“When he came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him ...” (v1). Israel’s most important teacher, prophet, and leader was Moses. But now Jesus, coming down “from the mountain,” surpassed Moses (Heb 3:2). Through the law of Moses, Israel understood holy and unholy, clean and unclean, and lived by those distinctions. But Jesus was Holiness himself. Nothing impure could corrupt Him. He touched and healed the unclean leper (v3) and responded to the Roman centurion.

“He took our illnesses and bore our diseases” (v17). Through the law, God revealed His righteousness, but in the perfect Son, He experienced our sorrows and carried our sins to the cross. United with Him, we can be forgiven and healed.