And they departed into a desert place by ship privately.
And they departed into a desert place by ship privately - "over the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberias," says John (John 6:1-71:l), the only one of the Evangelists who so fully describes it; the others having written when their readers were supposed to know something of it, while the last wrote for those at a greater distance of time and place. This "desert place" is more definitely described by Luke (Luke 9:10) as "belonging to the city called Bethsaida." This must not be confounded with the town so called on the western side of the lake (see the note at Matthew 11:21). This town lay on its northeastern side, near where the Jordan empties itself into it; in Gaulonitis, out of the dominions of Herod Antipas, and within the dominion of Philip the Tetrarch (Luke 3:1), who raised it from a village to a city, and called it Julias, in honour of Julia, the daughter of Augustus (Josephus, Ant. 18: 2, 1).