NOTES for Mat 8:16-17
The evangelist Matthew chooses an astonishing quotation from the Old Testament to explain the countless miraculous healings performed by the Lord Jesus Christ. From the whole extensive "victory" tradition of the Old Testament, which tells of the coming kingdom of the Messiah, he recalls the strangest and most difficult prophecy of Isaiah about the rejection of the Messiah, the prophecy about the Cross. All these healings, in the evangelist's thought, happen because Christ "took upon Himself our infirmities and bore our diseases."
Human thinking is arranged in such a way that we imagine the healing God as a kind doctor, differing from Aibolit only in that He can treat everything. But this is far from an exact or complete idea. Christ heals because on the Cross He takes upon Himself our infirmities and diseases. The instrument of healing is the Cross of Christ, on which He shares our sufferings. The apostle Paul writes in the First Epistle to the Corinthians: "You were bought at a great price. Therefore glorify God..." (1 Cor. 6:20). It is necessary to remember this price so as not to remain ungrateful.