NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R. Seyda

GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

CHAPTER FOUR

Part IV

Verses 23-24: “Jesus went everywhere throughout Galilee.”

Apparently Peter told his nephew Mark, that after calling the disciples, Jesus went up early the next morning into the nearby hills to pray. When He came down He woke up His disciples, He said to them, “Let’s go elsewhere into the next towns, that I may preach there also, because I have come out in the open for this reason.”¹ Luke found out from his resources that the crowds didn’t want Jesus to leave. But He told them, “I must preach the good news of the Kingdom of God to the other cities also. I was sent for this very reason.”² So now Matthew tells us that after calling four of disciples, Jesus took a tour throughout Galilee. John Gill describes it as: “…a country mean and despicable, inhabited by persons poor, illiterate, vile, and wicked: such had the first fruits of Christ’s ministry, and messages of His grace; which shows the freeness, sovereignty, and riches, of His abounding goodness. He went about “all” this country, both upper and lower Galilee, which was very populous.”³

In his personal autobiography, Jewish historian Flavius Josephus tells about a trip he made to Galilee. “I came into Galilee, and found the people of Sepphoris in no small agony about their country, by reason that the [leading] Galileans had resolved to plunder it, on account of the friendship they had with the Romans, and because they had given their right hand [of fellowship], and made a league with Cestius Gallus, the president of Syria.”⁴ But that’s not all, after Josephus arrived he found another man named Jesus was very involved. Says, Josephus, “So Jesus the son of Sapphias, one of those whom we have already mentioned as the leader of a seditious tumult of mariners and poor people, prevented us, and took with him certain Galileans, and set the entire palace on fire, and thought he should get a great deal of money thereby, because he saw some of the roofs gilt with gold. They also plundered a great deal of the furniture, which was done without our approval; for after we had spoken with Capellus and the principal men of the city, we departed from Bethmaus, and went into the Upper Galilee. But Jesus and his party slew all the Greeks that were inhabitants of Tiberias, and as many others as were their enemies before the war began.”⁵

But this was not Jesus of Nazareth, because Josephus says that when he went, “to the house of Jesus, which indeed was a large castle, and very much like a citadel.”⁶ Josephus describes Galilee during this period some 25 years after Christ’s ascension in a letter to Justus: “To be sure, the greatest cities of Galilee, O Justus! were Sepphoris, and your country Tiberias. But Sepphoris, is situated in the very middle of Galilee, and is surrounded by many villages,”⁷ and “…there are two hundred and forty cities and villages in Galilee.”⁸ So Matthew records our Lord’s ministry in this area: “He taught in the synagogues and told the Good News about God’s kingdom. And he healed all the people’s diseases and sicknesses. The news about Jesus spread all over Syria, and people brought to Him all those who were sick. They were suffering from different kinds of diseases and pain. Some had demons inside them, some were thought to be crazy, and some were paralyzed. Jesus healed them all.”

When most Christians hear the word “synagogue,” they think of a building that resembles a church. But in Jesus’ day it was quite different. First of all, it was most often referred to as a house of prayer.⁹ That’s what Jesus applied to the Temple when He went there to clear out the money changers.¹⁰ Jewish scholars tell us that in any town or village, it is the place where Jews come together for community prayer services. Jews can satisfy the obligations of daily prayer by praying anywhere; however, there are certain prayers that can only be said in the presence of a quorum of 10 adult men, and tradition teaches that there is more merit to praying with a group than there is in praying alone. The sanctity of the synagogue for this purpose is second only to The Temple. In fact, in rabbinical literature, the synagogue is sometimes referred to as the “little Temple.” Any house or building could be used for a synagogue, which also usually served as the residence of the synagogue keeper.

By the time Jesus came these synagogues had progressed to also include schools and places for Rabbi’s to teach their students. Here was where Jesus taught and performed many of His miracles. A lot of people limit the miracles of Christ to those described individually in the Gospels. Here we have evidence enough to believe that just in this one time period in Galilee, He performed more wonders than all those described in detail by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. In reference to people coming from Syria, the northern part of Israel at that time was very near the border with Syria, so this was not too far out as a possibility. As a matter of fact, Josephus tells us that Damascus had a large Jewish contingency, and that many of the Syrian men were married to women who had embraced the Jewish religion.¹¹ It is also worthwhile to take note that up until now Jesus had not yet visited Jerusalem nor His home town of Bethlehem, yet His reputation had already spread there.

Matthew does not give us any details about exactly what Jesus preached, only that it was the Good News about the Kingdom of God. I like what one commentator says: “The gospel of the kingdom is not a message about getting to go to heaven. It is not a message for the hereafter, or the world to come. It is a message for today. It is a message that men and women can come in contact with the power of the living God who breaks through the space time continuum to meet them at the point of their human need. It is a message that men and women can be delivered, healed, made whole, by the power of the living God. That was the ‘good news.’ That was the gospel of the kingdom.”¹²

Matthew ends this section by making sure the reader knows that along with those who were physically ill, many came who were emotionally ill. Here in the KJV they are called “lunatiks.” The actual Greek word here is selēniazomai which means “moon struck,” which some scholars have interpreted as being epileptic. This is the way it is described in a famous medieval lexicon.¹³ Most people in that day attributed this to demonic powers, but there is no reason not to believe that today we might refer to them as being mentally ill, even those suffering from Muscular Dystrophy, Multiple Sclerosis and even Down’s Syndrome.