And great crowds followed him from Galilee, and Decapolis, and Jerusalem, and Judaea, and beyond the Jordan.
本节注释
Matthew 4:25 reads: "And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan." This verse closes the scene that opens Jesus' public ministry in Matthew and prepares directly for the Sermon on the Mount.
The universal attention drawn to Jesus
William Kelly stresses that Matthew deliberately compresses the Lord's works into these short verses to show the sweep of interest His ministry drew across the whole land:
William KellyNow, mark, there is nowhere, except in Matthew, such a series of the Lord's works and teaching compressed into a couple of verses. In Matthew they are crowded into a cluster, before we have the teaching commonly called "the sermon on the mount." Why is it that the ordinary current of the Lord's ministry is brought before us here in this comprehensive form? It is intended to show, after the Lord had called these disciples, the universal attention that was drawn to His doctrine. The Lord had been giving a full testimony everywhere through all Galilee, and his fame had spread through all Syria; persons had been attracted from all quarters; and the Holy Ghost then gives us the outline of the kingdom of heaven in its objects and character. The circumstances are so arranged by the Holy Ghost as to show the universal attention directed to it. When all are on tip-toe to hear Him, then the Lord unfolds the character of the kingdom of heaven.
For Kelly, the naming of Galilee, Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region beyond Jordan is not incidental geography — it is the Spirit's way of pressing upon the reader that every quarter of the land had been stirred, so that when Jesus ascends the mount the whole people stand listening.
The bridge to the Sermon on the Mount
Thomas McBroom makes the same point about the immediate literary connection:
Thomas McBroomThe greatness of the Person of the Lord as He is presented in Matt. 1-4 prepares us for the teaching of Matt. 5-7. Matt. 4:23-25 shows the immediate connection of the Sermon on the Mount with what went before. His fame had gone throughout all Syria and the whole country had been stirred, and as the King He took occasion to unfold to His subjects in the hearing of the people the word of God for the moment.
The multitudes of 4:25 are therefore the audience standing at the foot of the mountain in 5:1 — Israel gathered from every border, with heathen territory represented among them, hearing the King declare the principles of His kingdom.
The gathering of multitudes while power is displayed
William Trotter ties the verse directly to the preaching of the kingdom, showing that the fame which gathered the crowds was inseparable from the mighty works that accompanied the proclamation:
William TrotterStill, the preaching of the kingdom was accompanied by every demonstration of power. "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" (Matt. 4:23). The result was, that His fame went throughout all Syria, and there followed Him great multitudes of people from Galilee and Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan.
In the presence of the multitudes thus attracted to Him by His preaching and the fame of His miracles, He addresses to His disciples the sermon on the mount.
The great crowds are thus not chance spectators; they are drawn by the twin testimony of word and work — the King and His credentials together.
Decapolis and the reach into Gentile ground
The list in 4:25 is striking for one name in particular. Morrish's Bible Dictionary explains what Decapolis was:
A district embracing ten cities (as its name implies). After the conquest of Palestine by the Romans these cities were rebuilt and partly colonised, having peculiar privileges. Historians are not quite agreed as to which were the ten cities, but they are now generally held to have been Hippos, Gadara, Pella, Philadelphia, Gerasa, Dion, Canatha, Damascus, Raphana, and Scythopolis. All were on the east of the Jordan except Scythopolis: but the name Decapolis seems to have been used for a district on the west of the Jordan as well as on the east. Matt. 4:25; Mark 5:20; Mark 7:31. It was to Pella that the Christians fled just before the destruction of Jerusalem.
Decapolis was predominantly Gentile, Greek-speaking territory. Its mention here is therefore not without significance in Matthew, a Gospel so concerned with the Messiah's rejection by His own and the consequent overflow of blessing to the nations.
The prophetic setting
Kelly opens out why this scene fits so perfectly in Matthew. The Lord had just withdrawn to Capernaum "by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles" (Matt. 4:15), fulfilling Isaiah 9. Kelly observes that the Lord's chosen sphere of ministry was the very place where Israel and the Gentiles mingled:
Thus we have here one who is Jehovah-Messiah, a divine king — not a mere man, but slighted by the nation and despised by the leaders, making Himself known in grace to those who were the most scorned in the outskirts as you go out toward the Gentiles. What kings had looked for in vain, what prophets had desired to see, it was for their eyes to look upon. The Lord begins to separate Himself a remnant in Israel in Galilee of the Gentiles. This keeps up and confirms the object of Matthew from the first.
The multitudes streaming from Decapolis and from "beyond Jordan" belong to this same prophetic pattern — the great light shining first in the despised outskirts, and the nations already beginning, in a figure, to be drawn toward it.
Synthesis
Matthew 4:25 is a deliberately sweeping verse. By listing five regions — the Galilean homeland, the Gentile Decapolis, the holy city, the heart of Judea, and the Trans-Jordan — the Evangelist shows that every quarter of the land, Jew and Gentile alike, had been stirred by the fame of Jesus. This concentrated panorama of mighty works and gathered crowds is the Spirit's curtain-raiser for the Sermon on the Mount: before the King opens His mouth to declare the character of His kingdom in chapters 5–7, Matthew sets before us the vast audience, drawn from the very borders of the promised land and beyond, standing rapt at His feet. The verse therefore carries a double weight — it witnesses to the glory of the Messiah whom the whole country was compelled to acknowledge, and it quietly foreshadows the wider, Gentile reach that will become explicit as the Gospel unfolds.