Matthew 12:12

πόσῳ οὖν διαφέρει, etc. This is another of those simple yet far-reaching utterances by which Christ suggested rather than formulated His doctrine of the infinite worth of man. By how much does a human being differ from a sheep? That is the question which Christian civilisation has not even yet adequately answered. This illustration from common life is not in Mark and Luke. Luke has something similar in the Sabbath cure, reported in Matthew 14:1-6. Some critics think that Matthew combines the two incidents, drawing from his two sources, Mark and the Logia. ὥστε, therefore, and so introducing here rather an independent sentence than a dependent clause expressive of result. καλῶς ποιεῖν : in effect, to do good = εὖ ποιεῖν, i.e., in the present case to heal, θεραπεύειν, though in Acts 10:33; 1 Corinthians 7:37, the phrase seems to mean to do the morally right, in which sense Meyer and Weiss take it here also. Elsner, and after him Fritzsche, take it as = præclare agere, pointing to the ensuing miracle. By this brief prophetic utterance, Jesus sweeps away legal pedantries and casuistries, and goes straight to the heart of the matter. Beneficent action never unseasonable, of the essence of the Kingdom of God; therefore as permissible and incumbent on Sabbath as on other days. Spoken out of the depths of His religious consciousness, and a direct corollary from His benignant conception of God (vide Holtz., H. C., p. 91).