Matthew 8:6

Matthew 8:6 is the sixth verse of the eighth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. This verse continues the miracle story in which a centurion's servant is healed, the second of a series of miracles in Matthew.

In the original Greek according to Westcott-Hort this verse is:

και λεγων κυριε ο παις μου βεβληται εν τη οικια παραλυτικος δεινως βασανιζομενος

In the King James Version of the Bible, the text reads:

And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.

The English Standard Version translates the passage as:

“Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.”

A similar story to this occurs in Luke 7. An important difference between the accounts is that Matthew uses παις as opposed to Luke's mix of both παις and δουλος. δουλος can mean either servant or slave, while παις can mean either servant or son. It is the same word used for children in Matthew 2:16. Thus while both writers could be referring to the Centurion's servant, Matthew may believe the sufferer is his son. Another change is the ailment. Luke has the servant near death from an unspecified malady. In Mark's Gospel the cleansing of the leper is immediately followed by the healing the paralytic at Capernaum, and the author of Matthew may attach the illness from the later to this narrative.

A servant would have been a slave, but slaves were a legal part of a Roman family. As Roman Centurions were barred from marrying, the slave may likely have been the Centurion's only family. There would also have been a financial consideration as a slave would be a large part of the wealth of a minor officer.