On a trip out west recently, I ate something at dinner that did not settle well with me. My sleep app confirmed 53 minutes of sleep, yet the next day the team planned to bike up the Going-to-the-Sun Road to Logan Pass in Glacier National Park. You’ve likely had nights like this or mornings where your body was arguing with what your mind wanted to accomplish, and in mild desperation, you pray for instant healing. Maybe that’s come to you. In our story today, that’s precisely the result of being touched by Jesus.
Matthew 8:14-17 “And when Jesus entered Peter’s house, he saw his mother-in-law lying sick with a fever. He touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she rose and began to serve him. That evening, they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: ‘He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.’”¹
We don’t know the full extent of Peter’s mother-in-law’s sickness, only that she was suffering from a fever. We do know that the medical care of that day was nowhere near what we have today, and a simple fever in an older person could easily be death’s invitation.
But Jesus reached down and touched her hand. What happens next we read over too quickly. The same instantaneous, complete, and total healing that came to the leper has now been passed to this woman. Her fever flees in a moment as His wholeness flows into her. Then she rose and started serving. The Greek word for rose here is (egeiro) and means to raise up, to rouse, to lift from a lying position. We’ve all been sick and had fevers before, and maybe even rolled out of bed to get something, but that’s not the context. Astonishingly quickly, she arises and begins to serve. The kind of healing we pray for when we are down, she experienced firsthand.
Certainly, those watching were not oblivious to what had transpired, because Matthew records that they brought many who were oppressed by demons and sick, and He healed them all, the same compassion and power He carried through every town in Galilee. John 21:25 records the impact of Jesus’ full ministry, “And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”²
His presence, His power, and His mercy were on display for the needs of a broken world and for the creation He so dearly cherished. Matthew closes by quoting Isaiah 53:4a, “Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows.”³
The Hebrew is heavier than most English readers feel. The word translated as “griefs” is choli, which means sickness or disease far more often than emotional grief. The word translated as “sorrows” is makob, which means pains. The two verbs are nasa, to lift up and carry away, ironically the same spelling in English as the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and sabal, to bear a load as a burden on the back. Read with the Hebrew weight, the verse says the Servant lifts up our sicknesses and shoulders our pains. Matthew wrote in Greek, but he was quoting Isaiah’s Hebrew, and that Hebrew points to a heavy load being lifted off, picked up, and carried by another. The Servant carries away what crushes us, and He carries it on His own back.
One more example of the loving care of a Savior whose own pain would be endured for you and me. So, in the age of self-driving vehicles and rockets that return to earth, let us not forget the one who holds it all together, and do as the watchers that day did.
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She was the mother of Simon Peter’s wife, living in Peter’s household in Capernaum. Jesus found her in bed with a fever, touched her hand, and healed her instantly, after which she got up and served Him. Her presence in the home is also the plain evidence that Peter was married. The same scene appears in Mark 1:29-31 and Luke 4:38-39.
It teaches that healing is the fruit of Christ’s atoning work, but not that every believer is promised full physical healing now. Jesus healed in Capernaum before the cross, pointing forward to what He would accomplish there. The complete healing of the body is reserved for the resurrection, when there is no more pain or death. The honest answer is that the question is not whether our bodies are healed because of the atonement, but when.
Matthew is quoting Isaiah 53:4 and applying it to Jesus’ healing ministry. The Hebrew verbs behind the line are nasa, to lift up and carry away, and sabal, to bear a load as a burden on the back. The picture is of a heavy weight being lifted off us, picked up, and shouldered by Another. Christ carries away what crushes us, and He carries it on His own back.
Yes. The fact that Peter had a mother-in-law means he had a wife, and Paul confirms it later when he notes that Cephas traveled with a believing wife (1 Corinthians 9:5). The healing happened in Peter’s home in Capernaum, the fishing town on the Sea of Galilee that Jesus used as His base. Archaeologists excavating beneath a later Byzantine church there uncovered a first-century house that early Christians venerated as the house of Peter.
Both quote Isaiah 53, but they apply different parts of it. Matthew applies Isaiah 53:4 to Jesus healing bodies during His earthly ministry. Peter applies the same chapter to spiritual healing, our forgiveness, when he writes that by His wounds you have been healed. They do not conflict. They are two ends of one rope, the same Servant bearing one curse, sickness and sin together, fully settled at the cross.
Two things. First, the woman was healed and immediately rose to serve, which is the pattern for everyone Christ restores. We are lifted up in order to give ourselves away, not to sit down. Second, the Servant in verse 17 does not direct the wounded to carry their own loads. He shoulders the weight Himself. The strongest one in the formation took the heaviest pack, which is the model for any leader who carries what his people cannot.
That Jesus has the authority and the compassion to heal, shown first to one ordinary woman in private and then to a whole town at the door, and that His healing points to the cross where He would bear the root of all sickness. The passage moves from a single touch to a public crowd to a prophecy, and it calls the reader to bring their need to Him and, once restored, to serve.
¹ Matthew 8:14-17, ESV.
² John 21:25, NKJV.
³ Isaiah 53:4a, NKJV.
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