Luke 8:1 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

And it came to pass afterward— Εν τω καθεξης; that is, The day after our Lord dined with Simon,—he and his twelve apostles departed from Capernaum with an intention to go up to Jerusalem to the passover. He did not, however, keep the direct road; he set out early, and preached in many towns and villages by the way, the glad tidings of the kingdom of God, that is, the joyful tidings of God's reconcileableness to man, of the necessity of regeneration, and of the acceptableness of repentance and faith even in the chief of sinners. His going through the cities and villages to preach, are the terms made use of by the evangelists, when they describe our Lord's departure from Capernaum; therefore, as it is used on this occasion, it is highly probable that Simon the Pharisee, with whom our Lord dined the day before, lived in Capernaum: and as this latter gave him an invitation immediately after he had finished his discourse occasioned by the Baptist's message, Jesus must have been in Capernaum, or near it, when that message came to him.