Matthew 21:14

‘And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them.'

In the chiasmus this verse is in deliberate contrast with those speaking of the casting out of the corrupt dealers. For a short while the Temple was restored to its rightful purpose, and became a place where people were made whole. In the place of the racketeers came the blind and the lame. And Jesus healed them there. Had people but realised it this was a further Messianic claim (Matthew 11:5).

This would not, however, have been pleasing to the religious authorities. In their eyes such deformities did not fit in with the holiness of the Temple. The blind and crippled were allowed into the Court of the Gentiles, but they could go no further, and even then there were severe restrictions placed on them. So the sight of so many flocking in would have been distasteful to their eyes, and the thought of them being healed there positively disgusting. They may well have felt that such healings must surely leave some residue of the deformity behind. Furthermore such people would now be able move on into the Temple proper for they were no longer disabled. Such an instantaneous change in the situation with regard to holy matters could not be pleasing, and caused problems for the authorities. How did you police it?

There may, however, have been another significance in Matthew citing ‘the blind and the lame'. When David was seeking to capture Jerusalem initially it would appear that the then inhabitants derided him and his followers as ‘the blind and the lame', seeing them as powerless to enter their stronghold. When he did succeed in breaking in and capturing Jerusalem a proverb then arose that ‘the blind and the lame shall not come into the house', and this probably applied to the exclusion from favour, and from the central place of worship, of the Jebusites. Thus Matthew may be pointing out by this that under the greater David the blind and the lame are now welcome. None are now excluded.