*1:1 There is no definite article with ‘beginning’; and of course the other three Gospels have different ‘beginnings’.

†1:1 There is no definite article with ‘Son’, which in this case emphasizes the inherent quality of the noun.

‡1:2 Around 3.3% of the Greek manuscripts have ‘Isaiah the prophet’ instead of ‘the prophets’ (to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.). The 96.7% are correct.

§1:2 See Malachi 3:1.

*1:3 See Isaiah 40:3. My rendering follows that of the translation of the Jewish Publication Society, which reflects normal Hebrew parallelism.

†1:4 He was ‘preparing the way of the Lord’, and doing so in the wilderness.

‡1:4 There are those who squirm at the plain meaning of the Text—John was offering forgiveness of sins. Well, throughout the Old Testament, if you brought an animal offering you were confessing to being a sinner, and expecting to be forgiven. As forerunner to the Lamb of God, who would provide the ultimate payment for sin, John represented a transition, from the old to the new.

§1:6 Honey is an excellent food; his locusts were probably considerably larger than our grasshoppers.

*1:8 There is no definite article with Holy Spirit, so I take it that we should consider the phrase as a proper name. Two baptisms are here contrasted: 1) John the agent with water as the vehicle; 2) Jesus the agent with the Holy Spirit as the vehicle. A baptism where the Holy Spirit is the agent is distinct from these. But how and when does Jesus baptize us with the Holy Spirit? He does so from His position at the Father's right hand, when we believe into Him. From then on the Spirit indwells us, and is closely associated with our ‘new man’.

†1:10 Perhaps 3% of the Greek manuscripts have ‘out of’ instead of ‘from’ (to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.).

‡1:11 Here we have the three persons of the Godhead clearly represented: the Father by the Voice, the Holy Spirit by the dove, and Jesus was the Son. This was doubtless an important affirmation for Jesus.

§1:13 Our ‘test’ and ‘tempt’ are translations of a single Greek word, the context determining the choice. To tempt is to test in the area of morals. In this context I consider that ‘tempt’ is too limited, but it is included in the wider meaning of ‘test’. Note that the Spirit impelled Him, which means that this was a necessary part of the Plan. The three specific tests recorded by Matthew and Luke presumably happened near the end of the forty days.

*1:13 The Creator had nothing to fear from the animals.

†1:13 The parallel passage in Matthew 4:11 gives the impression that the angels waited until the devil left. In that event, Jesus bested Satan without angelic help.

‡1:14 This was probably around a year after His baptism, during the second half of 27 AD.

§1:14 Some 2% of the Greek manuscripts, of objectively inferior quality, omit ‘of the Kingdom’ (to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.).

*1:15 John, His herald, is in prison—his ministry and function have ended. So Jesus takes up John's message and continues with it.

†1:16 Some 90% of the Greek manuscripts have ‘his brother, of Simon’—presumably a reference to their father. If Peter was the eldest son, he would have been named for his father.

‡1:16 Fishing with a circular net is very common here in Brazil. You have to throw it with a circular motion so it spreads out and lands on the water as a full circle. The lead weights around the edges then start sinking and hopefully some fish will be caught in the middle.

§1:17 They had already spent time with Jesus—at the wedding in Cana, in Judea, in Samaria—so their reaction is not surprising.

*1:18 They had an assortment. They probably also had hired men (verse 20), so their equipment would be cared for.

†1:21 By this time Jesus had been rejected in Natsareth (Luke 4:16-30) and had moved to Capernaum, which became His base of operations (Luke 4:31-32).

‡1:22 Presumably the scribes would cite ‘authorities’ for more than one position, and leave the conclusion up in the air—but not Jesus.

§1:24 The name of the town in Hebrew is based on the consonants נצר (resh, tsadde, nun), but since Hebrew is read from right to left, for us the order is reversed = n, ts, r. This word root means ‘branch’. Greek has the equivalent for ‘ps’ and ‘ks’, but not for ‘ts’, so the transliteration used a ζ (zeta) ‘dz’, which is the voiced counterpart of ‘ts’. But when the Greek was transliterated into English it came out as ‘z’! But Hebrew has a ‘z’, ז (zayin), so in transliterating back into Hebrew people assumed the consonants נזר, replacing the correct tsadde with zayin. Neither ‘Nazareth’ nor ‘Nazarene’, spelled with a zayin, is to be found in the Old Testament, but there is a prophetic reference to Messiah as the Branch, netser—Isaiah 11:1—and several to the related word, tsemach—Isaiah 4:2, Jeremiah 23:5, 33:15; Zechariah 3:8, 6:12. So Matthew (2:23) is quite right—the prophets (plural, being at least three) referred to Christ as the Branch. Since Jesus was a man, He would be the ‘Branch-man’, from ‘Branch-town’. Which brings us to the word ‘Natsorean’. The familiar ‘Nazarene’ (Ναζαρηνος) [Natsarene] occurs in Mark 1:24, 14:67, 16:6 and Luke 4:34, but in Matthew 2:23 and in fourteen other places, including Acts 22:8 where the glorified Jesus calls Himself that, the word is ‘Natsorean’ (Ναζωραιος), which is quite different. I have been given to understand that the Natsareth of Jesus' day had been founded some 100 years before by a Branch family, who called it Branch town; they were very much aware of the prophecies about the Branch and fully expected the Messiah to be born from among them—they called themselves Branch-people (Natsoreans). Of course everyone else thought it was a big joke and tended to look down on them. “Can anything good…?”

*1:25 The demon had no business piping up, and he did so without due respect, so the Lord did not waste any kind words on him. Since the speaker said ‘us’, there may have been more than one.

†1:26 Demons like to put on a show; personally, I like to deprive them of that ‘pleasure’ by forbidding any manifestation at the outset.

‡1:27 Instead of ‘what can this new doctrine be’, perhaps 0.5% of the Greek manuscripts, of objectively inferior quality, have ‘a new doctrine’ (as in NIV, NASB, LB, etc.).

§1:30 The parallel passage in Luke 4:37 specifies that it was a high fever—she was burning. The case mentioned in Matthew 8:14-15 is probably different, happening some time later.

*1:31 A high fever usually leaves a person weak, even after it passes, so we really have a double miracle here: Jesus dismissed the fever, but also reversed its effect.

†1:34 I here follow some 40% of the Greek manuscripts, including the best line of transmission; most versions omit “He was Messiah”.

‡1:38 I here follow some 40% of the Greek manuscripts, including the best line of transmission; most versions have ‘come forth’, presumably referring to why He had slipped out of town (which doesn't make very good sense).

§1:39 Was Galilee infested with demons? Beginning with Abraham, God declared a special interest in that area, so it is predictable that Satan would also devote special attention to it.

*1:41 Wow! In those days, no one would touch a leper, because of contamination. Notice that Jesus agreed with the leper: “I want to; be cleansed!” Beautiful!

†1:44 This would be the first case the priest had ever had of evaluating a cleansed leper, because only the Messiah could cure leprosy. By instructing the cleansed leper in this way, Jesus was serving notice to the priests that the Messiah had come.

‡1:45 But he did go to the priest, which resulted in the following evaluation—Luke makes this point clearly in his parallel account. That said, however, I can sympathize with that leper—he had good reason to sound off! But it did increase the pressure on Jesus.

§1:45 There were an awful lot of sick people who all of a sudden had hope.