Healing Malchus's Ear #33

The healing of Malchus’s ear is the last miracle of healing that Jesus performs before his crucifixion. As soldiers and temple officials arrest him in the garden of Gethsemane, one of his followers strikes the high priest’s servant with a sword and cuts off his ear. Jesus stops the violence and heals the man. Only Luke records the healing, though all four Gospels tell of the sword stroke.

The Account

The four accounts share a core scene. Judas arrives with a crowd and identifies Jesus with a kiss, and one of those with Jesus draws a sword and strikes the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear (Matthew 26:51; Mark 14:47; Luke 22:50; John 18:10). Luke and John both specify the right ear. Only John names the swordsman as Simon Peter and the servant as Malchus (John 18:10). The other Gospels leave both men unnamed.

Luke alone tells what happened next. When the disciples ask whether they should strike with the sword, Jesus answers, “No more of this!” and touches the man’s ear and heals him (Luke 22:49-51). Matthew instead has Jesus tell the disciple to put the sword back in its place, since those who take the sword will perish by the sword, and adds that he could call on his Father for more than twelve legions of angels, but then the Scriptures would not be fulfilled (Matthew 26:52-54). John has Jesus tell Peter to put the sword in its sheath and asks, “Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?” (John 18:11).

Setting and Context

The arrest takes place at night on the Mount of Olives, in a garden across the Kidron Valley from Jerusalem, right after Jesus’s prayer in Gethsemane (Luke 22:39-46). The armed party includes Roman soldiers and officers from the chief priests in John’s account, and a crowd with swords and clubs in the other Gospels. The bloodshed is part of the confusion of the moment, and Jesus is soon led away to the high priest’s house.

Because the four accounts vary in which details they provide, they are often read together. John’s Gospel supplies names that may have been withheld earlier for the protection of the people involved, as some scholars suggest, though the text itself does not say why.

What It Reveals

The healing shows Jesus continuing to heal and restore even at the moment of his own arrest, and even for someone who is part of the group taking him. Luke presents it as a final example of mercy toward an enemy. It also clarifies the nature of Jesus’s kingdom: he will not be defended by violence, and in John’s Gospel he tells Pilate that his kingdom is not of this world, so his servants do not fight (John 18:36).

Christian traditions have drawn on the scene in teaching about nonviolence and about responding to enemies with good, though they differ on how far the principle extends to questions of self-defense and the just use of force. Nearly all traditions read the account as showing that Jesus went to the cross willingly and not as a captive of events beyond his control.