Insomuch that they brought forth the sick... — The tense implies habitual action. For some days or weeks the sick were laid all along the streets — the broad open streets, as distinct from the lanes and alleys (see Note on Matthew 6:5) — by which the Apostle went to and fro between his home and the Temple.
That at the least the shadow of Peter.... — It is implied in the next verse that the hope was not disappointed. Assuming that miracles are possible, and that the narratives of the Gospels indicate generally the laws that govern them, there is nothing in the present narrative that is not in harmony with those laws. Christ healed sometimes directly by a word, without contact of any kind (Matthew 8:13; John 4:52); sometimes through material media — the fringe of His garment (Matthew 9:20), or the clay smeared over the blind man’s eyes (John 9:5) becoming channels through which the healing virtue passed. All that was wanted was the expectation of an intense faith, as the subjective condition on the one side, the presence of an objective supernatural power on the other, and any medium upon which the imagination might happen to fix itself as a help to faith. So afterwards the “hand, kerchiefs and aprons” from St. Paul’s skin do what the shadow of St. Peter does here (Acts 19:12). In the use of oil, as in Mark 6:13; James 5:14, we find a medium employed which had in itself a healing power, with which the prayer of faith was to co-operate.
On the “beds and couches,” see Note on Mark 2:4. The couches were the more portable pallets or mattresses of the poor.