to do.
For them to rescue a sheep out of a pit was certainly harder physical work than for Him to heal, yet they would do this on a Sabbath day. If they treat a sheep with such care, how much more should they treat a man, who is worth far more! He finishes with the firm statement, "it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath." What honest man could dare to object to this?
The Sabbath was never a fence around God's compassion.
It is useless for His people to plead the Sabbath against Him who is Lord of it. It is even more useless to forbid His active goodness toward needy, suffering people on that day. The Sabbath did not stop the poorest Jew from getting his sheep out of the pit. God had compassion, if they had none, for their brother who had fallen into a worse trouble. And here was the One anointed by the Lord to bind up the broken-hearted, no matter how the Pharisees raged and plotted.
Later, in a similar scene, the reply is sharpened for a more urgent case.
This is a little different from His reply to the ruler of the synagogue in the chapter before. There it was more the need of the animal, the ordinary supply of his wants. But here it is a more urgent case. It was not simply that the animal needed watering and must be led to it.
The sheep in the pit and the withered hand belong together. Both show a helplessness only Christ can cure.
The man with the withered hand was like Israel, powerless to do anything rightly. What value was there in outwardly keeping the Sabbath when there was no power for God? Surely, if it is right to pull a fallen sheep out of the pit, it is better to heal a fallen man.
Yet the mercy they witnessed hardened them further.
Who were they, then, to object to His showing mercy to a man on the Sabbath? The Lord showed that mercy at once. Yet their hearts were so hard that His mercy only stirred up thoughts of murder in them. From that moment they decided on His death.
- Motive — The question about healing was a trap. They asked it to accuse Him, and it showed they already believed He could heal.
- Mirror — He points at their own habits. They would lift their own sheep out of a pit on the Sabbath. Their instinct and their self-interest both speak against them.
- Measure — A man outweighs a sheep. They allowed the heavier work for an animal, so they could not forbid mercy to a person.
- Mercy — No day and no rule can block God's goodness toward suffering people. The withered hand shows the need; the pit shows the rescue.
- Malice — They watched Him show mercy and answered with a plot to kill Him. The argument was never really about the Sabbath.
How much better then is a man than a sheep! So that it is lawful to do well on the sabbath.
A man with a withered hand stands in the synagogue. The religious leaders ask Jesus whether the law allows healing on the Sabbath. He answers with a question about a sheep that has fallen into a pit. That comparison raises two questions. What is a man worth in God's sight? And was a day of rest ever meant to block an act of mercy?
Their challenge sounds like a plain legal question. But Matthew tells us why they asked it. One writer says their question gave away more than they meant.
They wanted to find some new ground of accusation against Him. Their first attempt had failed... "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?" Beside that question stood a terrible motive: "that they might accuse Him." It showed the depths of Satan. The question also shows that they believed He could heal.
Jesus points to what they themselves would do. Their own answer exposes both their instinct and their self-interest.
Instinctively a man would know that it would not be of God to leave a poor animal suffering. But their selfishness also comes out: it is their own sheep. On both counts they are condemned... In preaching the gospel, what a beautiful subject this is! We were in the pit, and the Lord went down into a horrible pit to rescue us.
Their objection was that healing counted as work on the Sabbath.
Pulling a sheep out of a pit was certainly harder physical work than healing. Yet they would do that on a Sabbath day.
The heart of the verse is a comparison of values, and no one in that synagogue could answer it.
There was no answer; of course none could stand up and declare he would not deliver his one sheep out of the pit. "Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath." What divine logic! How unanswerable this statement!
They had turned the scale of values upside down. One writer shows how far that went.
To condemn doing good that relieves suffering marks out a class whom the Lord compares to vipers. Their moral sense was so deadened that they put the animal before a fellow man... Could hatred go further than to try to tie the hand of God down to a rule, and then seek to kill God's Son for doing good?
They assumed the choice lay between working and doing nothing. One writer says the real choice was quite different.
The question was not, as they supposed, one between acting and not acting. It was between doing good and doing harm. It was between saving a life and destroying a life by refusing to save it. The law of God was given to hold back evil, not to hold back good... Indeed, to hold back from doing good when the opportunity is there is to show unlikeness to God.
One writer goes further back, to what the Sabbath stood for in the first place.
The Sabbath was the sign of the rest of creation. But sin had entered the world. And man had rejected Jesus, who had come into its sorrow. So there could be no rest of creation in connection with the first Adam... He answers with a moving revelation of grace. That grace could not find its rest where sin and misery were. But it could begin to work where everything lay in ruins: "My Father is working until now, and I am working." We can rest neither in sin nor in sorrow. But we can work in grace where both are.
The man Jesus chose to heal was a living picture of the people watching Him.
The man with the withered hand was like Israel, powerless to do anything right. What was the value of outwardly keeping the Sabbath when there was no power for God? If it is right to pull a fallen sheep out of the pit, it is surely better to heal a fallen man. And by implication, to heal the fallen people, if only they had been ready for it.
- The trap. They framed their question as law and aimed it at accusation. It also admitted they believed He could heal.
- The sheep. They would lift out an animal on the Sabbath because it was theirs. Self-interest moved them where mercy did not.
- The value. If an animal is worth rescuing, a man is worth far more — the logic none of them would stand up and deny.
- The verdict. God gave His law to restrain evil, not to restrain good. Refusing to do good when you can is unlikeness to God.
- The reason. With sin in the world there is no rest to guard. So grace works where rest is impossible, and the withered hand showed the nation what it had become.