The
blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them.
Matthew 21:14
Matthew 21 [12.] Jesus entered into the temple of God, and drove out all of those who sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the money changers’ tables and the seats of those who sold the doves. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers!”
Matthew 21 [14.] The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children who were crying in the temple and saying, “Hosanna to the son of David!” they were indignant, and said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?”
Jesus said to them, “Yes. Did you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of babes and nursing babies you have perfected praise?’”
Matthew 21 [17.] He left them, and went out of the city to Bethany, and camped there. Now in the morning, as he returned to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he came to it, and found nothing on it but leaves. He said to it, “Let there be no fruit from you forever!”
Immediately the fig tree withered away. When the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, “How did the fig tree immediately wither away?”
Meaning:
Jesus had just driven the traders out of the temple courts, saying, “My house shall be called a house of prayer” (Matthew 21:13). Only Matthew records what happened next. Into the space that had been cleared, the blind and the lame came to Jesus, and he healed them. The cleansing of the temple was followed by a scene of mercy.
- “The blind and the lame”
In Israel the blind and the lame were among the poorest people. With no way to work, many begged at the gates of the temple, where worshipers were expected to give alms. In Acts a man “lame from his mother’s womb” was carried and laid “daily at the door of the temple which is called Beautiful” to beg (Acts 3:2). Such people lived on the edge of the temple, but they were not truly welcomed into it.
- “Came to him in the temple”
This detail has deep roots in Israel’s history. When David captured Jerusalem, the Jebusites mocked him, saying that even the blind and the lame could keep him out. David spoke of striking “the lame and the blind, who are hated by David’s soul,” and from that time people said, “The blind and the lame can’t come into the house” (2 Samuel 5:8). The saying came to be applied to the house of God. In Jesus’ day the blind and lame were widely treated as excluded from full worship.
Now the Son of David, who had just been welcomed into the city as king (Matthew 21:9), does the opposite of what David was remembered for. He does not keep the blind and the lame out of the house. He welcomes them in and makes them whole.
- “And he healed them”
The healings were signs that the promised time had come. Isaiah foretold that when God came to save, “the eyes of the blind will be opened” and “the lame man will leap like a deer” (Isaiah 35:5-6). Jesus pointed to the same works when John the Baptizer asked who he was: “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk” (Matthew 11:5). Healing the sick in the temple itself showed that the Lord had come to his house.
The chief priests and scribes saw “the wonderful things that he did” and heard children shouting, “Hosanna to the son of David!” Yet instead of rejoicing they were indignant (Matthew 21:15-16). Mercy that should have filled them with praise made them angry.
The Significance of Matthew 21:14
- The church is a place of welcome
God’s house should be a place where the weak, the poor and the disabled are received and helped.
- Jesus restores what excludes
Whatever shuts people out from God, whether sin, shame or need, Jesus is able to heal. Those who come to him find that he does not turn them away.
Cross-References:
2 Samuel 5:8: "The blind and the lame can’t come into the house." The old saying that Jesus overturned.
Isaiah 35:6: "Then the lame man will leap like a deer," The promise fulfilled in the temple courts.
Matthew 11:5: "the blind receive their sight, the lame walk," Jesus’ own description of his works.
Conclusion: After cleansing the temple, Jesus welcomed the blind and the lame who came to him there and healed them. Those who had long been kept at the edge of worship, as the saying from David’s time put it, were received by the Son of David and made whole. The verse shows the temple restored as a place of mercy, fulfills Isaiah’s promises, and calls God’s people to welcome the weak.
PIB Scriptures are derived from the World English Bible