Matthew 17:22 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

While they abode in Galilee. — Better, as they went to and fro. The journeyings were apparently, like that to the coasts of Tyre and Sidon (Matthew 15:21), unconnected with the work of His ministry. Our Lord was still, as before, taking His disciples apart by themselves, and training them by fuller disclosures of His coming passion. “He would not that any man should know” of their presence (Mark 9:30), for at that crisis, as was shown only too plainly by what followed, their minds were in a state of feverish excitement, which needed to be controlled and calmed. St. Luke adds (Luke 9:44) the solemn words with which this second announcement of His death was impressed on their thoughts, “Let these sayings sink down into your ears” (literally, place these things). The substance of what they heard was the same as before, but its repetition gave it a new force, as showing that it was not a mere foreboding of disaster, passing away with the mood of sadness in which it might have seemed to originate.