Now after two days, he departed thence and went into Galilee.
μετα δε τας δυο ημερας εξηλθεν εκειθεν και απηλθεν εις την γαλιλαιαν
12 Church Fathers comment on this verse
The Lord, leaving Samaria, comes into Galilee. Then, lest anyone begin to inquire and wonder why He did not remain always in Galilee, but came there at intervals, though He seemed to come from Galilee, he says: “He did not live in Galilee because the Galileans showed Him no honor.”
He departs from Samaria, having already sown the saving word and, like a farmer, planted faith in its inhabitants. He did this not so that faith would bind those who received it to silence and remain inactive and buried.
Rather, He did it so that faith would grow ever more in the souls of all, spreading constantly and ever more widely everywhere, and attaining greater and greater strength.
Since He passes by Nazareth, which lay midway on the road and in which He was known to have been raised, He was already considered its citizen. Yet He goes down instead into Galilee.
The Evangelist therefore thinks it necessary to indicate the reason for this passing by. He says that "Jesus Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country."
For we have the habit of counting as nothing what is familiar, even if it is great and glorious. The Savior, of course, did not wish to seek honors from them as a man who loves glory and honor.
But He clearly knew that, for those who do not think it right to honor a teacher at all, the word of faith can no longer be sweet. Nor will it be well received by them.
Therefore He rightly passes by, not deeming it fitting to spend vain labors on those who would receive no benefit from them. Nor would He thereby hand over grace to those who despise it.
Certainly it would have been unjust for them to reach such crimes and do this without punishment. It is acknowledged and beyond dispute that those accustomed to despise Him, and contemptuously reject so wondrous a gift, must undergo the highest punishments.
The Gospel reading for today, which we must discuss, continues yesterday's reading. Although the thoughts contained in it are not difficult to understand, they still deserve a sermon. They are worthy of wonder and glorification.
Therefore we should mention this passage of the Gospel by drawing your attention to it, rather than examining it laboriously. After two days in Samaria, Jesus went into Galilee, where He had been brought up.
The Evangelist continues and says, "For Jesus Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country" (Jn 4:44). After two days Jesus left Samaria, not because He lacked honor in Samaria. His country was not Samaria, but Galilee.
If He so quickly left Samaria and came into Galilee, where He had been brought up, what do the words testify: "A prophet has no honor in his own country" (Jn 4:44)? It seems that He might rather have testified that a prophet had no honor in his own country if He had refused to go into Galilee and had remained in Samaria.
Pay attention, beloved. Here the Lord entrusts and sets before us a great mystery, about which I must speak. You have learned the question. Now learn the answer. Yet let us repeat the question, so that we may answer it more easily.
We are troubled by why the Evangelist said, "For Jesus Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country." Since this perplexes us, we must return again to the preceding words, to discover why the Evangelist wished to say this.
We find the words he spoke before, when he narrated that after two days Jesus left Samaria for Galilee. Is it for this reason, O Evangelist, that you said Jesus testified, "A prophet has no honor in his own country"? Was it because, after two days, He left Samaria and hastened into Galilee?
On the contrary, it seems to me that one should rather think this: if Jesus had no honor in His own country, He should not have hastened there after leaving Samaria.
Yet if I am not mistaken, or rather, because this is true and I am not mistaken, the Evangelist understands what he says better than I do. He received the truth better than I did, having drunk it from the Lord's breast.
For John the Evangelist is the one who, of all the disciples, reclined on the Lord's breast (cf. Jn 13:25). Though the Lord had to love all, He nevertheless loved him more than the others (cf. Jn 21:20).
What then? Was he mistaken, while I think rightly? On the contrary, if I think piously, then I humbly listen to what he said, so that I may deserve to think as he thought.
Therefore hear, beloved, what I think about this question, allowing that you may think otherwise and even better than I. For we have one Teacher, and we are all fellow disciples in one school.
This, then, is my opinion. Consider whether my opinion is true, and whether it is close to the truth. He spent two days in Samaria, and the Samaritans believed in Him. He spent so many days in Galilee, and yet the Galileans did not believe in Him.
Turn back in your minds and recall yesterday's reading and sermon. He came to Samaria, where that woman first announced Him. While speaking with her at Jacob's well, He revealed great mysteries.
When the Samaritans saw and heard Him, they already believed in Him because of the woman's word. They believed still more firmly because of His own word, and many believed. So it is written (Jn 4:39-42).
After two days, in which the number of the two commandments is mystically conveyed, upon which the whole Law and the Prophets depend (cf. Mt 22:37-40), as you remember we mentioned yesterday, He goes into Galilee. He enters Cana of Galilee, where He turned water into wine (cf. Jn 4:46).
The Evangelist indicates the reason why Jesus Christ did not then go straight to Capernaum, which was considered His country. It was because the inhabitants of that city paid no attention to Him and did not honor Him, as happens generally with those well known.
Close familiarity easily gives rise to disrespect. Where Jesus Christ testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country you will find at the end of the thirteenth chapter of Matthew's Gospel (Mt 13:57).
Nazareth was the country of Jesus Christ, because it was the country of His Mother and of the man thought to be His father, and because He was raised there. Capernaum was considered His country because He settled there.
Matthew says that Jesus Christ, leaving Nazareth, came and settled in Capernaum (Mt 4:13).
The Lord remained there two more days at the request of the Samaritans, and then went into Galilee. Yet despite the favorable disposition shown Him by the inhabitants of the Samaritan city, Jesus hastened into Galilee.
He always considered Himself called to preach chiefly among the Jews. Therefore, leaving Sychem, He went to His native region, Galilee (Jn 4:43; Mk 1:14; Mt 4:12; Lk 4:14).
From that time Galilee became the usual place of His activity. There He spent His time in short journeys through its various districts and cities.
Some observations on the condition of Galilee at that time may help explain why the Lord chose this region above all as the place of His public ministry.
According to the Jewish historian's reckoning, Galilee contained up to 204 cities and villages. Its inhabitants numbered up to four million. Even if one reduces his usual figure for the inhabitants of each smallest village, namely 15,000, Galilee was still, despite its small extent, a very populous land.
Its inhabitants were not all Jews. Among them were many foreigners of Phoenician, Arabian, and even Egyptian origin. They had come to this land long before, some even in the period of Assyrian dominion. Others had been settled there by Syrian rulers.
The exceptional fertility of this land, as well as its convenience for trade, attracted others later too. Many of these settlers had already adopted the Jewish religion.
Under the scepter of one ruler, the Galileans formed one people made up of persons of different religions and different nations. The Israelites among them, even if not more numerous, were in some sense the dominant people under a ruler who held the Jewish faith.
Yet neither the ruler's faith nor the ancient rights which the Jews had to this land, exclusively in relation to all other nations, gave them any advantages over the other settlers.
Thus Galilee may be regarded, with respect to religion, both as a Jewish land and as a pagan land. In this latter meaning it was called Galilee of the nations.
The mingling of Israelites with pagans in Galilee, and their distance from the capital of their faith, left them for the most part ignorant concerning their faith. They were a people sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death.
The Jews proper looked on them with contempt. "No prophet comes from Galilee," and, "Can anything good come from a Galilean city?" These were common sayings among pure Jews.
The Galileans were not rich in teachers. Yet, for that very reason, Jewish teachers had not handed on to them all their errors.
It is true that they shared with the other Jews some prejudices concerning the Messiah. But their prejudices, being prejudices of ignorance, could more easily be effaced than the prejudices of false enlightenment.
The appearance of the Messiah among them had to draw them to Him all the more, because they had formerly stood so low in the opinion of their Jewish compatriots.
For the other inhabitants of Galilee, the pagans, Jesus also could not remain unnoticed, though neither He nor His disciples addressed their teaching specifically to them. For both He and His disciples healed many of their sick.
In this way, among these people also, the activity and preaching of Jesus could not remain without fruit.
The disciples of Jesus were all from Galilee. It was easier for His other followers to accompany Him there on His journeys, to leave their homes, and to gather the seeds of His teaching, which He scattered here and there. The fertility of the land generally secured their sustenance.
These considerations explain to us why the Savior chose Galilee as the principal place of His activity during His public ministry.
Concerning Galilee and its inhabitants according to Strabo: already in Isa 8:23 there is Gelil heiggoiim, that is, "district of the nations," and Γαλιλαία τών αλλοφύλων (1 Macc 5:15). Pagans, or foreigners, were especially numerous in Upper or Northern Galilee.
In beginning to describe the activity of Jesus Christ after His second return to Galilee, all the Evangelists first give a general outline or portrayal of it. St John and Matthew draw attention to the chief place of Jesus Christ's activity in Galilee.
This was not southern Galilee, where Nazareth was, but northern Galilee, where Cana and Capernaum were. The first points to the historical occasion for this, the unbelief of the Nazarenes. The Evangelist Matthew points, in Jesus Christ's choice of Capernaum as His permanent dwelling, to the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy.
Then John draws attention to the favorable reception given to Jesus Christ by the inhabitants of northern Galilee. He explains it by saying that they had witnessed the works of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem at the feast.
Luke likewise points to the effect of Jesus Christ's teaching. When Jesus returned to Galilee, the report of Him spread everywhere. Ordinarily He taught in the synagogues, and all glorified Him for His wisdom.
The Evangelist explains this power of Jesus Christ's word by saying that Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, which He had received at baptism. After indicating the place of Jesus Christ's activity, Matthew gives the substance of His initial preaching in Galilee (v. 17).
Mark does the same. According to their concordant testimony, Jesus Christ began His work, like John the Baptist, by a call to repentance and by the good tidings that the time appointed by God for the opening of the kingdom of God had been fulfilled.
At the same time Mark calls what Jesus Christ preached the Gospel of the kingdom of God. He adds that together with repentance the Lord called men to faith in this Gospel.
Jesus Christ stayed two days in Samaria among the inhabitants of Sychar, and then set out for Galilee. To understand the Evangelist's remark in verse 44, one must keep in mind that Nazareth is called the country of Jesus Christ.
It was the place of His upbringing and of His life until the age of thirty (Mt 13:54 and parallels). Consequently, Nazareth is contrasted with what the Evangelist calls Galilee.
Galilee was divided into upper and lower. In the proper sense, Galilee meant upper Galilee. Nazareth was in lower Galilee. Consequently, the Evangelist speaks here of Galilee in the narrower sense.
He says that Jesus Christ chose upper Galilee, not lower Galilee where Nazareth was, as the chief place of His activity. Why? Because He Himself later confirmed the truth of the popular saying: a prophet has no honor in his own country (Lk 4:24).
By contrast, the inhabitants of upper Galilee received Him sympathetically, with readiness to believe in Him, having seen all that He had done in Jerusalem at the feast.
Leaving Shechem for Galilee, Jesus did not go to Nazareth, since He Himself said that a prophet has no honor in his own country. Instead He came to Capernaum, at that time an important city on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, or Gennesaret, which was also called the sea.
The Evangelist Matthew sees in this the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy. He foretold that the people of the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, sunk in pagan darkness, would see a great Light. It is clear that in this prophecy the great Light means the Deliverer-Messiah.
According to the testimony of Josephus, at that time there were up to 204 cities and villages in Galilee, with a population of up to four million. The population of Galilee was mixed and consisted of Jews and foreign pagans, among whom were Phoenicians, Greeks, Arabs, Egyptians, and others.
Because of this mingling of Galilean Jews with pagans, the Jews from Judea looked on them with contempt. Yet this very mingling protected the Galilean Jews from the Pharisaism of the Judean Jews and made them more receptive to Christ's teaching.
This same mingling also gave the Galilean pagans the opportunity to learn that the Jews were awaiting a Savior. Consequently, it prepared them in part to receive the Messiah-Christ, at least as a prophet. This is why the preaching of Jesus had greater success in Galilee than in Judea.
Despite the warm reception from the Samaritans, Christ could not remain long in Samaria. His chief work was among Israel. This people, precisely, had been prepared for whole millennia to receive the Messiah, had lived in expectation of His coming, and had borne the true idea of the kingdom of God on earth.
True, in the course of a long historical life, full of every kind of upheaval and the most terrible errors and calamities, this people had to a considerable degree lost its former moral wholeness and purity. It had grown hardened and unbelieving.
Even in its views of the kingdom of the Messiah, the sensual and earthly element came chiefly to the fore. Thus it expected the Messiah more as a fearsome conqueror and avenger for all Israel's disasters and hardships than as Redeemer from spiritual death.
But for this reason it was all the more urgent to dispel this error that had crept in and remove the misunderstandings that could arise. Then this very people, sooner than all other peoples, would be able to become the apostle and herald of the new religion.
Moreover, this new religion in reality was to serve as the completion and perfection of the Old Covenant.
Therefore, after staying two days in Shechem or its surroundings, Jesus Christ went farther north, toward Galilee. The road led through Shechem into Samaria, which lay on a high hill, 1,551 feet above the level of the Mediterranean Sea, three hours' journey northwest of Nablus.
At that time Samaria was in the splendid condition in which Herod had left it. It was no longer old Samaria, but magnificent Sebaste, renamed by the cunning Idumean in honor of the Roman emperor Augustus. Sebastos is the Greek translation of the Latin word Augustus.
When Christ passed through it, its enormous public buildings stretched before Him in ordered rows. Among them stood out a splendid temple, erected by the blasphemous servility of the Herods in honor of their earthly god, Augustus.
There were also vast colonnades, triumphal arches, baths, and theaters. All these buildings stood within the famous wall, twenty stadia in circumference. A stadium is about ninety sazhen, so the wall was more than three and a half versts in circumference (Antiq. 15:8, 5).
At En-Gannim, the "Spring of Gardens," on the southern slope of the great plain of Esdraelon, the road crosses the Samaritan border. Having crossed it, the Savior again entered the borders of His native Galilee.
In these verses there is, at first glance, a difficult combination of ideas. The Lord went into Galilee because He Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country, that is, Galilee. Yet when He came into Galilee, the Galileans received Him.
There are several proposals for resolving this difficulty. The most important are these. First, by the name of country one understands not Galilee in general, but Nazareth in particular, the place where the Lord was raised. It is so called in other places of the Gospel (Lk 4:23). Chrysostom also understands it this way.
According to this interpretation, the meaning is as follows. The Lord went from Samaria into Galilee, but passed by His city, Nazareth, because He Himself said that a prophet has no honor in his own country. He went to other parts of Galilee, and the Galileans received Him, and so on.
Second, if one understands the country as all Galilee, as the context seems to require, and not only Nazareth, the passage is explained as follows. If, as the Lord testified, a prophet has no honor in his own country, then He had to acquire it outside His country, in a foreign place.
The Lord did this. In Judea, in Jerusalem, He gained for Himself the respect and faith, and therefore the honor, of the Galileans who had come there for the feast. This was what they refused the prophet at home, in His own country.
Thus He now returned with honor and glory from a foreign place to His own country. This is why the Galileans now received Him, for they had seen His miracles in Jerusalem and now rendered Him due honor.
Third, Blessed Theophylact explains it thus: "The Lord, after leaving Samaria, comes into Galilee. Then, lest someone begin to inquire and be perplexed as to why He did not always remain in Galilee, but came there at intervals, though He seemed to come from Galilee, he says: He did not live in Galilee because the Galileans did not show Him honor. For Jesus Himself testified that a prophet does not enjoy honor in his own country."
Whichever of these proposals we accept, they sufficiently resolve the difficult combination of ideas in the verses under consideration.
"He went into Galilee": see the note on Mt 2:22. "Jesus Himself testified," and so on: the Lord uttered similar testimonies later (see Mt 13:57; Mk 6:4; Lk 4:23), not at this time.
But the Evangelist, writing long after the events, recalls here this testimony of the Lord, uttered at another time, to explain why the Lord now went into Galilee. For the meaning of the testimony itself, see the note on Mt 13:57 and parallels.
"They received Him" means with the honor due to an extraordinary messenger of God. Such honor a prophet does not have in his own country, and such honor He had now acquired by His deeds in Jerusalem, where the Galileans who went to the feast had seen Him.
"Having seen everything," and so on, refers to the miracles John mentioned (Jn 2:23), and to all His actions and teaching there. "For they also had gone": on the journeys of the Jews to the feasts in Jerusalem, see the note on Lk 2:41 and following.
In Galilee, where Jesus Christ was going, He did not stop in Nazareth, His own city, because, as He Himself said, a prophet has no honor in his own country. Instead He again visited Cana and Capernaum.
The people everywhere greeted Him with enthusiasm, since the report of His miracles in Jerusalem had already reached Galilee. In Capernaum the Lord Jesus Christ healed the royal official's son. By count, this was the second miracle performed by Jesus Christ in Galilee.
The Galileans, whom the Jerusalem Jews despised for associating with pagans and for not strictly fulfilling the ritual prescriptions of the Law of Moses, rejoiced that a great teacher and wonderworker had arisen from among them.
The Lord Jesus Christ chose Galilee as the chief place of His preaching activity, visiting Jerusalem only briefly, at the great feasts. He did this because the Galileans were not blinded by Pharisaic prejudices and responded more trustfully to the preaching of Christ.
Moreover, in Galilee many pagans lived among the Jews, including Phoenicians, Greeks, Arabs, Egyptians, and others. Thus the preaching of Jesus Christ here also influenced the pagan world.
Because of Galilee's commercial ties with world markets, this preaching spread far beyond the borders of Galilee.
The Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke describe in detail the activity of Jesus Christ in Galilee, His teaching, and His miracles. Therefore the Evangelist John only briefly notes Jesus Christ's visits to Galilee, dwelling in detail on events that took place in Jerusalem.
Verses 43-45. "After two days He went into Galilee.... A prophet has no honor in his own country." After two days' stay in Shechem, the Savior set out for Galilee.
On the way He was in Nazareth, but soon left it. So St Matthew shows in 4:13. St John presents the reason for this: "Jesus Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country."
Nazareth was considered Jesus' hometown because Jesus was raised there (Mt 4:13). This observation from experience concerning fellow countrymen was applied to Nazareth on another occasion as well (Mt 13:57; Lk 4:27).
Therefore it was in vain that this statement in John was referred to Capernaum by Zigabenus. Capernaum was in no way Jesus' hometown.
The Galileans received the passing Jesus with respect. This was precisely because, when they were in Jerusalem for the feast of Pascha according to the commandment of the Law (Deut 16:16; Ex 34:29), they had witnessed the great works Jesus performed at Pascha (Jn 2:13).
The Lord returns to Galilee, leaving for a time Judea and Jerusalem, "which kills the prophets." As is clear from verse 45, the Galileans receive the Lord not with hostility, but even with joy. They had seen all "that the Lord had done in Jerusalem at the feast," for they too had gone to the feast.
Here two questions arise. Who precisely were the Galileans who chiefly went to the feast? And to whom do the words apply, that a prophet is not honored in his own country?
Those who chiefly went up to the feast in Jerusalem were, of course, the most zealous Jews and the brothers of the Lord, "who did not believe in Him" (Jn 7:5). In all likelihood, they were Joseph's sons from earlier marriages, that is, the Lord's stepbrothers. In Christian activity they are generally unknown.
There were also those Jews gathered in the synagogue of Capernaum and in other cities, to whom the Lord said these very words: "A prophet is not without honor except in his own country" (Mk 6:4). They opposed the Lord, as in Mt 9, Mk 3, and Lk 13.
In other words, this was that part of Galilee's population which treated the Lord with malice. It was permeated with the views and aims of Jerusalem and the Pharisees.
But besides them, poor and unlearned Galileans also went to the feast. Unlike the scribes, they are everywhere called the people. This very people received the Lord joyfully.
The Lord had compassion on this people, seeing that they were harassed and scattered, like "sheep without a shepherd" (Mt 9:36). And the Galilean people "rejoiced over all the glorious things done by the Lord" (Lk 13:17).
Therefore it seems that the Lord's words about a prophet having no honor in his own country refer not to Galilee and the Galileans, but to the Jews in the broad sense. Wherever they lived, they are called His own in John 1, and they "did not receive the Lord": "He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him."
Therefore the Lord's country, indicated in the saying, is in the broad sense Judea, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem, where the Lord was born (Mt 2:5). It is the people who had been God's people and rejected their God.
More especially, it is that spirit of Judaism which "rejected the will of God for the sake of its tradition" (Mt 15:3). This spirit was embodied in the educated class of the people, in the scribes and Pharisees, who were considered the people's guides.
Individual persons were saved by the Lord. But the Jews, as a nation and as an educated class, were rejected by the Lord.
Perhaps in a narrower sense the saying mentioned above should also refer to the family circle of Joseph's sons, who did not believe in the Lord. It should also refer to those synagogues where they asked, "Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon?" (Mk 6:3; Mt 13:55).
It also refers to the cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, which the Lord rebuked (Mt 11:21-23; Lk 10:13-15).
Yet the most terrible judgment was pronounced by the Lord upon Jerusalem (Mt 23:37; Lk 13:34). That city, where the Lord's temple stood, is the true spiritual country of the incarnate Son of God, whom "His own did not receive."
This country of the Lord who had received human flesh was ruled by men who had forgotten the will of God, the spirit of the Lord's law, and even the principles of all morality. They became a band of murderers, striving by every means to kill the Righteous One (Jn 5:16-18; 7:1, 19, 32; 8:40, 59; 10:31; 11:53).
These Jews are "the country in which a prophet has no honor." Therefore "their house is left desolate until they say, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord'" (Lk 13:35).
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 10 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS