Matius 9:35--10:1

Workers for the Harvest

9:35 Then Jesus went throughout all the towns ¹  and villages, teaching in their synagogues, ²  preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and sickness. ³  9:36 When ⁴  he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were bewildered and helpless, ⁵  like sheep without a shepherd. 9:37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. 9:38 Therefore ask the Lord of the harvest ⁶  to send out ⁷  workers into his harvest.”

Sending Out the Twelve Apostles

10:1 Jesus ⁸  called his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits ⁹  so they could cast them out and heal every kind of disease and sickness. ¹⁰ 

Matius 10:8

10:8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, ¹¹  cleanse lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give.

[9:35]  ¹ tn Or “cities.”

[9:35]  ² sn See the note on synagogues in 4:23.

[9:35]  ³ tn Grk “and every [kind of] sickness.” Here “every” was not repeated in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[9:36]  ⁴ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[9:36]  ⁵ tn Or “because they had been bewildered and helpless.” The translational issue is whether the perfect participles are predicate (as in the text) or are pluperfect periphrastic (the alternate translation). If the latter, the implication would seem to be that the crowds had been in such a state until the Great Shepherd arrived.

[9:38]  ⁶ sn The phrase Lord of the harvest recognizes God’s sovereignty over the harvest process.

[9:38]  ⁷ tn Grk “to thrust out.”

[10:1]  ⁸ tn Grk “And he.”

[10:1]  ⁹ sn Unclean spirits refers to evil spirits.

[10:1]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “and every [kind of] sickness.” Here “every” was not repeated in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[10:8]  ¹¹ tc The majority of Byzantine minuscules, along with a few other witnesses (C³ K L Γ Θ 700* al), lack νεκροὺς ἐγείρετε (nekrou" ejgeirete, “raise the dead”), most likely because of oversight due to a string of similar endings (-ετε in the second person imperatives, occurring five times in v. 8). The longer version of this verse is found in several diverse and ancient witnesses such as א B C* (D) N 0281^vid Ë^1,13 33 565 al lat; P W Δ 348 have a word-order variation, but nevertheless include νεκροὺς ἐγείρετε. Although some Byzantine-text proponents charge the Alexandrian witnesses with theologically-motivated alterations toward heterodoxy, it is interesting to find a variant such as this in which the charge could be reversed (do the Byzantine scribes have something against the miracle of resurrection?). In reality, such charges of wholesale theologically-motivated changes toward heterodoxy are immediately suspect due to lack of evidence of intentional changes (here the change is evidently due to accidental omission).