After this he went down to Capernaum, he, and his mother, and his brethren, and his disciples: and they continued there not many days.
After this he went down to Capernaum - said to be "down" because it lay on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. See the note at Matthew 4:13.
He, and his mother, and his brethren. See the notes at Matthew 13:55-56. And his disciples - the five so recently gathered, and they continued there not many days - for the reason mentioned in the next verse, because the Passover was at hand.
Remarks:
(1) All sorts of attempts have been made to reduce this miracle to the level of something natural; some of them too ridiculous to be worth a moment's notice, except to show how desperate are the shifts to which those are driven who are not able to dispute the genuineness of the text, and yet are determined not to bow to the miraculous. Nor is that half-and-half theory of a mere acceleration in the ordinary processes of nature in the vintage-first suggested, in the honesty of his heart, by Augustine, and since defended by Olshausen-nor Neander's theory, that He merely intensified the powers of water so as to produce the same effects as wine, more worthy of acceptance as a satisfactory explanation of the miracle; which stands, and while the world lasts will stand, a glorious monument of the power of the Lord Jesus, and in a form which, as we shall presently see, is pregnant with the richest lessons.
(2) In this His first miracle Christ would show what He meant to be throughout His whole ministry-in entire contrast to the ascetic retirement which suited the legal position of John. "John came neither eating nor drinking" socially with others: "The Son of Man," says Christ Himself, "came eating and drinking" in that very sense.
(3) At a marriage Christ made His first public appearance in any company, and at a marriage He performed this His first miracle-the noblest sanction that could be given to that divinely appointed institution.
(4) As all the miracles of Christ were designed to hold forth the characteristic features of His mission-not only to redeem humanity from the effects of the Fall, but to raise it to a higher platform of existence even than at first-so in the present miracle we see this gloriously set forth. For as the miracle did not make bad good, but good better, so Christianity only redeems, sanctifies, and ennobles the beneficent but abused institution of marriage; and Christ's whole work only turns the water of earth into the wine of heaven. Thus "this beginning of miracles" exhibited the character and "manifested forth the glory" of His entire Mission.
(5) As Christ countenanced our seasons of festivity, so also that greater fullness which befits such; so far was He from encouraging that asceticism which has since been so often put for all religion.
(6) In what a light does this scene place the Romish views of the blessed Virgin! The doctrine of the 'immaculate conception of the Virgin'-in our day for the first time, even in the Church of Rome, erected into a dogma of the faith-is so outrageous a contradiction of Scriptural truth that none who can take it in are likely to be staggered by the teaching of this or any other portion of Scripture. But even those Romanists who in past times have stopped short of this, as the sober and excellent Maldonat, while admitting that there was hardly one of the fathers who did not acknowledge some fault, or error at least, in the Virgin on this occasion, endeavour to explain it away, and refuse to admit that there ever was anything faulty in her, and much less here. But the passage may well be left to speak for itself with all candid readers.
(7) Christ's presence is that which turns the water of this and all other social gatherings into wine.