4:23 Jesus 2 went throughout all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, 3 preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of disease and sickness among the people. 4:24 So a report about him spread throughout Syria. People 4 brought to him all who suffered with various illnesses and afflictions, those who had seizures, 5 paralytics, and those possessed by demons, 6 and he healed them. 4:25 And large crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, 7 Jerusalem, 8 Judea, and beyond the Jordan River. 9
5:1 Now 10 Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, 11 and the crowd was pressing around him 12 to hear the word of God.
12:1 Meanwhile, 13 when many thousands of the crowd had gathered so that they were trampling on one another, Jesus 14 began to speak first to his disciples, “Be on your guard against 15 the yeast of the Pharisees, 16 which is hypocrisy. 17
1 tn “River” is not in the Greek text but is supplied for clarity.
2 tn Grk “And he.”
3 sn Synagogues were places for Jewish prayer and worship, with recognized leadership (cf. Luke 8:41). Though the origin of the synagogue is not entirely clear, it seems to have arisen in the postexilic community during the intertestamental period. A town could establish a synagogue if there were at least ten men. In normative Judaism of the NT period, the OT scripture was read and discussed in the synagogue by the men who were present (see the Mishnah, m. Megillah 3-4; m. Berakhot 2).
4 tn Grk “And they”; “they” is probably an indefinite plural, referring to people in general rather than to the Syrians (cf. v. 25).
5 tn Grk “those who were moonstruck,” possibly meaning “lunatic” (so NAB), although now the term is generally regarded as referring to some sort of seizure disorder such as epilepsy (L&N 23.169; BDAG 919 s.v. σεληνιάζομαι).
6 tn The translation has adopted a different phrase order here than that in the Greek text. The Greek text reads, “People brought to him all who suffered with various illnesses and afflictions, those possessed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics.” Even though it is obvious that four separate groups of people are in view here, following the Greek word order could lead to the misconception that certain people were possessed by epileptics and paralytics. The word order adopted in the translation avoids this problem.
7 tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated before each of the places in the list, since English normally uses a coordinating conjunction only between the last two elements in a series of three or more.
8 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
9 tn “River” is not in the Greek text but is supplied for clarity. The region referred to here is sometimes known as Transjordan (i.e., “across the Jordan”).
10 tn Grk “Now it happened that.” The introductory phrase ἐγένετο (egeneto, “it happened that”), common in Luke (69 times) and Acts (54 times), is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated.
11 sn The Lake of Gennesaret is another name for the Sea of Galilee. Cf. the parallel in Matt 4:18.
12 sn The image of the crowd pressing around him suggests the people leaning forward to catch Jesus’ every word.
13 tn The phrase ἐν οἷς (en Jois) can be translated “meanwhile.”
14 tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
15 tn According to L&N 27.59, “to pay attention to, to keep on the lookout for, to be alert for, to be on your guard against.” This is another Lukan present imperative calling for constant vigilance.
16 sn See the note on Pharisees in 5:17.
17 sn The pursuit of popularity can lead to hypocrisy, if one is not careful.