And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:
Ver. 1. And seeing the multitudes] As sheep without a shepherd, or as grain ripe and ready, falling, as it were, into the hands of the harvest man. The "children cried for bread, and there was none to break it," Lamentations 4:4. His eye therefore affected his heart, and out of deep commiseration,
He went up into a mountain] This mount was his pulpit, as the whole law was his text. It is said to be in the tribe of Naphtali, and called Christ's mount to this day. As Moses went up into a mount to receive the law, so did the Messiah to expound it, and so must we to contemplate it. Sursum corda. Wind we up our hearts, which naturally bear downward, as the poise of a clock.
And when he was set] Either as being weary, or as intending a longer sermon. This at his first onset upon his office, and that at his last (when he left the world and went to his Father, Joh 14:15-17), being the longest and liveliest that are recorded in the Gospels. He preached, no doubt, many times many hours together. But as his miracles, so his oracles, are no more of them written than might suffice to make us believe, and live through his name, John 20:31. As the prophets of old, after they had preached to the people, set down the sum of their sermons, the heads only, for the use of the Church in all ages, so did the apostles record in their diaries the chief things in our Saviour's sermons, out of which they afterwards (by the instinct and guidance of the Spirit of God) framed this holy history. (Scultet. Annal. epist, dedic.)
His disciples came unto him] To sit at his feet and hear his word. Among the Jews the Rabbi sat, termed יושב or the sitter; the scholar, מתאבק or one that lieth along in the dust, a token of the scholar's humility, subjecting himself even to the feet of his teacher. Thus Mary sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word, Luke 10:39. Thus all God's saints are said to "sit at his feet, every one to receive his word," Deuteronomy 33:3. Thus Paul was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, a great doctor in Israel, Acts 22:3. And this custom it is thought St Paul laboured to bring into the Christian Church, 1 Corinthians 14:1,40 .