When Jesus therefore perceived
As being the omniscient God, who knew their hearts, and the
secret thoughts and purposes of them; or, as man, understood by
their words and gestures:
that they would come and take him by force, and make him a
king;
that they had "determined", as the Arabic version renders it; or
"had it in their mind", as the Persic; to gather about him as one
man, and seize him in a violent manner, whether he would or not;
and proclaim him the King Messiah; place him at the head of them,
to deliver the nation from the Roman yoke, and set up a temporal
kingdom, in which they might hope for great secular advantages:
and they might the rather be induced to take such a step, since,
by this miracle, they could not doubt of his being able to
support such an army of men, and to succeed in the enterprise;
for he that could do this, what was it he could not do? but,
he departed again into a mountain, himself
alone;
he left the company directly, upon this resolution of theirs, and
even took not his disciples with him, who were in the same way of
thinking about a temporal kingdom, as the people, and might
encourage them in this undertaking: the mountain Christ went
into, very probably was the same he went up to before; the
reasons of his departure, were to prevent the attempt; to show
that his kingdom was not of this world; to teach his followers to
forsake the honours and riches of this world, for his sake; and
to let them know, that those who sought only for a temporal
redeemer, were unworthy of his presence: and also he went away
alone, for the sake of secret retirement, and private prayer; and
it may be chiefly, that he prayed that God would open the minds
of these men, and particularly the disciples; that they might be
convinced of their mistaken notions of him as a temporal prince:
some copies add, "and he prayed there"; the Syriac, Ethiopic, and
Persic versions leave out the word "again"; and the latter,
contrary to all others, renders it, "Christ departed from the
mountain alone".