Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius
Caesar,
&c.] Emperor of Rome, and the third of the Caesars; Julius
was the first, and Augustus the second, in whose time Christ was
born, and this Tiberius the third; he was the son of Livia, the
wife of Augustus, but not by him; but was adopted by him, into
the empire: his name was Claudius Tiberius Nero, and for his
intemperance was called, Caldius Biberius Mero; the whole of his
reign was upwards of twenty two years, for he died in the twenty
third year of his reign {g}; and in the fifteenth of it, John
began to preach, Christ was baptized, and began to preach also;
so that this year may be truly called, "the acceptable year of
the Lord".
Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea;
under the Emperor Tiberius, in whose reign the Jewish chronologer
F8 places him, and the historian
and Herod
being tetrarch of Galilee;
this was Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the great, and brother
of Archelaus; the above chronologer F11 calls him also a
tetrarch, and places him under Tiberius Caesar: he is sometimes
called a king, and so he is by the Ethiopic version here called
"king of Galilee"; and in the Arabic version, "prince over the
fourth part of Galilee"; besides Galilee, he had also Peraea, or
the country beyond Jordan, as Josephus F12 says,
and which seems here to be included in Galilee; (See Gill on
Matthew
14:1).
And his
brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea, and of the region
of
Trachonitis:
Pliny F13 makes mention of the nation of the
Itureans, as belonging to Coele Syria; perhaps Iturea is the same
with Batanea, or Auranitis, or both; since these with Trachon,
the same with Trachonitis here, are allotted to Philip by
Josephus F14: it seems to take its name from
Jetur, one of the sons of Ishmael, ( Genesis
25:15 ) Trachonitis is mentioned by Pliny F15, as
near to Decapolis, and as a region and tetrarchy, as here:
Ptolemy F16 speaks of the Trachonite Arabians,
on the east of Batanea, or Bashan: the region of Trachona, or
Trachonitis, with the Targumists F17, answers to the country of
Argob. This Philip, who as before by Josephus, so by Egesippus
F18, is said, in agreement with Luke,
to be tetrarch of Trachonitis, was brother to Herod Antipas, by
the father's, but not by the mother's side. Philip was born of
Cleopatra, of Jerusalem, and Herod of Malthace, a Samaritan {s}:
he died in the twentieth year of Tiberius F20, five
years after this:
and Lysanias
the tetrarch of Abilene:
mention is made of Abila by Pliny F21, as in Coele Syria,
from whence this tetrarchy might have its name; and by Ptolemy
F23, it is called Abila of Lysanius,
from this, or some other governor of it, of that name; and the
phrase, "from Abilene to Jerusalem", is to be met with in the
Talmud F24, which doubtless designs this same
place: who this Lysanias was, is not certain; he was not the son
of Herod the great, as Eusebius suggests F25, nor
that Lysanias, the son of Ptolemy Minnaeus, whom Josephus
F26 speaks of, though very probably he
might be a descendant of his: however, when Tiberius Caesar
reigned at Rome, and Pontius Pilate governed in Judea, and Herod
Antipas in Galilee, and Philip his brother in Iturea and
Trachonitis, and Lysanias in Abilene, John the Baptist began to
preach and baptize; to fix the area of whose ministry and
baptism, all this is said.
F7 Suetou. Octav. Aug. c. 62, 63. &
Tiberius Nero, c. 21, 49, 73.
F8 R. David Ganz par. 2. fol. 15. 1.
F9 Joseph. de Bello, Jud. l. 2. c. 9.
sect. 2, 3.
F11 Par. 1. fol. 25. 2.
F12 De Bello Jud. l. 2. c. 6. sect. 5.
F13 Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 23.
F14 Ib. ut supra. (de Bello, Jud. l. 2. c.
9. sect. 2, 3.)
F15 Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 12.
F16 Lib. 5. c. 15.
F17 Targum Jon. in Deut. iii. 4. 14. 1
Kings iv. 13. & T. Hiefos. in Deut. iii. 14. & Numb. xxxiv.
15.
F18 De Excid. l. 1. c. 46. & 3. 26.
F19 Joseph de Bello Jud. l. 1. c. 28.
F20 Ib. Antiqu. l. 18. c. 6.
F21 Lib. 5. c. 18.
F23 Lib. 5. c. 15.
F24 T. Bab. Bava Kama, fol. 59. 2.
F25 Hist. Eccl l. 1. c. 9. 10.
F26 De Belle Jud. l. 1. c. 13. sect.
1.