Matthew 4 Study Notes

4:13 At this point Jesus made an important strategic move by shifting his headquarters from Nazareth to Capernaum. Nazareth was an obscure village, but Capernaum was a much larger fishing center on the shores of Lake Galilee. It boasted a tax collection station and a Roman garrison of at least a hundred soldiers. By the sea alludes to Isaiah’s prophecies, which describe the area as “the way of the sea,” an ancient trade route stretching from Damascus down to Caesarea Maritima on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. By the time of Christ, the Romans had built a stone road along the route, allowing caravans to travel from Syria and pass through Capernaum on the way to Caesarea. Since Capernaum was on the coast of the Sea of Galilee, it also provided easy access to every other city along the Galilean coast. Thus by choosing high-traffic Capernaum as his headquarters, Jesus was able to reach many Jews and Gentiles.

4:14-16 Matthew’s quotation of Is 9:1-2 highlights the international focus of Jesus’s ministry by describing Galilee as Galilee of the Gentiles. Second Kings 15:29 and 17:24-27 show that after the Jews were deported from the northern kingdom of Israel, foreigners flooded into Galilee. For instance, reports from the geographer Strabo and first-century Jewish historian Josephus show that Egyptians, Arabians, Phoenicians, and Greeks lived in Galilee. The Apocrypha (1 Macc 5) says Galilee’s population was largely Gentile and heathen. Jesus’s move to Galilee and the strategically located city of Capernaum shows his intention to save Gentiles as well as Jews. Matthew’s application of Is 9 also shows that Jesus was the great King called “Mighty God” who would reign from David’s throne over a universal and eternal kingdom, liberate God’s people from spiritual slavery, and bring peace and joy to the world (Is 9:3-7).

4:17 On the significance of the words from then on Jesus began to, see “Structure” in the Introduction to Matthew. Jesus’s message was identical to the message proclaimed by John the Baptist before his arrest. This identifies Jesus as the one who came after John (3:11) whom John had identified as the Lord God himself (Is 40:3; see note at Mt 3:3).

4:18-22 Jesus’s command, Follow me, urged the disciples not just to accompany him on his travels but to follow his example and emulate his character. Following Jesus involved significant sacrifice for Simon . . . Andrew . . . James, and John. They abandoned their careers as fishermen. The words they left . . . their father indicate that following Jesus also required the disciples to place commitment to Jesus above commitment to their own families (10:37; 19:29).

4:23 Jesus’s ministry in the synagogues shows that he initially focused his ministry on the Jewish population of Galilee, but this focus then widened to include Gentiles from there and beyond. The good news of the kingdom, the primary topic of Jesus’s preaching, was that the long-awaited Christ, the human ruler through whom God would establish his reign on earth, had come at last. This was the message proclaimed by John the Baptist (3:2), preached by Jesus (4:17), and emphasized by Matthew through his mention of Jesus’s Davidic lineage, the account of his miraculous birth, and his record of the visit of the magi. Jesus healed every disease and sickness among the people. The adjective “every” shows that no type of ailment was beyond Jesus’s power to heal. In the Greek text, the adjective “every” is repeated, placing emphasis on Jesus’s unlimited power to heal (9:35).

4:24 Syria was located just north of Galilee. Not surprisingly, word of Jesus’s healings quickly spread to that region, crossing geographical and language barriers. Soon Syrians began bringing their sick for Jesus to heal. By consenting to this, Jesus distinguished himself from some later Jewish interpreters who urged Jews to give no aid to a drowning Gentile or a Gentile woman giving birth (Maimonides). Matthew says Jesus healed demon-possessed people, but some scholars argue that these people were just epileptics. However, this verse distinguishes epilepsy from demon possession, which proves that the ancients differentiated between the two conditions.

4:25 Jesus’s earliest followers hailed from Jewish and Gentile regions. Jerusalem and Judea were Jewish regions, Galilee had a mixture of Jews and Gentiles, and the Decapolis was a group of predominantly Gentile cities. These geographical references and the diverse peoples entailed by them demonstrate Jesus’s desire to serve, heal, teach, and save all the nations of the earth (28:18-20). He came as the world’s Messiah.