⭐WEB · Matthew 17:15
What does Matthew 17:15 mean?
"“Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is epileptic, and suffers grievously; for he often falls into the fire, and often into the water."
— Matthew 17:15 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
but I tell you that Elijah has come already, and they didn’t recognize him, but did to him whatever they wanted to. Even so the Son of Man will also suffer by them.”
Then the disciples understood that he spoke to them of John the Baptizer.
When they came to the multitude, a man came to him, kneeling down to him, and saying,
“Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is epileptic, and suffers grievously; for he often falls into the fire, and often into the water.
So I brought him to your disciples, and they could not cure him.”
Jesus answered, “Faithless and perverse generation! How long will I be with you? How long will I bear with you? Bring him here to me.”
Jesus rebuked him, the demon went out of him, and the boy was cured from that hour.
Explanation
This verse comes from a scene in which a father approaches Jesus, kneeling before him and pleading for help with his son. In plain language, the man is describing a severe and dangerous condition: his son has seizures (described as epilepsy, though the underlying Greek word can also carry the sense of being "moonstruck," a term ancient people sometimes used for such convulsive episodes) that cause him to lose control of his body to the point of falling into fire or water. This is not a minor ailment — it is life-threatening, and the father's desperation is evident in his cry, "Lord, have mercy."
The context is important. This event takes place shortly after the Transfiguration, when Jesus, Peter, James, and John come down from the mountain to find a crowd and the other disciples struggling. The disciples had apparently tried to heal the boy and failed (as the following verses make clear), which sets up Jesus's response about the disciples' lack of faith. Matthew, writing his Gospel primarily for a Jewish-Christian audience, includes this account to demonstrate Jesus's authority over both physical affliction and spiritual forces — the parallel accounts in Mark and Luke make explicit that the condition involved demonic activity, and Matthew's Gospel assumes readers understand this as part of the same episode.
Theologically, the verse highlights several things. First, it shows raw human need brought honestly before Jesus — the father doesn't dress up his son's condition or minimize it; he names the suffering plainly and asks for mercy, not merely healing. This models the posture of prayer
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