Matthew 9:4

Jesus seeing their thoughts. By shewing that he knew their hidden thoughts, as well as by healing the man, to confirm his words and doctrine, he gave them a proof of his divine power. (Witham) --- Not because they betrayed them by any exterior sign, but, as St. Mark says, knowing in his spirit that they so thought within themselves, because he was God, in whose hands are our hearts, (Proverbs chap. xv. and chap. xxi,) and to whose eyes all things are naked and open. (Tostatus.) --- Had not our Saviour been truly God, and equal to his Father, he would have rebuked the scribes, for attributing that to God only which he exercised. But so far from denying their assertion, he immediately admits the truth of it, and answers them by another no less wonderful act of his almighty power. He tells them publicly the evil they had thought in their hearts, whilst the Scriptures repeatedly affirm that God alone can know the secrets of hearts. Thou alone knowest the hearts of the children of men, 3 Kings, chap. viii. and 2 Paralipomenon chap. vi ver. 30. And man seeth those things that appear, but the Lord beholdeth the heart. And 1st Kings, chap. xvi, ver. 7, The searcher of reins and hearts is God. Psalm vii, ver. 10, The heart is perverse above all things, and unsearchable. Who can know it? I am the Lord that search the heart and prove the reins. (Jeremias, chap. xvii, ver. 9. and 10.); and innumerable other texts of Scripture might be brought to prove that God only can know the minds and thoughts of men. Our Saviour, therefore, shews himself to be equal to his Father, by thus revealing to all, the malicious murmurs of his enemies, who for fear of the multitude, dared not to publish themselves what their wicked hearts devised. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. xxx.) --- Said: Why do you think, &c. Here St. Cyril exclaims, Oh! thou Pharisee, who sayest, who is able to forgive sins, except God alone! I will answer thee; who is able to search into the secrets of the heart but God alone, who calls himself, by his prophet, the searcher of the hearts and the reins of men! (St. Cyril) --- If thou art incredulous about my power of remitting sin, behold I exercise another, whilst I lay open thy interior. (St. John Chrysostom)