Matthew 3:13

Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him.

Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. Moses rashly anticipated the divine call to deliver his people, and for this was fain to flee the house of bondage, and wait in obscurity for 40 years more (, etc.). Not so this Greater than Moses. All but thirty years had He now spent in privacy at Nazareth, gradually ripening for His public work, and calmly awaiting the time appointed of the Father. Now it had arrived; and this movement from Galilee to Jordan is the step, doubtless, of deepest interest to all heaven since that first one which brought Him into the world. Luke () has this important addition - "Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus being baptized," etc.-implying that Jesus waited until all other applicants for baptism that day had been disposed of, before He stepped forward, that He might not seem to be merely one of the crowd. Thus, as He rode into Jerusalem upon an donkey "whereon yet never man sat" (), and lay in a sepulchre "wherein was never man yet laid" (), so in His baptism too He would be "separate from sinners."