Matthew 4:13

13. Leaving Nazareth After being rejected there the first time. (See Hist. Synop.) As Nazareth was in Galilee, this implies that our Lord’s course from Judea was first to Nazareth. Thence, for reasons we proceed to explain, he went and took his residence at Capernaum. Came and dwelt at Capernaum As Bethlehem was the place of Jesus’s birth, and Nazareth of his childhood, so Capernaum was the home of his ministry, and Jerusalem the place of his death.

Capernaum was a town situated upon the western shore of the Lake of Gennesaret. Its name is compounded of the words Kefr, village, and Nahum, refreshment. It was called the place of refreshment, from the springs near which it stood. There is much difference of opinion as to its true position. We adopt, however, the opinion of Dr. Thomson, that it was situated at the point which is now called Tell-Hum. The word Hum is doubtless the closing syllable of thee word Caperna um. As the word Kefr signifies a village, and the word Tell signifies a mound, or ancient, site, so the ancient Kefr-Nahum would be the modern Tell-Hum. The town of Khorazy, about two miles north of Tell-Hum, seems to represent the ancient Chorazin. This place was eminently suited to be the location of our Lord’s ministry. The lake by which it stood, though now deserted and lonely, was then the scene of busy life. “Situated,” says Stanley, “in the midst of the Jordan valley, on the great thoroughfare from Babylon and Damascus, in Palestine, its waters seemed to answer a purpose like that served by the Lake of Lucerne, between Italy and Germany. Its fisheries furnished a source of sustenance to the surrounding inhabitants, and an industry for its labourers. Its surface was alive with the ships, or rather lake-boats, of fisher-men and navigators. Under the Roman government custom-houses were established, at which tribute was taken by the publicans, of which Matthew was one. The adjoining countries of Naphtali and Zebulun, diversified with mountain and vale, were covered with verdure, and cultivated by a swarming population. Its surface was dotted by countless villages, visited by our Lord at various times, mentioned or unmentioned by the evangelists. Thus the double advantages of intercourse by sea and land were secured by our Lord’s position at Capernaum.”

Which is upon the sea coast The coast or shore of the Lake of Gennesaret. This lake and its surrounding localities must ever remain one of the most interesting spots on the map of the globe.

The Lake of Gennesaret is seldom mentioned in the Old Testament, or in secular history. In the dim antiquity of the most ancient records, its name appears to have been Cinneroth, of which Gennesaret is the modernized Greek form, and which appears to have been derived from a town of Cinneroth, on its western shore. It was afterward called the Sea of Galilee, and finally, in honour of the Emperor Tiberius, it was called the Lake of Tiberias, and a town was called Tiberias on its western coast.

The Sea of Tiberias is about thirteen miles in length, and, in its broadest part, six miles in breadth. In the clearness of the eastern atmosphere it looks much smaller than its real size. What gives it a remarkable aspect, is the deep depression of its surface not only far below the lofty summits of its banks, but far below the level of the Mediterranean Sea. As the traveller descends from the rocky walls by which it is encompassed, the temperature of its deep basin grows warm. In the summer or late spring it is filled with an atmosphere of oppressive heat, in great contrast with the bracing breezes of the neighbouring hills of Galilee. “All along the edge of this secluded basin,” says Stanley, “runs the whole way round from north to south a level beach, at the southern end roughly strewn with the black and white stones peculiar to this district, and also connected with its volcanic structure; but the central or northern part formed of smooth sand, or of a texture of shells and pebbles so minute as to resemble sand, like the substance of the beach on the Gulf of ‘Akabah. Shrubs, too, of the tropical thorn, fringe the greater part of the line of shore, mingled here and there with the bright pink colours of the oleander,

‘All thro’ the summer night

Those blossoms, red and bright,

Spread their soft breasts’

long before they are in flower in the valleys of the higher country. On this beach, which can be discerned running like a white line all round the lake, the hills plant their dark base, descending nowhere precipitously, but almost everywhere presenting an alternation of soft grassy slopes and rocky cliffs, occasionally broken away so as to exhibit the red and gray colours so familiar in the limestone of Greece.”

Through the centre of this lake, from north to south, runs the rapid current of the River Jordan, which, coming down from its sources in the Lebanon, passes onward to the Dead Sea. On both sides of the inlet of the River Jordan, at the northern extremity of the lake, stood the double town of Bethsaida. Thence on the curve of the northeastern shore was the grassy plain of Butaiha, where the five thousand were miraculously fed. Moving down the eastern shore, we come to Kersa or Gergesa, the place of the two demoniacs and the possessed swine. On the western banks were the towns of Tiberias, of Magdala, (the residence of the Magdalen,) Capernaum, and Chorazin. These localities are unparalleled in interest to the heart of the Christian traveller, and no waters in the world are surveyed with such emotions as the Lake of Gennesaret, and the stream of the Jordan.

Borders of Zebulun and Nephalim By the ancient division of the tribes, Zebulun bordered on this Sea of Gennesaret. Long before the settlement of the tribes in the land of Canaan, the dying Jacob prophesied of Zebulun, (Genesis 49:13:) “Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea; and he shall be an haven of the ships; and his borders shall be unto Zidon.”