Matthew 3:1

In those days The phrase is indefinite, but always points back to a preceding date; in this case to the date of the settlement of the family at Nazareth. "In those days," i.e., some time during the nearly thirty years since that settlement. John Hebrew, meaning God has dealt graciously. Compare the German Gotthold. Came (παραγίνεται) Rev., cometh. The verb is used in what is called the historical present, giving vividness to the narrative, as Carlyle ("French Revolution"). "But now also the National Deputies from all ends of France are in Paris with their commissions." "In those days appears John the Baptist." Preaching (κηρύσσων) See on 2 Peter 2:5. Wilderness (τῇ ἐήμω) Not suggesting absolute barrenness but unappropriated territory affording free range for shepherds and their flocks. Hepworth Dixon ("The Holy Land") says, "Even in the wilderness nature is not so stern as man. Here and there, in clefts and basins, and on the hillsides, grade on grade, you observe a patch of corn, a clump of olives, a single palm."

1 . In those days ] See Luke 3:1 , where the time is defined. came ] Rather, cometh . The same word and the same tense as in Matthew 3:13 . John the Baptist ] So named by the other Synoptists and by Josephus: in the fourth gospel he is called simply John, a note of the authenticity of St John’s gospel. Josephus mentions the great influence of John and speaks of the crowds that flocked to hear him preach and to be baptized of him. He says John taught men “Justice in regard to one another and piety towards God.” preaching ] Lit. heralding , a word appropriate to the thought of the proclamation of a King. the wilderness of Judea ] i. e. the uncultivated Eastern frontier of Judah. The term also includes the cliffs and Western shore of the Dead Sea. In this wild and nearly treeless district there were formerly a few cities, and there are still some luxuriant spots. See Tristram’s Topog. of H. L . Ch. iv. Ch. Matthew 3:1-12 . John Baptist preaches in the Wilderness of Judæa. Mark 1:2-8 ; Luke 3:1-18 ; John 1:15-34 St Luke does not name the Pharisees and Sadducees, he gives the particular exhortations to the various classes of people who came to hear John. In the fourth Gospel the Baptist’s disclaimer of the Messiahship (cp. also ch. John 3:25-36 ) and his teaching respecting the person of Christ are reported more fully.

Matthew 3:1 . In those days — That is, in those years. For, as these events happened near thirty years after those recorded in the former chapter, this phrase is to be taken, in a very extensive sense, for that age of which he had spoken in the preceding words. And it is here used with the greater propriety, because John did indeed appear in his public character while Christ continued to dwell at Nazareth, which was the event that Matthew had last mentioned. Christ was now about thirty years of age, before which time of life no priest, teacher, or prophet was allowed to perform his office, as the Hebrews tell us, and as may be collected from the Scripture, 1 Chronicles 23:3 . Hence we learn that great preparation is necessary for sacred offices. The evangelists, therefore, pass over almost in entire silence our Saviour’s minority, only mentioning his disputing with the doctors in the temple, Luke 2:46 . And yet it is probable many other remarkable things happened during that period, which, if they had been recorded, we should have read with pleasure and profit. But as the Holy Ghost has not been pleased to favour us in this respect, let us be thankful for, and duly improve, what is made known to us. Came John — The son of Zacharias and Elizabeth, who had lived for several years retired in the wilderness of Judea: the Baptist — So called, either because he was the first who, by God’s command, baptized penitents, or because by him God instituted the ordinance of baptism.

For, admitting that the Jews received proselytes by baptism, yet he baptized Jews themselves, and from his time the ordinance of baptism must be dated. Before Christ’s entering upon the first part of his work, that of declaring the will of God, was recorded, it was necessary that the office of John should be spoken of, because he was his harbinger, or forerunner, and proclaimed his coming beforehand; and because, at the time of John’s baptizing Jesus, the Holy Ghost visibly descended on him, and consecrated him to his prophetic office. Preaching — The original word, κηρυσσων , means proclaiming, or crying aloud. It is properly used of those who make proclamation in the streets or camps, or who lift up their voice in the open air, and declare the things which are to be promulgated by public or royal authority, and which they have in charge from another. In the wilderness of Judea — That is, in the uncultivated and thinly-inhabited parts of Judea, where, it seems, his father Zacharias lived, Luke 1:39-40 . For we are not to suppose that John shunned the society of men, as those afterward did, who, on that account, were called hermits; but he had been brought up and had always lived in the country, and not in the city, and had had a plain country education, and not an academical or courtly one, at Jerusalem.

In {a} those days came {1} John the Baptist, preaching in the {b} wilderness of Judaea, (a) Not when Joseph went to dwell at Nazareth, but a great while after, about fifteen years: for in the 30th year of his life Jesus was baptized by John: therefore those days means the time when Jesus remained as an inhabitant of the town of Nazareth. (1) John, who through his singular holiness and rare austerity of life caused men to cast their eyes on him, prepares the way for Christ who is following fast on his heels, as the prophet Isaiah foretold, and delivers the sum of the gospel, which a short time later would be delivered more fully. (b) In a hilly country, which was nonetheless inhabited, for Zacharias dwelt there, Lu 1:39,40, and there was Joab's house, 1Ki 2:34; and besides these, Joshua makes mention of six towns that were in the wilderness, Jos 15:61,62.

CHAPTER 3 Mt 3:1-12. Preaching and Ministry of John. ( = Mr 1:1-8; Lu 3:1-18). For the proper introduction to this section, we must go to Lu 3:1, 2. Here, as Bengel well observes, the curtain of the New Testament is, as it were, drawn up, and the greatest of all epochs of the Church commences. Even our Lord's own age is determined by it (Lu 3:23). No such elaborate chronological precision is to be found elsewhere in the New Testament, and it comes fitly from him who claims it as the peculiar recommendation of his Gospel, that "he had traced down all things with precision from the very first" (Mt 1:3). Here evidently commences his proper narrative. Lu 3:1: Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar—not the fifteenth from his full accession on the death of Augustus, but from the period when he was associated with him in the government of the empire, three years earlier, about the end of the year of Rome 779, or about four years before the usual reckoning. Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea—His proper title was procurator, but with more than the usual powers of that office. After holding it for about ten years, he was summoned to Rome to answer to charges brought against him; but ere he arrived, Tiberius died (A.D. 35), and soon after miserable Pilate committed suicide.

And Herod being tetrarch of Galilee—(See on [1210]Mr 6:14). and his brother Philip—a very different and very superior Philip to the one whose name was Herod Philip, and whose wife, Herodias, went to live with Herod Antipas (see on [1211]Mr 6:17). tetrarch of Ituræa—lying to the northeast of Palestine, and so called from Itur or Jetur, Ishmael's son (1Ch 1:31), and anciently belonging to the half-tribe of Manasseh. and of the region of Trachonitis—lying farther to the northeast, between Iturea and Damascus; a rocky district infested by robbers, and committed by Augustus to Herod the Great to keep in order. and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene—still more to the northeast; so called, says Robinson, from Abila, eighteen miles from Damascus. Lu 3:2: Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests—The former, though deposed, retained much of his influence, and, probably, as sagan or deputy, exercised much of the power of the high priesthood along with Caiaphas, his son-in-law (Joh 18:13; Ac 4:6). In David's time both Zadok and Abiathar acted as high priests (2Sa 15:35), and it seems to have been the fixed practice to have two (2Ki 25:18). the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness—Such a way of speaking is never once used when speaking of Jesus, because He was Himself The Living Word; whereas to all merely creature-messengers of God, the word they spoke was a foreign element. See on [1212]Joh 3:31. We are now prepared for the opening words of Matthew. 1.

III. (1) John the Baptist.—For the birth and early life of the forerunner of the Christ, see Notes on. Luke 1. The manner in which he is mentioned here shows that his name was already well known to all readers of the Gospel. So, in like manner, Josephus names him as popularly known by the same title (Ant. xviii. 5, § 2), and describes his work as that of a preacher of repentance in nearly the same terms as St. Matthew. The symbolism of ablution as the outward sign of inward purification was, of course, derived from the Mosaic ritual. It was ordered for the consecration of the priests (Exodus 29:4; Leviticus 8:6), for the purification of the leper and other unclean persons (Leviticus 14:8; Leviticus 15:31-32). It had received a fresh prominence from the language of Isaiah 1:16, of Ezekiel 36:25, of Zechariah 13:1, and probably (though the date of the practice cannot be fixed with certainty) from its being used on the admission of proselytes, male or female, from heathenism. The question asked by the priests and Levites in John 1:25 implies that it was expected as one of the signs of the coming of the Messiah, probably as the result of the prophecies just referred to. That which distinguished the baptism of John from all previous forms of the same symbolism was, that it was not for those only who were affected by a special uncleanness, nor for the heathen only, but for all.