Bible Commentaries

Herod the tetrarch; son of Herod the Great, the old king who reigned at the time of our Savior's birth. Upon his death, his kingdom was divided among his sons. Herod Antipas, here referred to, ruled over Galilee.

Matthew 14:3,4. Herod had enticed away his brother Phillip's wife, and married her, while her lawful husband was still living. He was not of so cruel and bloodthirsty a disposition as his father, but it required great moral courage in John, to reprove any member of the Herod family for such a crime.

He went over the Sea of Galilee, perhaps to some portion of its eastern shore, which was little inhabited, and where he was safe from Herod--On foot; that is, the people, went to the same place by land.

The time is now past; the day is gone; night is at hand.

Blessed. It seems to have been often the custom of the Savior to implore the divine blessing upon food, before partaking of it.

Constrained. There was but one boat, or ship, as it is called, (John 6:22,) and the disciples seem to have been unwilling to leave Jesus without any apparent means of rejoining them. But the crisis was one of considerable excitement and danger, and special precautions to effect the quiet dispersion of the people, seem to have been rendered necessary by the high state of excitement which prevailed among them, as is stated John 6:14,15. John the Baptist, the great favorite of the people, had just been murdered by Herod; and Jesus himself was seeking, in these solitudes, a refuge from his cruelty. These facts, in connection with the miracle, produced such an excitement in this assembly, as to lead them to form the design of forcing Jesus to head them in an insurrection against Herod's authority. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that the disciples were reluctant to leave their Master in such a place, and the object of such an excitement, and without any apparent means of returning across the lake to his friends.

The fourth watch; near the morning.

Worshipped him; prostrated themselves in homage before him.--Son of God; the expected Messiah.