Teks -- Mark 1:38 (NET)

1:38 He replied, “Let us go elsewhere, into the surrounding villages, so that I can preach there too. For that is what I came out here to do.”

Tafsiran/Catatan -- Catatan Kata/Frasa (per frasa)

Robertson: Mar 1:38 - Into the next towns

Into the next towns ( eis tas echomenas kōmopoleis ).

It was a surprising decision for Jesus to leave the eager, excited throngs in Capernaum for the country town or village cities without walls or much importance. Only instance of the word in the N.T. Late Greek word. The use of echomenas for next is a classic use meaning clinging to, next to a thing. So in Luk 13:33; Act 13:44; Act 20:15; Heb 6:9. "D"here has eggus (near).

Vincent: Mar 1:38 - Towns

Towns ( κωμοπόλεις )

Lit., village-towns, suburban towns.

JFB: Mar 1:38 - And he said unto them, Let us go

Or, according to another reading, "Let us go elsewhere."

JFB: Mar 1:38 - into the next towns

Rather, "unto the neighboring village-towns"; meaning those places intermediate between towns and villages, with which the western side of the Sea of Galilee was studded.

JFB: Mar 1:38 - that I may preach there also; for therefore came I forth

Not from Capernaum, as DE WETTE miserably interprets, nor from His privacy in the desert place, as MEYER, no better; but from the Father. Compare Joh 16:28, "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world," &c.--another proof, by the way, that the lofty phraseology of the Fourth Gospel was not unknown to the authors of the others, though their design and point of view are different. The language in which our Lord's reply is given by Luke (Luk 4:43) expresses the high necessity under which, in this as in every other step of His work, He acted--"I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also; for therefore"--or, "to this end"--"am I sent." An act of self-denial it doubtless was, to resist such pleadings to return to Capernaum. But there were overmastering considerations on the other side.

Clarke: Mar 1:38 - The next towns

The next towns - Κωμοπολεις properly signifies such towns as resembled cities for magnitude and number of inhabitants, but which were not walled as were cities. The Codex Bezae, most of the versions, and all the Itala, read, Let us go into the neighboring villages, And Into The Cities

Clarke: Mar 1:38 - For therefore came I forth

For therefore came I forth - Εις τουτο, for this purpose am I come forth - to preach the Gospel to every creature, that all might hear, and fear, and return unto the Lord. The towns and the villages will not come to the preacher - the preacher must go to them, if he desires their salvation. In this, also, Jesus has left his ministering servants an example, that they should follow his steps. Let no minister of God think he has delivered his own soul, till he has made an offer of salvation to every city and village within his reach.

Calvin: Mar 1:38 - For on this account I came out

Mark 1:38.For on this account I came out Luk 4:43. For on this account am I sent. These words deserve our attention: for they contain a declaration of his earnest desire to fulfill his office. But it will perhaps be asked, is it better that the ministers of the Gospel should run here and there, to give only a slight and partial taste of it in each place, or that they should remain, and instruct perfectly the hearers whom they have once obtained? I reply. The design of Christ, which is here mentioned, was agreeable to the injunction and call of the Father, and was founded on the best reasons. For it was necessary that Christ should travel, within a short period, throughout Judea, to awaken the minds of men, on all sides, as if by the sound of a trumpet, to hear the Gospel. But on this subject we must treat more fully under another passage.

TSK: Mar 1:38 - Let // for

Let : Luk 4:43

for : Isa 61:1-3; Luk 2:49, Luk 4:18-21; Joh 9:4, Joh 16:28, Joh 17:4, Joh 17:8

Tafsiran/Catatan -- Catatan Kata/Frasa (per Ayat)

Poole: Mar 1:36-39

Ver. 36-39. Peter probably pitieth the multitude, because many amongst them needed Christ’ s presence, for their bodily infirmities. Our Saviour knew their hearts better than Peter; and that which made them so much seek for him, was either in some a curiosity to see miracles wrought, or at best but a desire of some bodily benefit from him. Whereas his working of miracles was but a secondary work, subservient to his work in preaching, and done to confirm his doctrine, and to advantage them as to their faith in him as the Messias. As therefore he refused to gratify the curiosity of the Pharisees in giving them a sign, so here our Saviour takes no notice of the multitude seeking for him, but saith to his disciples, Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also; for therefore came I forth. Paul saith that God sent him not to baptize, but to preach, 1Co 1:17 . Our Saviour saith not, Let us go into the next towns, that I may work miracles, but that I may preach there also; he doth not say he came forth to work miracles, but to preach: how it comes to pass that some are possessed of so slight an opinion of preaching as to think that it is needless, which our Saviour and St. Paul counted to be their principal work, where, in the mean time, they pretend to derive from Christ, I cannot tell. I am sure preaching was the greatest part of Christ’ s work; how it comes to be the least part of ministers’ work since, or how any of them think it sufficient to discharge that work by journeymen, which he thought it not beneath him to do himself, may deserve their examination which make it so. We do not say that preaching is a greater work than prayer, or that it is not ministers’ duty to pray; nor yet that it is greater than administering the sacrament: but this we say, we read of Christ’ s preaching often in the synagogues, on the mountain, in a ship; of his public praying we read not, though of his private and secret prayer often. We read expressly that he baptized none. We must have leave to think that our greatest work which our Lord and his apostles were most employed in, and do think others will be of our minds as soon as they shall understand, that if the end of preaching be not turning men from one opinion to another, but from the love and practice of sin to God, there is as much need of it as ever; and that the turning of men from one opinion to another, without a change of heart, as to the love of sin, is but a turning of men from one quarter of the devil’ s kingdom to another.

Lightfoot: Mar 1:38 - Towns

And he said unto them, Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also: for therefore came I forth.   

[Towns.] What this word means may be excellently well discovered by searching into the distinction between cities; and villages; and towns in the evangelists: --   

I. I render cities; but by what word, you will say, will you render by towns; -- "A man cannot compel his wife to follow him to dwell from town to city, nor from city to town." The proper English of which take from what follows: " It is plain why he cannot force her from city to town; because in a city any thing is to be found;" or to be had; but in a town any thing is not to be had. The Gloss writes, " 'Kerac' is greater than 'Ir,' (that is, a city than a town ); and there is a place of broad streets, where all neighbouring inhabitants meet at a market, and there any thing is to be had." So the same Gloss elsewhere; " Kerac is a place of broad streets, where men meet together from many places," etc.  

The Gemarists go on: "R. Josi Bar Chaninah saith, Whence is it that dwelling in kerachin (cities) is more inconvenient? For it is said, 'And they blessed all the people who offered themselves willingly to dwell at Jerusalem' " (Neh 11). Note, by the way, that Jerusalem was Kerac. The Gloss there is, "Dwelling in 'Kerachin' is worse, because all dwell there, and the houses are straitened, and join one to another, so that there is not free air: but in a town are gardens, and paradises by the houses, and the air is more wholesome."  

Kerachim therefore were, 1. Cities girt with walls. Hence is that distinction, that there were some 'Kerachin' which were girt with walls from the days of Joshua; and some walled afterward. 2. Trading mart cities, and those that were greater and nobler than the rest.  

II. Villages or country towns; [had] no synagogue. Hence is that in Megill. cap. 1: A Kerac (a city), in which are not ten men to make a synagogue, is to be reckoned for a village. And Megill. cap. 1, where some of a village are bound to read the Book of Esther in the feast of Purim: It is indulged to them to do it on a synagogue-day; that is, when they had not a synagogue among them, but must resort to some neighbour town where a synagogue was, it was permitted them to go thither on some weekday, appointed for meeting together in the synagogue, and that they might not take the trouble of a journey on another day, however that day was appointed by law for that lection.  

III. Urbs; or civitas, a city; denoted generally fortified cities, and towns also not fortified, where synagogues were, and villages, where they were not. Hence is that distinction, "That was a great city where there was a synagogue": " a small city where there was not."  

By towns therefore here are to be understood towns where there were synagogues, which nevertheless were not either fortified or towns of trade; among us English called church-towns.

Gill: Mar 1:38 - And he said unto them, let us go into the next towns // that I may preach there also // for therefore came I forth

And he said unto them, let us go into the next towns,.... Instead of returning with his disciples to Capernaum, as they expected he would, and especially since there was such a concourse of people got together, he proposes to go to "the next towns"; or "village cities"; towns that were neither villages, nor cities, but between both, as the word signifies: hence the Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Persic versions render it, "villages and cities": and it designs such towns in which there were synagogues. The Jews distinguish between walled towns, villages, and large cities ^r. They ask,

"what is a large city? every one in which there are ten leisure men; if less than so, lo! it is a village.''

And

"every place in which there were ten Israelites, they were obliged to provide a house into which they might go to prayer, at every prayer time, and that place is called a synagogue ^s.''

These were the places Christ judged it advisable to go to; he had preached already at Capernaum, the day before, and had confirmed his doctrine by miracles, which was sufficient for the present, and therefore thought fit to go elsewhere, and orders his disciples to go likewise; for the Syriac version renders it, "go ye to the next cities"; and in the same way read the Arabic and Persic versions:

that I may preach there also; as well as at Capernaum, that so the Gospel may be spread, and have its usefulness in other parts as well as there: the Arabic version renders it, "that we may preach"; both I and you; but without any foundation; nor does the reason following suit such a version,

for therefore came I forth: meaning, not from Simon's house, nor from Capernaum, though there may be a truth in that; for Christ might come from thence, with that view, to preach the Gospel elsewhere; but from God his Father, from whom he came forth, and by whom he was sent to preach the Gospel to other cities also, both in Galilee and Judaea; even to all the inhabitants of that country, to all the lost sheep of the house of Israel; so that this was but answering the end of his coming, and acting according to the commission given him.