‘Then he says to the man, “Stretch forth your hand.” And he stretched it forth, and it was restored whole, as the other.'

Then he turned to the man with a withered hand and said to him, “Stretch forth your hand.” And when he obediently did so his hand was wholly restored, just like his other hand which was whole. It was a symbol of what Jesus had come to do for Israel.

‘Then the king said to the attendants, “Bind him hand and foot, and cast him out into the outer darkness. There will be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.” '

The king then orders ‘his attendants' (not his slaves, and therefore here probably the angels. Men never help in this kind of judgment) to bind the man hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. He is excluded from the circle of the well lit feast, and the rejoicing and gladness of both this world and the next (Matthew 19:29), and despatched to where it is for ever dark (in direct contrast to Colossians 1:13). And in that place there is weeping and gnashing of teeth because all who are there recognise what they have lost. It pictures the time of man's final loss of hope.

Compare for this description Matthew 8:12, where it happens to the professing ‘sons of the Kingly Rule' (those who should have received it, but rejected it), and Matthew 25:30 where it happens to the man who failed to respond to his lord's requirement for faithful service. The future for all who reject the King's Son and fail to respond to His will is bleak.

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