Luke 7:2

2. Servant Luke says doulos, servant; but Matthew has it pais, boy. There are three words in the Greek language expressive of the condition of rendering service to a superior or employer, namely, μισθιος or μισθωτος , misthios or misthotos, a hired person; ανδραποδον , andrapodon, a slave owned by a proprietor; and δουλος , doulos, a servant, generically including either of the former two, designating any person performing a subordinate service for any reason whatever; as for hire, for love, from civil office, from religious duty, or from ownership.

The first of these three words occurs in Luke 15:0:l7-19; Mark 1:20; John 10:12-13. The second never occurs in the New Testament. But its derivative, ανδραποδιστης , andrapodistes, is used in 1 Timothy 1:10, and signifies an enslaver, whether by stealing a man or capturing him in war, or any other means. In all other cases in the New Testament where the English word servant occurs, the Greek word is doulos.

The word boy here denotes the same relation as when an English speaker would call his waiter by the terms my boy or my man. The precise nature of the servitude must be learned from other circumstances than the term used. Very probably the boy in the present case was a slave. If so, he was held in absolute Roman slavery, his life being at the perfect disposal of his master. Of course the law of Christ allowed him to exercise no such right. Whether Christ uttered the word or not, (and we do not know that he did not,) the moment the centurion became a Christian he held his boy as a brother, (Philemon 1:16,) entitled to all the rights conferred by the golden rule.

Under the Mosaic law all persons were set free by the jubilee every fiftieth year; so that permanent slavery proper had no legal existence, and even involuntary servitude had a precarious footing. Those who wonder why Jesus did not prohibit slavery, must show some reason for supposing that a Jewish slavery existed at all in Palestine. The reverse was probably the fact.

Sick Of a paralysis. This is not contradicted by the fact that he is said to have been grievously tormented; for paralysis or palsy, with the contraction of the joints, is accompanied with severe pain. United with tetanus, as it sometimes is in eastern countries, extreme suffering and rapid dissolution are often the result.