Luke 4:38,39

The Healing of Simon's Wife's Mother

38. into Simon's house St Mark, nearly connected with St Peter, says more accurately "the house of Simon and Andrew" (Luke 1:29). This is the first mention of Peter in St Luke, but the name was too well known in the Christian Church to need further explanation. Peter and Andrew were of Bethsaida (House of Fish), (John 1:44; John 12:21), a little fishing village, as its name imports, now Ain et Tabijahor -the Spring of the Figtree," where, alone on the Sea of Galilee, there is a little strip of bright hard sand. St Luke does not mention thisBethsaida, though he mentions anotherat the northern end of the Lake (Luke 9:10). It was so near Capernaum that our Lord may have walked thither, or possibly Simon's mother-in-law may have had a house at Capernaum. It is a remarkable indication of the little cloud of misunderstanding that seems to have risen between Jesus and those of His own house (Matthew 13:57; John 4:44), that though they were then living at Capernaum (Matthew 9:1; Matthew 17:24) having perhaps been driven there by the hostility of the Nazarenes theirhome was not Hishome.

Simon's wife's mother "St Peter, the Apostle of Christ, who was himself a married man." Marriage Service. She seems afterwards to have travelled with him (1 Corinthians 9:5). Her (most improbable) traditional name was Concordia or Perpetua (Grabe, Spicil. Patr.i. 330).

with a great fever St Luke, being a physician, uses the technical medical distinction of the ancients, which divided fevers into -great" and -little" (Galen). For other medical and psychological touches see Luke 5:12; Luke 6:6; Luke 22:50-51; Acts 3:6-8; Acts 4:22; Acts 9:33, &c.

they besought him not, as elsewhere, the imperfect (John 4:47), but the aorist, implying that they only had to ask Him once. St Mark confirms this when he says (Luke 1:30), "immediatelythey speak to Him about her."