We have here, I. The reason given why Christ spent more of his time in Galilee than in Judea (v. 1): because the Jews, the people in Judea and Jerusalem, sought to kill him, for curing the impotent man on the sabbath day, ch. 5 16. They thought to be the death of him, either by a popular tumult or by a legal prosecution, in consideration of which he kept at a distance in another part of the country, very much out of the lines of Jerusalem's communication. It is not said, He durst not, but, He would not, walk in Jewry; it was not through fear and cowardice that he declined it, but in prudence, because his hour was not yet come. Note, 1. Gospel light is justly taken away from those that endeavour to extinguish it. Christ will withdraw from those that drive him from them, will hide his face from those that spit in it, and justly shut up his bowels from those who spurn at them. 2. In times of imminent peril it is not only allowable, but advisable, to withdraw and abscond for our own safety and preservation, and to choose the service of those places which are least perilous, Matt 10 23. Then, and not till then, we are called to expose and lay down our lives, when we cannot save them without sin. 3. If the providence of God casts persons of merit into places of obscurity and little note, it must not be thought strange; it was the lot of our Master himself. He who was fit to have sat in the highest of Moses's seats willingly walked in Galilee among the ordinary sort of people. Observe, He did not sit still in Galilee, nor bury himself alive there, but walked; he went about doing good. When we cannot do what and where we would, we must do what and where we can.
Verses 1-13 The brethren or kinsmen of Jesus were disgusted, when they found there was no prospect of worldly advantages from him. Ungodly men sometimes undertake to counsel those employed in the work of God; but they only advise what appears likely to promote present advantages. The people differed about his doctrine and miracles, while those who favoured him, dared not openly to avow their sentiments. Those who count the preachers of the gospel to be deceivers, speak out, while many who favour them, fear to get reproach by avowing regard for them.
II. The approach of the feast of tabernacles (v. 2), one of the three solemnities which called for the personal attendance of all the males at Jerusalem; see the institution of it, Lev 23 34, etc., and the revival of it after a long disuse, Neh 8 14. It was intended to be both a memorial of the tabernacle state of Israel in the wilderness, and a figure of the tabernacle state of God's spiritual Israel in this world. This feast, which was instituted so many hundred years before, was still religiously observed. Note, Divine institutions are never antiquated, nor go out of date, by length of time: nor must wilderness mercies ever be forgotten. But it is called the Jews' feast, because it was now shortly to be abolished, as a mere Jewish thing, and left to them that served the tabernacle.
This was the festival of Tabernacles, on which the Jews made tents, in imitation of those which were their habitations during their sojournment in the wilderness, for forty years. See Leviticus xxiii. 34. The Jews called it a festival day; though it consisted not of one, but of many days successively. (St. Augustine, tract. 28. in Joan.)
These brethren of Christ were the relatives of the blessed Virgin, not her children. For, as in the sepuchre, were the body of our Saviour was deposited, no other mortal lay either before or since; so neither did the womb of Mary ever either before or after bear any other body but that of her divine Son. (St. Augustine, tract. 28. in Joan.)
1. Their ambition and vain-glory in urging him to make a more public appearance than he did: "Depart hence," said they, "and go into Judea (v. 3), where thou wilt make a better figure than thou canst here."
(2.) One would not think there was any harm in this advice, and yet the evangelist noted it is an evidence of their infidelity: For neither did his brethren believe in him (v. 5), if they had, they would not have said this. Observe, [1.] It was an honour to be of the kindred of Christ, but no saving honour; they that hear his word and keep it are the kindred he values. Surely grace runs in no blood in the world, when not in that of Christ's family. [2.] It was a sign that Christ did not aim at any secular interest, for then his kindred would have struck in with him, and he would have secured them first. [3.] There were those who were akin to Christ according to the flesh who did believe in him (three of the twelve were his brethren), and yet others, as nearly allied to him as they, did not believe in him. Many that have the same external privileges and advantages do not make the same use of them. But,
Neither did his brethren believe in him; by his brethren here, we are to understand his kindred, his townsmen or countrymen, at or about Nazareth. (Witham)