(1) When therefore the Lord knew. — The second clause of this verse is given in the exact words of the report which came to the Pharisees: When therefore the Lord knew that the Pharisees heard, “Jesus maketh and baptizeth more disciples than John.”
The report which reached John (John 3:26) had come to them also, and the inference from His retirement is that it had excited their hostility. The hour to meet this has not yet come, and He withdraws to make, in a wider circle, the announcement which He has made in the Temple, in Jerusalem, in Judæa, and is about to make in Samaria and in Galilee.