Jesus was NOT equating the withered hand with being trapped in a pit. In using the pit story, Jesus is using a simple piece of Rabbinic reasoning, namely:
- If something is true for a simple case, it is true for the greater case.
Thus, Jesus' logic goes something like this:
- the simple case is an animal is found trapped on the Sabbath and so should be freed on the Sabbath
- Humans are greater and more important than animals
- Therefore, it is lawful to heal a person from their infirmity on the Sabbath.
Benson expresses the problem this way:
Matthew 12:11-13. And he said — That he might show their
unreasonableness, and confute them by their own practice: What man —
that shall have —
Or, Who, if he have but one sheep, that on the sabbath day shall fall
into a pit, and it be in danger of perishing there, will not lay hold
on it, &c. —
The stress of the question does not lie on supposing a man to have
only one sheep, but on one only falling into a pit; and yet, for the
comparatively small value of that one, his not scrupling to undertake
the labour of helping it out on the sabbath day. How much then is a
man better than a sheep? As if he had said, If the regard you have for
the life of your cattle leads you to do servile work on the sabbath,
for the preservation of a single sheep, charity should much rather
induce you to labour for the preservation of a fellow-creature, though
the good office is to be done on the sabbath day. Wherefore it is
lawful to do well — To save a beast, much more a man, or to perform
any of the lovely acts of mercy and charity on the sabbath day.
The Pulpit commentary is even more pointed:
Verse 11. - Matthew alone on this occasion, but comp. Luke 14:5. And
he said unto them. Christ's answer appeals from intellectual and
theoretical difficulties to the practical common sense of ordinary
morality (cf. Romans 3:5-7). Their own feelings would guide them to
help a brute, much more a man. According to the parallel passages, our
Lord first set the man in the midst of them, wishing, perhaps, to draw
out their sympathy, and only afterwards spoke this verse of censure
(see Chrysostom). What man shall there be among you, that shall have
one sheep. One only, and therefore so much the dearer (Meyer). He
would feel an interest in it as an animal that he had learned to love;
and he would care for it as his property. In Christ's case also there
was the love of man as man, and of man as belonging to him (John
10:14; John 1:11). In Luke 14:5 ("a son or an ox") the double thought
is distributed over two objects; the man Would love his son, and care
for his property in the ox. And if it (this, Revised Version) fall
into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it
out? Lightfoot ('Hor. Hebr.') confirms this from the Jerusalem Talmud
and Maimonides.
