And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan.
And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis - a region lying to the east of the Jordan, so called as containing ten cities, founded and chiefly inhabited by Greek settlers.
And from Jerusalem and from beyond Jordan - meaning from Perea. Thus not only was all Palestine upheaved, but all the adjacent regions. But the more immediate object for which this is here mentioned is, to give the reader some idea both of the vast concourse and of the varied complexion of eager attendants upon the great Preacher, to whom the astonishing Discourse of the next three chapters was addressed. On the importance which our Lord Himself attached to this first preaching circuit, and the preparation which He made for it, see the note at Mark 1:35-39.
Remarks:
(1) When, in the prophetic strain regarding Emmanuel, we read that a great light was to irradiate certain specified parts of Palestine-the most disturbed and devastated in the early wars of the Jews, and in after times the most mixed and the least esteemed-and when, in the Gospel History, we find our Lord taking up His stated abode in those very regions, as every way the most suited to His purposes, while at the same time it furnished the bright fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy-can we refrain from exclaiming, "This also must have come forth from the Lord of hosts, who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working"?
(2) What marvelous power over the hearts of men must Jesus have possessed, when, on the utterance of those few now familiar words, "Follow Me" - "Come ye after Me," men instantly obeyed, leaving all behind them! But is His power to captivate men's hearts, with a word or two from the lips of His servants, less now that He "has ascended on high, and led captivity captive, and received gifts for men, yea for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them"?
(3) Did the Prince of preachers not only "teach in the synagogues," the regular places of public worship, but under the open canopy of heaven proclaim the glad tidings to the crowds that gathered around Him, whom no synagogue would have held, and not a few of whom would probably never have heard Him in a synagogue? And shall those who profess to be the followers of Christ account all open-air preaching disorderly and fanatical, or at least regard it as irregular, unnecessary, and inexpedient in a Christian country and a settled state of the Church? When the apostle says to Timothy, "Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season" х eukairoos (G2122), akairoos (G171), 2 Timothy 4:2], does he not enjoin it at what are called canonical hours and at uncanonical too? And is not the same principle applicable to what may he called canonical places? These are good, but every other place where crowds can be collected to hear the glad tidings is good also; especially if such would not likely be reached in any other way, and if the uncanonical, abnormal way of it should be fitted, at any particular period, to arrest the attention of those who, in the regular places of worship, have become listless and indifferent to eternal things.
(4) It is remarkable, as Campbell observes in an acute Dissertation, 6: 1, that in the New Testament men are never said to be possessed with the devil or with devils х diabolos (G1228)], but always with a demon or demons х daimoon (G1142), but much more frequently daimonion (G1140)], or to be demonized х daimonizesthai (G1139)]. On the other hand, the ordinary operations of the wicked one-even in their most extreme and malignant forms-are invariably ascribed to the "devil" himself or to "Satan."
Thus, Satan "filled the heart" of Ananias (Acts 5:3); men are said to be "taken captive by the devil х diabolou (G1228)] at his will" (2 Timothy 2:26); unregenerate men are the children of the devil (1 John 3:10); Satan entered into Judas (John 13:27); and he is called by our Lord Himself (John 6:70) "a devil" х diabolos (G1228)]. It is impossible that a distinction so invariably observed throughout the New Testament should be without a meaning; but, whatever it be, it is lost to the English reader, as our translators have in both cases used the term "devil." It is true that we have our Lord's own authority for viewing this whole mysterious agency of demons as belonging to the kingdom of Satan (Matthew 12:24-29), and set in motion, as truly as his own more immediate operations on the souls of men, for his destructive ends. But some notable features in his general policy are undoubtedly intended by the marked distinction of terms observed in the New Testament. One thing comes out of it clearly enough-that these possessions were something totally different from the ordinary operations of the devil on the souls of men; otherwise the distinction would be unintelligible.
And that they are not to be confounded with any mere bodily disease-as lunacy or epilepsy-is evident, both from their being expressly distinguished from all such in this very passage, and from the personal intelligence, intentions, and actions ascribed to them in the New Testament. Deeply mysterious is such agency; and one cannot but inquire what may have been the reason why such amazing activity and virulence were allowed it during our Lord's sojourn upon earth. The answer to this, at least, is not difficult. For if all his miracles were designed to illustrate the character of His mission; and if "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil" (1 John 3:8), there can be no doubt that it was to make this destruction all the more manifest and illustrious that the enemy was allowed such terrific swing at that period. And thus might we imagine it said to the great Enemy from above, with respect to that mighty power allowed him at this time - "Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth" (Romans 9:17). On the impurity so often ascribed to evil spirits in the Gospels, it is impossible to enter here; but perhaps it may be intended to express, not so much anything in human sensuality peculiarly diabolical, as the general vileness or loathsomeness of the character in which these evil spirits revel. But the whole subject is one of difficulty.
(5) But the illustrative design of our Lord's miracles takes wider range than this. His miraculous cures were all of a purely beneficent nature, rolling away one or other of the varied evils brought in by the fall, and in no instance inflicting any. And when we find Himself saying, "The Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them" (Luke 9:56), does He not teach us to behold in all His miraculous cures a faint manifestation of THE HEALING SAVIOUR, in the highest sense of that office? [Compare Exodus 15:26, "Yahweh that healeth thee" - Yahweh (H3068) ropª'ekaa (H7495).]
(6) Lange justly notices here an important difference between the ministry of John and that of our Lord; the one being stationary, the other moving from place to place-the diffusive character of the Gospel thus peering forth at the very outset in the movements of the Great Preacher. And we may add, that the glorious ordinance of preaching could not have been more illustriously inaugurated.
Matthew 5:1-48 ; Matthew 6:1-34 ; Matthew 7:1-29 -THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
When surrounded by multitudes of eager listeners, of every class and from all quarters, and solemnly seated on a mountain on purpose to teach them for the first time the great leading principles of His kingdom, why, it may be asked, did our Lord not discourse to them in such strains as these: "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life;" "Come unto me, all that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest," etc.? While the absence of such savings from this His first great Discourse startles some to whom they are all-precious it emboldens others to think that evangelical Christians make too much of them, if not entirely misconceive them. But since the Jewish mind had been long systematically perverted on the subject of human duty and consequently of sin by the breach of it, and under such teaching had grown obtuse, unspiritual, and self-satisfied, it was the dictate of wisdom first to lay broad and deep the foundations of all revealed truth and duty, and hold forth the great principles of true and acceptable righteousness, in sharp contrast with the false teaching to which the people were in bondage. At the same time this Discourse is by no means so exclusively ethical as many suppose. On the contrary, though avoiding all evangelical details, at so early a stage of His public teaching our Lord holds forth, from beginning to end of this Discourse, the great principles of evangelical and spiritual religion; and it will be found to breathe a spirit entirely in harmony with the subsequent portions of the New Testament.
That this is the same Discourse with that in Luke 6:17-49 - only reported more fully by Matthew, and less fully, as well as with considerable variation, by Luke-is the opinion of many very able critics (of the Greek commentators; of Calvin, Grotius, Maldonatus-who stands almost alone among Romish commentators; and of most moderns, as Tholuck, Meyer, De Wette, Tischendorf, Stier, Wieseler, Robinson). The prevailing opinion of these critics is, that Luke's is the original form of the Discourse, to which Matthew has added a number of sayings, uttered on other occasions, in order to give at one view the great outlines of our Lord's ethical teaching. But that they are two distinct discourses-the one delivered about the close of His first missionary tour, and the other after a second such tour and the solemn choice of the Twelve-is the judgment of others who have given much attention to such matters (of most Romish commentators, including Erasmus; and among the moderns, of Lange, Greswell, Birks, Webster and Wilkinson. The question is left undecided by Alford). Augustine's opinion-that they were both delivered on one occasion, Matthew's on the mountain, and to the disciples; Luke's in the plain, and to the promiscuous multitude-is so clumsy and artificial as hardly to deserve notice.
To us the weight of argument appears to lie with these who think them two separate Discourses. It seems hard to conceive that Matthew should have put this Discourse before his own calling, if it was not uttered until long after, and was spoken in his own hearing as one of the newly-chosen Twelve. Add to this, that Matthew introduces his Discourse amidst very definite markings of time, which fix it to our Lord's first preaching tour; while that of Luke, which is expressly said to have been delivered immediately after the choice of the Twelve, could not have been spoken until long after the time noted by Matthew. It is hard, too, to see how either Discourse can well be regarded as the expansion or contraction of the other. And as it is beyond dispute that our Lord repeated some of His weightier sayings in different forms, and with varied applications, it ought not to surprise us that, after the lapse of perhaps a year-when, having spent a whole night on the hill in prayer to Cod, and set the Twelve apart, He found Himself surrounded by crowds of people, few of whom probably had heard the Sermon on the Mount, and fewer still remembered much of it-He should go over again its principal points, with just as much sameness as to show their enduring gravity, but at the same time with that difference which shows His exhaustless fertility as the great Prophet of the Church.