6:-36-40a

Parallel Translations:   Message, Amplified, Young's Literal, King James, Reina-Valera

39 The people sitting in darkness Saw a great light, And those sitting in the region and in the shadow of death, There appeared to them a light.

40 And he taught them on the sabbaths. And they wondered because of his doctrine: for his word was as if it were authoritative.

• John Wesley,  Notes On the New Testament (1755):
  Leaving Nazareth-Namely, when they had wholly rejected his word, and even attempted to kill him, Lu 4:29.
   

• The Fourfold Gospel:

  And leaving Nazareth. This expression means that Jesus now ceased to make Nazareth his home. For description of Nazareth, see TFG for Lu 2:51.
  
  He came and dwelt in Capernaum. See TFG for Joh 2:12. Capernaum means "city of Nahum," or "village of consolation." Its modern name, Tel-Hum, means "hill of Nahum." The word "dwelt" means that Jesus made this town his headquarters. He owned no house there (Mt 8:20). He may have dwelt with some of his disciples--for instance, Simon Peter (Mt 8:14-16).
  
  In the borders of Zebulun and Naphtali. Capernaum was in Naphtali, and the border of the tribe of Zebulun was three or four miles south of it. This part of the country was densely populated, and had in it many choice spirits such as Jesus chose for his apostles.
  .
  

• Treasury of Scripture Knowledge:

  * leaving. Lu 4:30,31
  * Capernaum. Mt 11:23; 17:24; Mr 1:21; Joh 4:46; 6:17,24,59
  * Zabulon. Jos 19:10-16
  * Zebulun. Nephthalim. Jos 19:32-39
  * Naphtali.
   

• Robertson's Word Pictures:
   Dwelt in Capernaum (Katôikêsen eis Kapharnaoum). He went first to Nazareth, his old home, but was rejected there (Lu 4:16-31). In Capernaum (probably the modern Tell Hûm) Jesus was in a large town, one of the centres of Galilean political and commercial life, a fishing mart, where many Gentiles came. Here the message of the kingdom would have a better chance than in Jerusalem with its ecclesiastical prejudices or in Nazareth with its local jealousies. So Jesus "made his home" (katôikêsen) here.
   

• William Burkitt's Notes:

  No comment on this verse.
   

• Family Bible Notes:

   Capernaum; a town on the north-west shore of the sea of Galilee.
   

• 1599 Geneva Bible Notes:
  Which was a town a great deal more famous than Nazareth was
   

• People's New Testament Commentary:

  Leaving Nazareth. Because rejected there (Lu 4:16-30).
  
  Dwelt in Capernaum. At that time a city of thirty thousand inhabitants on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. It was one of the chief cities of Galilee, had a synagogue, a Roman garrison, and a customs station, with Matthew as the tax gatherer. It has long since disappeared. It was called "Christ's own city" [Mt 9:1] because he made it an earthly home. It was on the border between the tribes of Zebulon and Naphtali.
   

• Albert Barnes' Commentary:

  Leaving Nazareth. Because his townsmen cast him out, and rejected him. See Lu 4:14-30.
  
  Came and dwelt in Capernaum. This was a city on the north-west corner of the sea of Tiberias. It is not mentioned in the Old Testament, but is repeatedly in the Gospels. Though it was once a city of renown, and the metropolis of all Galilee, the site it occupied is now uncertain. When Mr. Fisk, an American missionary, travelled in Syria in 1823, he found twenty or thirty uninhabited Arab huts, occupying what are supposed to be the ruins of the once exalted city of Capernaum.
  
  In this place, and its neighbourhood, Jesus spent no small part of the three years of his public ministry. It is hence called his own city, Mt 9:1. Here he healed the nobleman's son, (Joh 4:47) Peter's wife's mother, (Mt 8:14) the centurion's servant, (Mt 8:5) and the ruler's daughter, (Mt 9:28-25.)
  
  Upon the sea coast. The sea of Tiberius.
  
  In the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim. These were two tribes of the children of Israel which were located in this part of the land of Canaan, and constituted, in the time of Christ, a part of Galilee. Comp. Ge 49:13; Jos 19:10,32. The word borders here means boundaries. Jesus came and dwelt in the boundaries or regions of Zebulun and Naphtali.
   

• Jamieson-Faussett Brown:

      And leaving Nazareth--The prevalent opinion is that this refers to a first visit to Nazareth after His baptism, whose details are given by Luke (Lu 4:16, &c.); a second visit being that detailed by our Evangelist (Mt 13:54-58), and by Mark (Mr 6:1-6). But to us there seem all but insuperable difficulties in the supposition of two visits to Nazareth after His baptism; and on the grounds stated in Lu 4:16, &c., we think that the one only visit to Nazareth is that recorded by Matthew (Mt 13:53-58), Mark (Mr 6:1-6), and Luke (Lu 4:14-30). But how, in that case, are we to take the word "leaving Nazareth" here? We answer, just as the same word is used in Ac 21:3, "Now when we had sighted Cyprus, and left it on the left, we sailed into Syria,"--that is, without entering Cyprus at all, but merely "sighting" it, as the nautical phrase is, they steered southeast of it, leaving it on the northwest. So here, what we understand the Evangelist to say is, that Jesus, on His return to Galilee, did not, as might have been expected, make Nazareth the place of His stated residence, but, "leaving for passing by Nazareth,"
  
  he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the seacoast--maritime Capernaum, on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee; but the precise spot is unknown. (See on JFB for Mt 11:23). Our Lord seems to have chosen it for several reasons. Four or five of the Twelve lived there; it had a considerable and mixed population, securing some freedom from that intense bigotry which even to this day characterizes all places where Jews in large numbers dwell nearly alone; it was centrical, so that not only on the approach of the annual festivals did large numbers pass through it or near it, but on any occasion multitudes could easily be collected about it; and for crossing and recrossing the lake, which our Lord had so often occasion to do, no place could be more convenient. But one other high reason for the choice of Capernaum remains to be mentioned, the only one specified by our Evangelist.
  
  in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim--the one lying to the west of the Sea of Galilee, the other to the north of it; but the precise boundaries cannot now be traced out.
   

• Spurgeon Commentary on Matthew:

  Note how the movements of our King are all ordered according to diving
  prophecy. “Leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum” to fulfill
  a passage in the book of Isaiah. There was an ancient program which
  settled from of old the track of his royal progresses. He went where the
  foreknowledge and predestination of Jehovah had declared his way.
  He went, moreover, where he was needed, even to “the borders of
  Zabulon and Nephthalim.” The “real light” encountered the great
  darkness; the far-off ones were visited by him who gathers together the
  outcasts of Israel. Our Lord courts not those who glory in their light, but
  those who pine in their darkness: he comes with heavenly life, not to those
  who boast of their own life and energy, but to those who are under
  condemnation, and who feel the shades of death shutting them out from
  light and hope. “Great light” is a very suggestive figure for the gospel, and
  “sitting in the region and shadow of death” is a very graphic description of
  men bowed under the power of sin, and paralyzed by fear of
  condemnation. What a mercy that to those who appear out of the reach of
  the usual means, to those who dwell “by the way of the sea, beyond
  Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles”, Jesus comes with power to enlighten and
  quicken!
  If I feel myself to be an out-of-the-way sinner, Lord, come to me, and
  cause me to know that “light is sprung up” even for me!
   

• Adam Clarke's Commentary:

    And leaving Nazareth] Or, entirely leaving Nazareth, , from , intensive, and , I leave. It seems that, from this time, our blessed Lord made Capernaum his ordinary place of residence; and utterly forsook Nazareth, because they had wholly rejected his word, and even attempted to take away his life. See Lu 4:29.
  
  Galilee was bounded by mount Lebanon on the north, by the river Jordan and the sea of Galilee on the east, by Chison on the south, and by the Mediterranean on the west.
  
  Nazareth, a little city in the tribe of Zebulon, in lower Galilee, with Tabor on the east, and Ptolemais on the west. It is supposed that this city was the usual residence of our Lord for the first thirty years of his life. It was here he became incarnate, lived in subjection to Joseph and Mary, and from which he took the name of a Nazorean.
  
  Capernaum, a city famous in the New Testament, but never mentioned in the Old. Probably it was one of those cities which the Jews built after their return from Babylon. It stood on the sea-coast of Galilee, on the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim, as mentioned in the text. This was called his own city, Mt 9:1, &c., and here, as a citizen, he paid the half shekel, Mt 17:24. Among the Jews, if a man became a resident in any city for twelve months, he thereby became a citizen, and paid his proportion of dues and taxes. See Lightfoot. Capernaum is well known to have been the principal scene of our Lord's miracles during the three years of his public ministry.
  
  Zabulon, the country of this tribe, in which Nazareth and Capernaum were situated, bordered on the lake of Gennesareth, stretching to the frontiers of Sidon, Ge 49:13. Nephthalim was contiguous to it, and both were on the east side of Jordan, Jos 19:34.
   

• Matthew Henry Concise Commentary:

  No comment on this verse.

• John Wesley,  Notes On the New Testament (1755):
  No comment on this verse.
   

• The Fourfold Gospel:

  No comment on this verse.
  

• Treasury of Scripture Knowledge:

  * it. Mt 1:22; 2:15; 8:17; 12:17-21; 26:54,56; Lu 22:37; 24:44; Joh 15:25 Joh 19:28,36,37
  * saying. Isa 9:1,2
   

• Robertson's Word Pictures:
  No comment on this verse.
   

• William Burkitt's Notes:

  No comment on this verse.
   

• Family Bible Notes:

   No comment on this verse.
   

• 1599 Geneva Bible Notes:
  No comment on this verse.
   

• People's New Testament Commentary:

  Matthew's way of saying: "Thus was fulfilled." The passage quoted is found in Isa 9:1,2.
   

• Albert Barnes' Commentary:

  That it might be fulfilled, etc. This place is recorded in Isa 9:1,2. Matthew has given the sense, but not the very words of the prophet.
  
  By the way of the sea. Which is near to the sea, or in the vicinity of the sea.
  
  Beyond Jordan. This does not mean to the east of Jordan, as the phrase sometimes denotes, but rather in the vicinity of the Jordan, or perhaps in the vicinity of the sources of the Jordan. See De 1:1; 4:49.
  
  Galilee of the Gentiles. Galilee was divided into upper and lower Galilee. Upper Galilee was called Galilee of the Gentiles, because it was occupied chiefly by Gentiles. It was in the neighbourhood of Tyre, Sidon, etc. The word Gentiles includes, in the Scriptures, all who are not Jews. It means the same as nations, or, as we should say, the heathen nations.
  
  {i} "Esaias the prophet, saying" Isa 9:1,2
   

• Jamieson-Faussett Brown:

       (Isa 9:1,2 or, as in Hebrew, Isaiah 8:23, and 9:1).
   

• Spurgeon Commentary on Matthew:

  No comment on this verse.
   

• Adam Clarke's Commentary:

   No comment on this verse.
   

• Matthew Henry Concise Commentary:

  No comment on this verse.

• John Wesley,  Notes On the New Testament (1755):
  Galilee of the Gentiles-That part of Galilee which lay beyond Jordan was so called, because it was in a great measure inhabited by Gentiles, that is, heathens. Isa 9:1,2.
   

• The Fourfold Gospel:

  This land or region was the first to suffer in the beginning of those wars which finally resulted in the captivity of the ten tribes. The people of this district were smitten by Benhadad (1Ki 15:20), and afterwards by Tiglath-pileser (2Ki 15:29; 1Ch 5:26), some time before the general captivity of the ten tribes (2Ki 17:6). It is called "Galilee of the Gentiles," because it was, according to Strabo and others, inhabited by Egyptians, Arabians, and Phoenicians, as well as by Hebrews.
  
  

• Treasury of Scripture Knowledge:

  * Galilee. Jos 20:7; 21:32; 1Ki 9:11; 2Ki 15:29
   

• Robertson's Word Pictures:
  No comment on this verse.
   

• William Burkitt's Notes:

  No comment on this verse.
   

• Family Bible Notes:

  Galilee bordering on the gentile nations, who seem also to have been more or less intermixed with its inhabitants.
   

• 1599 Geneva Bible Notes:
   Of Tiberias, or because that country went toward Tyre, which borders the eastern Mediterranean Sea. (f) So called because it bordered upon Tyre and Sidon, and because Solomon gave the king of Tyre twenty cities in that quarter; 1Ki 9:11.
   

• People's New Testament Commentary:

  The Sea of Galilee is meant.
   

• Albert Barnes' Commentary:

  No comment on this verse.
   

• Jamieson-Faussett Brown:

   The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea--the coast skirting the Sea of Galilee westward--beyond Jordan--a phrase commonly meaning eastward of Jordan; but here and in several places it means westward of the Jordan. The word seems to have got the general meaning of "the other side"; the nature of the case determining which side that was.
  
  Galilee of the Gentiles--so called from its position, which made it the frontier between the Holy Land and the external world. While Ephraim and Judah, as STANLEY says, were separated from the world by the Jordan valley on one side and the hostile Philistines on another, the northern tribes were in the direct highway of all the invaders from the north, in unbroken communication with the promiscuous races who have always occupied the heights of Lebanon, and in close and peaceful alliance with the most commercial nation of the ancient world, the Phœnicians. Twenty of the cities of Galilee were actually annexed by Solomon to the adjacent kingdom of Tyre, and formed, with their territory, the "boundary" or "offscouring" (Gebul or Cabul) of the two dominions--at a later time still known by the general name of "the boundaries (coasts or borders) of Tyre and Sidon." In the first great transportation of the Jewish population, Naphtali and Galilee suffered the same fate as the trans-jordanic tribes before Ephraim or Judah had been molested (2Ki 15:29). In the time of the Christian era this original disadvantage of their position was still felt; the speech of the Galileans "bewrayed them" by its uncouth pronunciation (Mt 26:73); and their distance from the seats of government and civilization at Jerusalem and Cæsarea gave them their character for turbulence or independence, according as it was viewed by their friends or their enemies.
   

• Spurgeon Commentary on Matthew:

  No comment on this verse.
   

• Adam Clarke's Commentary:

   Galilee of the Gentiles] Or of the nations. So called, because it was inhabited by Egyptians, Arabians, and Phoenicians, according to the testimony of Strabo and others. The Hebrew goyim, and the Greek , signify nations; and, in the Old and New Testaments, mean those people who were not descendants of any of the twelve tribes. The word Gentiles, from gens, a nation, signifies the same. It is worthy of remark, that it was a regular tradition among the ancient Jews, that the Messiah should begin his ministry in Galilee. See the proofs in Schoetgen.
   

• Matthew Henry Concise Commentary:

  No comment on this verse.

• John Wesley,  Notes On the New Testament (1755):
  Here is a beautiful gradation, first, they walked, then they sat in darkness, and lastly, in the region of the shadow of death.
   

• The Fourfold Gospel:

  The people that sat in darkness saw great light, etc. Those who by reason of their ignorance and depravity suffered the torments of war, and sat as it were under the shadow of the wing of death, were designated by prophecies as the class among whom the light of the gospel would spring up in the fullness and richness of its blessing. Jesus, the "Light of the world" (Joh 8:12; 9:5), fulfilled this prophecy, and apart from him there can be no pretense of its fulfillment. Galilee had its prophets, but the enemies of Jesus themselves bear witness that none of them were great enough "lights" to fulfill this prophecy (Joh 7:52).
   

• Treasury of Scripture Knowledge:

  * which sat in darkness. Ps 107:10-14; Isa 42:6; 60:1-3; Mic 7:8; Lu 1:78; 2:32
  * shadow. Job 3:5; 10:22; 34:22; Ps 44:19; Jer 13:16; Amo 5:8
   

• Robertson's Word Pictures:
   Saw a great light (phôs eiden mega). Matthew quotes Isa 9:1, and applies the words about the deliverer from Assyria to the Messiah. "The same district lay in spiritual darkness and death and the new era dawned when Christ went thither" (McNeile). Light sprang up from those who were sitting in the region and shadow of death (en chorâi kai skiâi thanatou). Death is personified.
   

• William Burkitt's Notes:

  No comment on this verse.
   

• Family Bible Notes:

   Saw great light; the light of Christ's presence and teaching. Compare Joh 8:12. Men who are without the gospel are in great darkness, but the reception of it will give them great light.
   

• 1599 Geneva Bible Notes:
  No comment on this verse.
   

• People's New Testament Commentary:

   The people. Those of the region just described (Mt 4:15).
  
  Sitting in darkness. In religious ignorance.
  
  Saw great light. Christ, the Light of the world. In the teaching of Jesus in the region described by the prophet there was a remarkable fulfillment of the prediction.
   

• Albert Barnes' Commentary:

  The people which sat in darkness. This is an expression denoting great ignorance. As in darkness or night we can see nothing, and know not where to go, so those who are ignorant of God, and their duty, are said to be in darkness. The instruction which removes this ignorance is called light. See Joh 3:19; 1Pe 2:9; 1Jo 1:6; 1Jo 2:8. As ignorance is often connected with crime and vice, so darkness is sometimes used to denote sin, 1Th 5:5; Eph 5:11; Lu 22:53.
  
  The region and shadow of death. This is a forcible and beautiful image, designed also to denote ignorance and sin. It is often used in the Bible, and is very expressive. A shadow is caused by an object coming between us and the sun. So the Hebrews imaged death as standing between us and the sun, and casting a long, dark, and baleful shadow abroad on the face of the nations, denoting their great ignorance, sin, and woe. It denotes a dismal, gloomy, and dreadful shade, where death and sin reign, like the chill damps, and horrors of the dwelling-place of the dead. See Job 10:21; 16:16; 34:22; Ps 23:4; Jer 2:6. These expressions denote that the country of Galilee was peculiarly ignorant and blind. We know that the people were proverbially so. They were distinguished for a coarse, outlandish manner of speech, (Mr 14:70) and are represented as having been distinguished by a general profligacy of morals and manners. It shows the great compassion of the Saviour, that he went to preach to such poor and despised sinners.
  
  Instead of seeking the rich and the learned, he chose to minister to the needy, the ignorant, and the contemned. His office is to enlighten the ignorant; his delight to guide the wandering, and to raise up those that are in the shadow of death. In doing this, Jesus set an example for all his followers. It is their duty to seek out those who are sitting in the shadow of death, and to send the gospel to them. No small part of the world is still lying in wickedness, as wicked and wretched as was the land of Zebulun and Naphtali in the time of Jesus. The Lord Jesus is able to enlighten them also. And every Christian should conceive it a privilege, as well as a duty, to imitate his Saviour in this, and to be permitted to send to them the light of life. See Mt 28:19.
  
  {k} "saw great light" Isa 42:6,7; Lu 2:32
   

• Jamieson-Faussett Brown:

   The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up--The prophetic strain to which these words belong commences with the seventh chapter of Isaiah, to which the sixth chapter is introductory, and goes down to the end of the twelfth chapter, which hymns the spirit of that whole strain of prophecy. It belongs to the reign of Ahaz and turns upon the combined efforts of the two neighboring kingdoms of Syria and Israel to crush Judah. In these critical circumstances Judah and her king were, by their ungodliness, provoking the Lord to sell them into the hands of their enemies. What, then, is the burden of this prophetic strain, on to the passage here quoted? First, Judah shall not, cannot perish, because IMMANUEL, the Virgin's Son, is to come forth from his loins. Next, one of the invaders shall soon perish, and the kingdoms of neither be enlarged. Further, while the Lord will be the Sanctuary of such as confide in these promises and await their fulfilment, He will drive to confusion, darkness, and despair the vast multitude of the nation who despised His oracles, and, in their anxiety and distress, betook themselves to the lying oracles of the heathen. This carries us down to the end of the eighth chapter. At the opening of the ninth chapter a sudden light is seen breaking in upon one particular part of the country, the part which was to suffer most in these wars and devastations--"the land of Zebulun, and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee and the Gentiles." The rest of the prophecy stretches over both the Assyrian and the Chaldean captivities and terminates in the glorious Messianic prophecy of the eleventh chapter and the choral hymn of the twelfth chapter. Well, this is the point seized on by our Evangelist. By Messiah's taking up His abode in those very regions of Galilee, and shedding His glorious light upon them, this prediction, He says, of the Evangelical prophet was now fulfilled; and if it was not thus fulfilled, we may confidently affirm it was not fulfilled in any age of the Jewish ceremony, and has received no fulfilment at all. Even the most rationalistic critics have difficulty in explaining it in any other way.
   

• Spurgeon Commentary on Matthew:

  No comment on this verse.
   

• Adam Clarke's Commentary:

   The people which sat in darkness] This is quoted from Isa 9:2, where, instead of sitting, the prophet used the word walked. The evangelist might on purpose change the term, to point out the increased misery of the state of these persons. Sitting in darkness expresses a greater degree of intellectual blindness, than walking in darkness does. In the time of Christ's appearing, the people were in a much worse state than in the time of the prophet, which was nearly 700 years before; as, during all this period, they were growing more ignorant and sinful.
  
  The region and shadow of death] These words are amazingly descriptive. A region of death-DEATH'S country, where, in a peculiar manner, Death lived, reigned, and triumphed, subjecting all the people to his sway.
  
  Shadow of death] , used only here and in Lu 1:79, but often in the Old Covenant, where the Hebrew is tsal maveth, It is not easy to enter fully into the ideal meaning of this term. As in the former clause, death is personified, so here. A shadow is that darkness cast upon a place by a body raised between it and the light or sun. Death is here represented as standing between the land above mentioned, and the light of life, or Sun of righteousness; in consequence of which, all the inhabitants were, involved in a continual cloud of intellectual darkness, misery, and sin. The heavenly sun was continually eclipsed to them, till this glorious time, when Jesus Christ, the true light, shone forth in the beauty of holiness and truth. Christ began his ministry in Galilee, and frequented this uncultivated place more than he did Jerusalem and other parts of Judea: here his preaching was peculiarly needful; and by this was the prophecy fulfilled.
   

• Matthew Henry Concise Commentary:

  No comment on this verse.

• John Wesley,  Notes On the New Testament (1755):
   From that time Jesus began to preach-He had preached before, both to Jews and Samaritans, Joh 4:41,45. But from this time begin his solemn stated preaching.
  
  Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand-Although it is the peculiar business of Christ to establish the kingdom of heaven in the hearts of men, yet it is observable, he begins his preaching in the same words with John the Baptist: because the repentance which John taught still was, and ever will be, the necessary preparation for that inward kingdom. But that phrase is not only used with regard to individuals in whom it is to be established, but also with regard to the Christian Church, the whole body of believers. In the former sense it is opposed to repentance; in the latter the Mosaic dispensation.
   

• The Fourfold Gospel:

  From that time Jesus began to preach. The time here indicated is that of John the Baptist's imprisonment and Jesus' return to Galilee (Mt 4:12). This time marked a new period in the public ministry of Jesus. Hitherto he had taught, but he now began to preach. When the voice of his messenger, John, was silenced, the King became his own herald. Paul quoted the Greeks as saying that preaching was "foolishness" (1Co 1:23), but following the example here set by Christ, he used it as the appointed means for saving souls. While Matthew gives us many of the earlier incidents of Christ's life, he enters upon the account of his ministry at the time when Jesus returned to Galilee. From that time forward he was probably an eye-witness of the events which he records.
  
  And to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. See TFG for Mr 1:15.
   

• Treasury of Scripture Knowledge:

  * that. Mr 1:14
  * Repent. Mt 3:2; 9:13; 10:7; Mr 1:15; Lu 5:32; 9:2; 10:11-14; 15:7; 24:47 Ac 2:38; 3:19; 11:18; 17:30; 20:21; 26:20; 2Ti 2:25,26; Heb 6:1
  * kingdom. Mt 11:12; 13:9,11,24; 25:1
   

• Robertson's Word Pictures:
   Began Jesus to preach (êrxato ho Iêsous kêrussein). In Galilee. He had been preaching for over a year already elsewhere. His message carries on the words of the Baptist about "repentance" and the "kingdom of heaven" (Mt 3:2) being at hand. The same word for "preaching" (kêrussein) from kêrux, herald, is used of Jesus as of John. Both proclaimed the good news of the kingdom. Jesus is more usually described as the Teacher, (ho didaskalos) who taught (edidasken) the people. He was both herald and teacher as every preacher should be.
   

• William Burkitt's Notes:

  Here our Savior begins to enter upon his prophetic office, and by preaching to make known the will of God to mankind; and observe, the doctrine which he preached is the same that John the Baptist did preach, namely, the doctrine of repentance, Repent ye: and the argument is the same also, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand: that is, now is the so much expected time of the appearing of the promised Messiah.
  
  Learn hence, That the doctrine of Christ and his ambassadors is alike, and the same in substance: they both teach the doctrine of repentance to a lost world, as most suitable to the time and dispensation of the gospel.
   

• Family Bible Notes:

  No comment on this verse.
   

• 1599 Geneva Bible Notes:
   Is come to you.
   

• People's New Testament Commentary:

   From that time. Probably from the time of the settlement of Jesus in Capernaum.
  
  Jesus began to preach. This is the beginning of the Galilean ministry.
  
  And to say, Repent, etc. The message that Jesus now preaches is identical with that of John the Baptist. See Mt 3:2. He commands repentance, and declares the kingdom of heaven is at hand, not yet come, but near. All is still preparatory. Jesus had not yet declared himself as the Messiah.
   

• Albert Barnes' Commentary:

   See Mt 3:2
  
  {m} "for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" Mt 3:2; 10:7
   

• Jamieson-Faussett Brown:

  From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand--Thus did our Lord not only take up the strain, but give forth the identical summons of His honored forerunner. Our Lord sometimes speaks of the new kingdom as already come--in His own Person and ministry; but the economy of it was only "at hand" until the blood of the cross was shed, and the Spirit on the day of Pentecost opened the fountain for sin and for uncleanness to the world at large.
   

• Spurgeon Commentary on Matthew:

  He continued the warning which John had given: “Repent: for the kingdom
  of heaven is at hand.” The King exceeds his herald, but he does not differ
  from him as to his message. Happy is the preacher whose word is such that
  his Lord can endorse it! Repentance is the demand of the Law, of the
  Gospel, and of John, who was the connecting link between the two.
  Immediate repentance is demanded because the theocracy is established: the kingdom demands turning from sin. In Christ Jesus God was about to
  reign among the sons of men, and therefore men were to seek peace with
  him. How much more ought we to repent who live in the midst of that
  kingdom! What manner of persons ought we to be who look for his
  Second Advent! “The kingdom of heaven is at hand”, let us be as men that
  look for their Lord. O my gracious King and Savior, I pray thee, accept my
  repentance as to past rebellions as a proof of my present loyalty!
   

• Adam Clarke's Commentary:

  Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent] See on Mt 3:1,2. Every preacher commissioned by God to proclaim salvation to a lost world, begins his work with preaching the doctrine of repentance. This was the case with all the prophets, John the Baptist, Jesus Christ, all the apostles, and all their genuine successors in the Christian ministry. The reasons are evident in the notes already referred to; and for the explanation of the word , preaching or proclaiming as a herald, see at the end of chap. 3.

   

• Matthew Henry Concise Commentary:

  No comment on this verse.

• When Jesus preached, lives were changed.
1. Doctrine
2. Light
3. Repent
• Where does our authority to preach come from?

• In Mark, the scribes, professional interpreters of Jewish law, are typically included among Jesus' opponents.

- HarperCollins Study Bible, p. 1918
• The authoritative tone of Jesus' teaching contrasted sharply with the utterances of Jewish teachers whose knowledge was entirely derivative and who invariably appealed to tradition or to the sayings of famous rabbis.

- C.E. Graham Swift, New Bible Commentary: Revised (1970), p. 856
• Not relying on rabbis, or elders, or prophets, or even upon Moses;  but as one greater than they all.  The authority, original and unappealable, resided in his onw Divine Person.

- D.D. Whedon, Commentary (on Matthew 7:29)
•