καταβὰς, descending, with the Twelve, suggesting descent to the foot of the hills, the plain below. Yet the expression τόπου πεδινοῦ is peculiar; hardly what we should expect if the reference were to the plain beside the lake; rather suggestive of a flat space lower down the hill. πεδινὸς, here only in N. T. The descent takes place in order to the delivery of a discourse which, with the choice of the Apostles, constitutes the occasion with reference to which Jesus had spent the night in prayer. The audience consists of three classes separately named (1) the Twelve, (2) the company of disciples described as an ὄχλος πολὺς, (3) a multitude (πλῆθος) gathered from a wide area. This is the same multitude from which in Mk.'s narrative Jesus escaped to the hill, taking His disciples with Him, to get rest, and presumably to devote some leisure time to their instruction. Of this desire to escape from the crowd, so apparent in Mk., there is no trace in Lk. In indicating the sources of this great human stream Lk. omits Galilee as superfluous, mentions Judaea and Jerusalem, passing over ldumaea and Peraea (Mark 3:8), and winds up with Tyre and Sidon, defining the territory there whence people came by the expression τῆς παραλίου (χώρας understood), the sea-coast. The people come from all these places to hear Jesus (ἀκοῦσαι αὐτοῦ) in the first place, as if in expectation of a great discourse, and also to be healed. The eagerness to get healing even by touch, of which Mk. gives so graphic a picture (Luke 3:10), is faintly indicated by ἐζήτουν (ἐζήτει, T. R.).

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Old Testament