Matthew 8:16-17 Jesus drove out demons and healed the sick
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"During the evening, many who were under the power of demons were brought to Him, and He drove (1) the spirits away with a word, and healed (2) all who were sick (3).
This fulfilled what Isaiah the prophet has spoken:
'He took (4) our sickness (5) and bore (6) our pain.'"
1) ekballó - to expel, to drive away, to cast or send out, to eliminate as in to throw away,
2) therapeúō – to heal, reversing a physical condition to restore a person having an illness (disease, infirmity), as a physician prescribes and applies healing therapy.
3) echó - to have, hold, to be bound, possessed, ill, seized,
4) naw-saw' - to accept, to lift off of, to carry away, to take a load, to take away,
5) khol-ee' - afflictions, diseases, illnesses, incurable disease, sufferings, maladies, weaknesses, infirmities,
6) saw-bal' - to carry a heavy load,
Notes and Thoughts:
The word translated as demon possession is daimonizomai which can be defined as being possessed by a demon spirit, or under the power of a demon spirit. There have been centuries of study and discussion as to what that actually means and even Andrew isn't sure so he'll fall back to the word many are now using and that is the English word demonized, which can encompass both meanings, whichever are actually true. All we know, and I've seen by personal experience, is people can be under the control of demons, mildly to extreme. They can be influenced or lead even though they act fairly normal, yet make terrible decisions, as in those who are currently controlling our government. And then others act crazy, violent, and have to be put away or heavily medicated. So people recognized that their friends or loved ones had something not right with them, and thought that they were under the control of an evil spirit and had heard Jesus could take care of that, so they brought them to Him. And it's interesting that He did so with just one word. The Greek is explicit and says He just spoke one word and the demons had to leave. I've thought a lot about this. Did He say one word, like "go", and they all left at once? Or did He have to do it to each individual? In Matthew 8:32, he simply said "Go!" and they left the men and went into pigs. I like to picture the Bible stories in my mind like movies.
This verse also separates demonized people with others who were just sick and sought healing. The same word we've seen before and is used a lot in the NT is therapeúō. So even though we know that demons can bring illness with them, this verse shows that there were those who were demonized and those who were just ill with disease.
Peter was not the only one who years later wrote about how Jesus fulfilled prophecy. Matthew ties Jesus' actions to Isaiah 53:4. There are factions in the body of Christ that say some of the healing Jesus did then, and all of the healing available for today, is spiritual healing only. The problem is, that's not the meanings in the Hebrew or Greek. Both are quite specific about physical healing and as we connect many other verses together, such as God is no respector of people, Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever, Jesus telling the leper it is His will to heal, the commands of the great commision, etc., it can not be denied with intelligence that healing is still available for people today.
And not only for sicknesses. The Hebrew word in Isaiah 53:4 for pain, makobe', means only one thing: physical pain. Plus, when we are born again, we receive brand new, perfect spirits. And those spirits remain perfect for eternity, never needing healing. So a believer who is truly born again never needs their new spirit 'healed'.