Luke 3:1

Luke 3:1-9. Baptism and Preaching of John the Baptist

1. in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cesar If the accession of Tiberius be dated from the death of Augustus, Aug. 19, a.u.c. 767, this would make our Lord thirty-twoat His baptism. St Luke, however, follows a common practice in dating the reign of Tiberius from the period of his association with Augustusas joint Emperor a.u.c. 765. (Tac. Ann.i. 3; Suet. Aug.97; Vell. Paterc. 103.) Our Lord's baptism thus took place in a.u.c. 780.

Tiberius Cesar The stepson and successor of Augustus. At this period of his reign he retired to the island of Capreae (Tac. Ann.iv. 74), where he plunged into horrible private excesses, while his public administration was most oppressive and sanguinary. The recent attempts to defend his character break down under the accumulated and unanimous weight of ancient testimony.

Pontius Pilate He was Procurator for ten years, a. d. 25 36. His predecessors had been Coponius (a. d. 6 10), M. Ambivius, Annius Rufus, and Valerius Gratus (a. d. 14 25). He was succeeded by Marcellus, Fadus, Tiberius Alexander, Cumanus, Felix, Festus, Albinus and Florus. For an account of him see on Luke 23:1.

governor His strict title was epitroposor Procurator (Jos. Antt. xx. 6, § 2), which does not however occur in the N. T. except in the sense of -steward" (Luke 8:3). Hegemonwas a more general term. (Matthew 10:18; 1 Peter 2:14.) His relation to the Herods was much the same as that of the Viceroy of India to the subject Maharajahs.

Herod Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great and the Samaritan lady Malthace. He retained his kingdom for more than 40 years, at the end of which he was banished (a. d. 39) to Lugdunum (probably St Bertrand de Comminges), chiefly through the machinations of his nephew Herod Agrippa I. (the Herod of Acts 12:1). See the Stemma Herodumon p. 39, and for further particulars of his character see on Luke 13:32.

tetrarch The word properly means a ruler of a fourth partof a country, but afterwards was used for any tributary prince or ethnarch. At this time Judaea, Samaria and Galilee were the provinces of Judaea. Antipas, Philip and Lysanias are the only three to whom the term -tetrarch" is applied in the N. T. Antipas also had the courtesy-title of -king" (Mark 6:14, &c.), and it was in the attempt to get this title officially confirmed to him that he paid the visit to Rome which ended in his banishment. He was tetrarch for more than 40 years, from b. c. 4 to a. d. 39.

of Galilee This province is about 25 miles from North to South, and 27 from East to West, about the size of Bedfordshire. Lower Galilee included the district from the plain of Akka to the shores of the Sea of Galilee, and was mainly composed of the rich plain of Esdraelon (or Jezreel). Upper Galilee included the mountain range between the Upper Jordan and Phoenicia. Galilee was thus the main scene of our Lord's ministry. It was surpassingly rich and fertile (Jos. B. J.i. 15. 5, iii. 10, §§ 7, 8). See on Luke 1:26. Herod's dominions included the larger though less populous district of Peraea; but the flourishing towns of Decapolis (Gerasa, Gadara, Damascus, Hippos, Pella, &c.) were independent.

his brother Philip Herod Philip, son of Herod the Great and Cleopatra, who afterwards married his niece Salome, daughter of the other Herod Philip (who lived in a private capacity at Rome) and of his half-sister and sister-in-law Herodias. This tetrarch seems to have been the best of the Herods (Jos. Antt. xvii. 2. § 4), and the town of Caesarea Philippiwhich he beautified was named from him.

of Ituraea and of the region of Trachonitis His tetrarchate also included Batanaea (Bashan), Auranitis (the Hauran), Gaulanitis (Golân), and some parts about Jamnia (Jos. B. J.ii. 6, § 3). Ituraea (now Jedûr) was at the foot of Mount Hermon, and was named from Jetur, son of Ishmael (Genesis 25:15-16). The Ituraeans were marauders, famous for the use of the bow, and protected by their mountain fastnesses. (Strabo, xvi. 2; Lucan, Phars.vii. 230.) Trachonitis, also a country of robbers (Jos. Antt.xvi. 9 §§ 1, 2), is the Greek rendering of the Aramaic Argob (a region about 22 miles from N. to S. by 14 from W. to E.), and means -a rough or stony tract." It is the modern province of el-Lejâh, and the ancient kingdom of Og "an ocean of basaltic rocks and boulders, tossed about in the wildest confusion, and intermingled with fissures and crevices in every direction." Herod Philip received this tetrarchate by bequest from his father (Jos. B. J. ii. 6, § 3).

Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene The mention of this minute particular is somewhat singular, but shews St Luke's desire for at least one rigid chronological datum. It used to be asserted that St Luke had here fallen into another chronological error, but his probable accuracy has, in this point also, been completely vindicated. There was a Lysanias king of Chalcis under Mount Lebanon, and therefore in all probability tetrarch of Abilene, in the days of Antony and Cleopatra, 60 years beforethis period (Jos. B. J.i. 13, § i); and there was anotherLysanias, probably a grandson of the former, in the reigns of Caligula and Claudius, 20 years afterthis period (Jos. Antt.xv. 4, § i). No intermediate Lysanias is recorded in history, but there is not a shadow of proof that the Lysanias herementioned may not be the second of these two, or more probably some Lysanias who came between them, perhaps the son of the first and the father of the second. Even M. Renan admits that after reading at Baalbek the inscription of Zenodorus (Boeckh, Corp. Inscr. Graec.no. 4521) he infers the correctness of the Evangelist (Vie de Jésus, p. xiii.; Les Évangiles, p. 263). It is indeed, on the lowest grounds, inconceivable that so careful a writer as St Luke should have deliberately gone out of his way to introduce so apparently superfluous an allusion at the risk of falling into a needless error. Lysanias is perhaps mentioned because he had Jewish connexions (Jos. Antt.xiv. 7, § 4).

of Abilene Abila was a town 18 miles from Damascus and 38 from Baalbek. The district of which it was the capital is probably here mentioned because it subsequently formed part of the Jewish territory, having been assigned by Caligula to his favourite Herod Agrippa I. in a. d. 36. The name is derived from Abel-a meadow."

Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests Rather, in the high-priesthood of Annas and of Caiaphas, for the true reading is undoubtedly ἀρχιερέως (א, A, B, C, D, E, &c.), and a similar expression occurs in Acts 4:6. But here St Luke is charged (on grounds as untenable as in the former instances) with yet another mistake. Annas or Hanan the son of Seth had been High Priest from a. d. 7 14, and had therefore, by this time, been deposed for at least 15 years; and his son-in-law Joseph Caiaphas, the fourthHigh Priest since his deposition, had been appointed in a. d. 24. The order had been as follows:

Annas or Ananus (Hanan), a. d. 7.

Ishmael Ben Phabi, a. d. 15.

Eleazar son of Annas, a. d. 15.

Simon son of Kamhith, a. d. 16.

Joseph Caiaphas, a. d. 17.

How then can Annas be called High Priest in a. d. 27? The answer is (i.) that by the Mosaic Law the High priesthood was held for life (Numbers 35:25), and since Annas had only been deposed by the arbitrary caprice of the Roman Procurator Valerius Gratus he would still be legally and religiously regarded as High Priest by the Jews (Numbers 35:25); (ii.) that he held in all probability the high office of Sagan haccohanim-deputy" or -chief" of the Priests (2 Kings 25:18), or of Nasi-President of the Sanhedrin," and at least of the Ab Beth Dîn, who was second in the Sanhedrin; (iii.) that the nominal, official, High Priests of this time were mere puppets of the civil power, which appointed and deposed them at will in rapid succession, so that the title was used in a looser sense than in earlier days. The High Priest-hood was in fact at this time in the hands of a clique of some half-dozen Herodian, Sadducaean and alien families, whose ambition it was to bear the title for a time without facing the burden of the necessary duties. Hence any one who was unusually prominent among them would naturally bear the title of -High Priest" in a popular way, especially in such a case as that of Hanan, who, besides having been High Priest, was a man of vast wealth and influence, so that five also of his sons, as well as his son-in-law, became High Priests after him. The language of St Luke and the Evangelists (John 11:49) is therefore in strict accordance with the facts of the case in attributing the High Priesthood at this epoch rather to a castethan to a person. Josephus (B. J.ii. 20, § 4) who talks of "one ofthe High Priests" and the Talmud which speaks of "the sons of the High Priests" use the same sort of language. There had been no less than 28 of these phantom High Priests in 107 years (Jos. Antt.xx. 10, § i), and there must have been at least five living High Priests and ex-High Priests at the Council that condemned our Lord. The Jews, even in the days of David, had been familiar with the sort of co-ordinate High Priesthood of Zadok and Abiathar. For the greed, rapacity and luxury of this degenerate hierarchy, see my Life of Christ, ii. 329, 330, 342.

in the wilderness Mainly, as appears from the next verse, the Arabah, the sunken valley north of the Dead Sea el Ghôr "the deepest and hottest chasm in the world" (Humboldt, Cosmos, 1.150), where the sirocco blows almost without intermission. "A more frightful desert it had hardly been our lot to behold" (Robinson, Researches, ii. 121). See it described by Mr Grove in Smith's Bibl. Dict.s. v. Arabah. The stern aspect and terrible associations of the spot had doubtless exercised their influence on the mind of John. See on Luke 1:80.