Biblion Bible Commentary
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They Glorified the God of Israel
Matthew 15:29-31
29 Jesus departed from there and came near to the sea of Galilee; and he went up on the mountain and sat there. · WEB
Three verses of mass healing on a mountainside — and the crowd's praise is described in a way that says who they were.
Jesus departed from there and came near to the sea of Galilee; and he went up on the mountain and sat there Matthew 15:29.
He goes up a mountain and sits, which is the posture of a teacher Matthew 5:1, and what follows is not a sermon. Great multitudes came to him, having with them the lame, blind, mute, maimed, and many others, and they put them down at his feet. He healed them Matthew 15:30.
The verb put them down is worth pausing on. These are people who could not walk to him, carried by others and set at his feet like a delivery. Nothing is recorded of what any of them said, and nothing is required of them. The chapter's previous scene took eight verses to grant one request; this one heals a hillside in a sentence.
The list is one word longer than the lists usually are. Maimed is not a disease but a lost or ruined limb, and the summary at the end matches it: the multitude wondered when they saw the mute speaking, the injured healed, the lame walking, and the blind seeing Matthew 15:31. The prophets' catalogue of the coming age is being filled in item by item, as it was for John's messengers Matthew 11:5 Isaiah 35:5–6.
And they glorified the God of Israel.
That last phrase is how the passage identifies the crowd. Israelites praising God do not normally specify which God; the wording belongs to people for whom Israel's God is one among the options, and it is the same wording foreign observers use throughout the older Scriptures Daniel 3:28. He has come down the eastern shore from Gentile country, and the crowd glorifying the God of Israel is largely made up of people who are not Israelites.
Which is why the next paragraph is a second feeding rather than a repetition of the first.
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