‘And Jesus went about all the cities and the villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingly rule, and healing all manner of disease and all manner of sickness.'
Matthew now closes off this section, and commences the next one with a summary statement that is very similar to Matthew 4:23, indeed so similar that it is clearly intentional. The two verses form an inclusio around Matthew 4:24 to Matthew 9:34, summarising what He has been doing all the while. It also links with Matthew 11:1.
‘And Jesus went continually about all the cities and the villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the Good News of the Kingly Rule, and healing all manner of disease and all manner of sickness.'
This verse closes off the last section and opens this one. It describes a continuing ministry as the tense of the verb reveals. ‘All the cities and the villages' indicates intention. There were too many for Him to reach them all immediately, as He would soon acknowledge (Matthew 10:23). The synagogues were the places where men and women went to worship and to study the Scriptures. While there was still a welcome for Him there they were a sensible focal point for Jesus. And the fact that He continued going to them indicates their continuing welcome. ‘Their synagogues' reflects the fact that synagogues were locally owned. Each town had ‘its' synagogue of which it was proud. But Matthew would in fact, as a public servant, have had little to do with synagogues. He would never have been welcomed there. (Thus he would never have been able to see them as ‘our synagogues, even when he entered them with Jesus. He would always be the least Jewish in emphasis among the Apostles because the Pharisees would never see him as acceptable. As far as they were concerned his conversion had not taken place in the right way, and it was to heretical ideas. To them he was still an outcast). The preaching of the Kingly Rule of Heaven together with the healing of ‘disease and sickness' (almost certainly intended to reflect Matthew 8:17 and Isaiah's prophecy, see on that verse) which demonstrated that that Kingly Rule had come, is now the constant theme (Matthew 4:17; Matthew 4:23; Matthew 10:1; Matthew 10:7-8). Indeed He will shortly emphasise that the ministry of John has been superseded because the Kingly Rule is now here (Matthew 11:11-13; Matthew 12:28).