John Gill's Exposition on Matthew 3:5

A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.

Exposition of the Old and New Testament
John Gill (1697–1771) · 18th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.

Then went out to him Jerusalem, etc.] The uncommon appearance of this person, the oddness of his dress, the austerity of his life, together with the awfulness and importance of his doctrine, and the novelty of the ordinance of baptism he administered, and the Jews having had no prophet for some hundreds of years, and imagining he might be the Messiah, quickly drew large numbers of people to him. Some copies read “all Jerusalem”: that is, the inhabitants of that city, a very large number of them; and “all Judea”, a great number of people from all parts of that country. “All” is here put for “many”. And all the region round about Jordan; multitudes from thence, which seems to be the same country with that which is called “beyond Jordan”, (<400425>Matthew 4:25) and is distinguished from Judea as here. The Septuagint in (<140417>2 Chronicles 4:17) use the same phrase the Evangelist does here, and likewise in (<011310>Genesis 13:10,11).

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