Who were the Galileans in the Bible?

The inhabitants of Galilee. Mark 14:70; John 4:45; Acts 2:7; etc.

This was a much smaller district in the O.T. than in the N.T., although its area is not very defined. It seems formerly to have included a portion of Naphtali, and perhaps a portion of Asher. 'Kedesh in Galilee,' one of the cities of refuge was in Naphtali. Joshua 20:7; Joshua 21:32; 1 Chr. 6:76. Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in Galilee. These are not named, but they would naturally be near to Tyre. When Hiram went to view them he called them the 'land of Cabul,' as if he included them all under the one name of 'Cabul,' worthless. Now there was and is a village of this name on the frontier of Asher, which would seem to indicate that Asher was in the district of Galilee. 1 Kings 9:11-13. About B.C. 740 Tiglath-pileser carried away captive all the inhabitants of Naphtali, etc. 2 Kings 15:29. This was doubtless followed by the district being inhabited by foreigners, who, when the captivity of Israel was completed, would be able to spread themselves southward. Hence the term 'Galilee of the Gentiles,' or nations, which does not occur until Isa. 9:1; the prophecy is quoted in Matt. 4:15.

The disciples (with the probable exception of Judas Iscariot) were all Galileans. They are referred to again and again as Galileans, and Peter is even told that his speech gave him away; the Galilean accent was well known. So John was from Galilee, called "Galilee of the nations" (Matt.4:15). The people there were a mixed people and being mixed they were looked down on by the Jews from Judea and Jerusalem where the Temple was.

Philip. In the first three Gospels he is placed in this order. He is mentioned as being of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. (John 1:44) It is more than probable that he was among the Galileans of that district who flocked to hear the preaching of John the Baptist. Though no part of Palestine was spoken of in such terms of reproach as Galilee, it was from these despised but simple, earnest, and devoted Galileans that our Lord chose His apostles. "Search and look," said the Pharisees, "for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet." But sweeping statements, generally speaking, are untrue. "Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?" is a sample of their character.

In N.T. times Galilee had become a much larger district, including the portions of Asher, Naphtali, Zebulon, and Issachar. It had over 200 towns and villages, and about three million inhabitants in Josephus' time. It was bounded on the south by Samaria, and embraced the whole of the north part of Palestine. It included the towns of Nain, Nazareth, Cana, Tiberias, Magdala, Dalmanutha, Bethsaida, Chorazin, and Capernaum.

It is probable that the Galilaeans had a different manner of pronunciation, or the language spoken in Galilee was not so refined as that spoken at Jerusalem, which led to Peter being detected by his speech. Matt. 26:69, 73; Mark 14:70. But the voice of the same Peter, under the power of God, was mighty on the day of Pentecost, though the hearers said "are not all these which speak Galilaeans?" Acts 2:7. They were surprised to hear such men speak in foreign tongues, the more so because no prophet was ever looked for from thence, nor any good thing from Nazareth. John 1:46; John 7:52. Still in that despised district the Lord spent His youth: thus early was He as One separated from the course of the nation of Israel, a Nazarene; and the principal part of His ministry was among the poor of the flock in that locality; fulfilling thus the will of God and the prophetic word, on which God had caused His people to hope.

For a time the Lord Jesus remained in Judes, baptizing (that is, his disciples doing so), as is seen in John 3:22-23 and John 4:1-2; and this at the same time as John was baptizing in Judea also. This ministry of baptizing evidently come to an end when John was put in prison. No longer do either John or the Lord Jesus continue to baptize, so for as the record goes. Hearing of John's imprisonment, He did nothing to intervene, but left Judea for Galilee, where this Gospel views him until chapter 19. His brief visit to Nazareth is implied here, but nothing said of it, as in Luke 4:1-30. To fulfil Isaiah's prophecy, however, He came to live in Capernaum on the sea-coast of Lake Galilee, the tribes of Zebulon and Naphtaii being specially favored by the presence of the Messiah of Israel.

It is called "Galilee of the Gentiles" because Gentiles had been largely mixed with the Jewish population. For this reason Galilee was despised by the Jews of Judea, who prided themselves on the purity of their lineage. The Lord did not cater to this pride. His ministry in GaliIee, and His choosing Galilean apostles emphasizes both His grace to those who had failed under law and His faithfulness in humbling the pride of those who boosted in their purity.

We divide the account of the beginning of His public ministry, as given in the fourth chapter, into three parts. The first from the 12th to the 17th verse. Our Lord was in Jerusalem . The report reaches Him there that the forerunner, John, was delivered up, cast into prison and his ministry is ended. This foretold His rejection, and on account of the imprisonment of John, He departed into Galilee . Here we see Him first in His own city, in Nazareth . But we have here only the bare mention that He was in Nazareth and that He left Nazareth to dwell in Capernaum (verse 12). What happened in Nazareth we have recorded in the Gospel of Luke. In the fourth chapter of that Gospel we read that our Lord, after the temptations, returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee . The whole surrounding country was stirred up on account of Him, and He entered their synagogues, being glorified of all. In the synagogue of Nazareth the scroll of Isaiah was handed to Him, from which He read the opening verse of the 61st chapter, stopping in the middle of a sentence, and began to say to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your ears." And there in the city where He was brought up they said, "Is not this the son of Joseph?" (In a little pamphlet. "The Messiah and His People," we have described the event in Nazareth in connection with the chapter from Isaiah.) But the starting point of the Galilean ministry and its career is not Nazareth , but the place called Capernaum , that is, "village of comfort," and there He did some of His mighty works. But leaving Nazareth and dwelling in Capernaum was done by Him in the literal fulfillment of a prophecy, standing in a very significant part of Isaiah. We find the words here quoted in the ninth chapter of Isaiah. It is in the midst of prophecies which are all Messianic that we read in the beginning of the 9th chapter that the great light (the Messiah) was to be seen in the Galilee of the nations. The most oppressed, the darkest and the most corrupt province was to receive the light first. Here we see this word fulfilled. We notice a twofold description of Galilee, namely, as the land of Zebulon and Nephtali and as the Galilee of the nations. Read Genesis 49:13, "Zebulon shall dwell at the haven of the sea, and he shall be for an haven of ships and his border shall be upon Zidon." Jacob's prophecy outlines the history of the sons of Jacob, that is, the whole nation, and Zebulon signifies the time of their rejection, when they become merchantmen. Here in Matthew we see Zebulon dwelling by the sea. So that we have the fulfillment of two prophecies before us -- the prophecy in the forty-ninth chapter in Genesis and the one in Isaiah. The same is true of Nephtali. This means struggler. "Nephtali is a hind let loose" (Gen. 49:21). In Jacob's prophecy Nephtali stands for the coming struggling and victorious Jewish remnant. Here, then, in the land of Zebulon and Nephtali the great light shines first. Grace comes down to the most miserable, the struggling ones. But here we see likewise something which has a connection with His second coming. The great light will shine once more. The glory of the Lord will cover the heavens, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in His wings, and when this great event comes, the light will shine indeed upon a remnant of Israel sitting in darkness and the shadow of death.

The term Galilee of the nations has another significance. The province was called by this name, because the most ignorant class of Jews lived there and they had become mixed up with the Gentiles, who were very numerous in that borderland. The aristocratic classes of Judea, the learned in the law, the refined and ecclesiastical leaders, yes, all the different sects in Jerusalem , despised Galilee . An inhabitant of Galilee was looked upon as an Am-Hoaretz (an ignorant countryman). What good thing can come from Nazareth ? -- But here, where the people had sunk the lowest, the Lord appears first. That this is again an indication that the Gentiles, the outcasts and despised, were to come first, as we saw in the second chapter, need hardly be mentioned.

Accordingly, as in chapter 2 we found Gentiles from the East coming up to own the born King of the Jews, when His people were buried in bondage and Rabbinic tradition — in heartless heedlessness, too, while boasting of their privileges; so here our Lord, at the beginning of His public ministry, as recorded in Matthew, is seen taking up His abode in these despised districts of the north, the way of the sea, where especially Gentiles had long dwelt, and on which the Jews looked down as a rude and dark spot, far from the centre of religious sanctity. There, according to prophecy, light was to spring up; and how brightly was it now accomplished? Next, we have the call of the disciples, as we have seen. At the end of the chapter is a general summary of the Messiah's ministry, and of its effects, given in these words: "And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. And His fame went throughout all Syria; and they brought unto Him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy; and He healed them. And there followed Him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan." This I read, in order to show that it is the purpose of the Spirit, in this part of our gospel, to gather a quantity of facts together under one head, entirely regardless of the question of time. It is evident, that what is here described in a few verses must have demanded a considerable space for its accomplishment. The Holy Ghost gives it all to us as a connected whole.

When the call came to Joseph to return, he is instructed to go into the "land of Israel." Twice in Chapter 2 we have this title; and yet at the moment the land was only a despised province of the Roman Empire. But few of the men of Israel dwelt in it. The Gentiles ruled it. A mixed race from the East dwelt in one of its chiefest cities, Samaria; and Galilee, its largest province, was densely peopled with a purely heathen population, a few poor Jews residing amongst them.

This prophetic promise (Isa. 9:1-2) was one of comfort for the faithful remnant in a day when Gentile powers should oppress the land and Messiah should be a "stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel." It was promised that in such circumstances a bright and glorious light should shine forth in the most obscure and despised part of the land. And so it came about, for into Galilee Jesus came preaching the kingdom of God; and this was a reason with the Pharisees of Jerusalem for despising Him. Ignoring Jonah, who was of the land of Zebulun, they said, "Search and see; for out of Galilee arises no prophet" (John 7:52).

Galilee "seems to have been originally confined to a little circuit of country round Kedesh-Naphtali, in which were situated the twenty towns given by Solomon to Hiram, king of Tyre, as payment for his work in conveying timber from Lebanon to Jerusalem (Joshua 20:7; 1 Kings 9:11). They were then, or subsequently, occupied by strangers, and for this reason Isaiah gives to the district the name Galilee of the Gentiles (Isa. 9:1). It is probable that the strangers increased in number, and became during the captivity the great body of the inhabitants; extending themselves over the surrounding country, they gave to their new territories the old name, until at length Galilee became one of the largest provinces of Palestine."

"It was outside the regular allotment of Israel, in that part of it which is yet to belong to Israel, which certain of the tribes had taken possession of, though, strictly speaking, it was beyond the proper limits of the promised land. The Lord goes through Galilee of the Gentiles; and in all that He fulfilled the prophecy [of Isaiah]. The Jews ought surely to have known it."

Herod being dead, God makes it known to Joseph, in a dream, commanding him to return, with the young child and its mother, into the land of Israel. We should remark, that the land is here mentioned by the name that recalls the privileges bestowed by God. It is neither Judea nor Galilee; it is "the land of Israel." But can the Son of David, in entering it, approach the throne of His fathers? No: He must take the place of a stranger among the despised of His people. Directed by God in a dream, Joseph carries Him into Galilee, whose inhabitants were objects of sovereign contempt to the Jews, as not being in habitual connection with Jerusalem and Judea — the land of David, of the kings acknowledged by God, and of the temple, and where even the dialect of the language common to both betrayed their practical separation from that part of the nation which, by the favour of God, had returned to Judea from Babylon.