“Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,  the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan,  Galilee of the Gentiles — the people living in darkness  have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned” (Matthew 4:14-16, quoting Isaiah 9:1-2).

​The region of ancient (and modern) Israel that we call Galilee apparently was originally just a small circle of land (the name means “circuit” or “circle” in Hebrew) round the Canaanite city of Kedesh, which was conquered by Joshua and became part of the inheritance of the tribe of Naphtali (Joshua 20:7).   It was in this area that the twenty towns were located that King Solomon gave to Hiram king of Tyre, in payment for the workmen and cedar wood  he supplied  from Lebanon for building the Temple in Jerusalem (1 Kings 9:11).  Perhaps it was then that the area became settled by Gentiles from Phoenicia (Isaiah 8:23), though this may have occurred at a later time, when the Assyrians moved other populations into the area after the captivity of ancient Israel.

In Roman times, and throughout the life of Jesus, all Palestine was divided into three provinces: Judea, Samaria, and Galilee, with Galilee being the largest (Luke 17:11). The area is extremely hilly and rocky, and most people lived in small villages – though the cities such as Tiberias built on the shores of the Sea of Galilee were larger. The Sea of Galilee was, in fact, the central focal point of the whole region.  Also called in the Bible the Sea of Kinneret (possibly from the “harp” shape of the lake) or its Greek form, Gennesaret,  as well as Ginosar and the Sea of Tiberius,  the large lake (today approximately 7 miles wide and 12.5 miles long) was the center of the fishing trade which was Galilee’s main industry. 

Many Bible commentaries give a picture of ancient Galilee as a rustic and socially backwards area looked down upon by Jews in Jerusalem and elsewhere, but modern archaeology has shown that although the Galileans may have had a different accent (Matthew 26:73) and may not have had the education of many of the Jerusalem elites (Acts 4:13), they were nevertheless respected for their thriving commerce.  The whole area of Galillee was known for its beauty, and the Jewish historian Josephus who lived shortly after the time of Christ (c. AD 37 – AD 100)  even wrote that “One may call this place the ambition of Nature.”

The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke,) all give detailed accounts of the ministry of Jesus which was conducted in Galilee.  They tell us that it was there that Jesus chose his disciples and where he taught and performed many miracles in the scattered villages and towns.  Matthew tells us that he did this to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah:

“Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,  the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan,  Galilee of the Gentiles— the people living in darkness  have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned” (Matthew 4:14-16, quoting Isaiah 9:1-2).

Yet why did Jesus spend so much of his earthly life in Galilee?  It would have been possible, of course, for him to have grown up anywhere in Judea and to have simply travelled to Galilee to complete his prophesied work there.  Most scholars feel that because Galilee was relatively distant from the political and religiously volatile situation in Jerusalem, Jesus’ ministry was more likely to thrive and survive in the more out of the way area.
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But there is perhaps another reason why so much of Jesus’ ministry was completed in Galilee – and that was the nature of the Galileans themselves.  The common stereotype that paints the Galileans as unsophisticated  and “backwoodsy” fails to take into account an important trait for which they were well known.  The Jewish historian Josephus also wrote of the Galileans that they were “fond of innovations and by nature disposed to change, and they delighted in seditions.”  The latter charge, that they were fond of political seditions, was seen in the revolt against the Romans led by Judas of Galilee in  AD 6 and mentioned in the New Testament (Acts 5:37). 

However, the fact that the Galileans were socially and temperamentally inclined to innovation and change meant that they were doubtless far more receptive to the seemingly radical new teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.  Far less constrained in what they believed than the tradition-bound Jews of Jerusalem, the Galileans (apart from Jesus’ own family and those who had known him as a child – Matthew 13:54-58) may have been more open to the message of the Gospel than any other group in ancient Palestine.  It was among the Galileans, as Isaiah prophesied, that the light that was to come shone most brightly. 

“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!” (Romans 11:33).

The ancient Romans prided themselves on their roads. The famous “Roman roads” were not only expertly constructed (many still survive today and are still in use),  but they also formed a massive network stretching virtually from one end of the known world to the other.  Great highways radiated outward from Rome (you have doubtless heard the expression “All roads lead to Rome”),  and by the time of the late Empire all Rome’s 113 provinces were interconnected by 372 great roads totaling almost a quarter of a million miles (over 400,000 km). 

The Roman roads were used to move armies as well as for trade and international communication, and virtually everyone used the vast network of roads for any kind of travel by land. In fact, the roads of Rome became a kind of institution, and they were carefully maintained and protected by laws appropriate to their importance. 

So it is interesting to realize that, despite the vast amount of national and international travel in which the Romans regularly participated, they made few maps as we know them, with landforms and other features. Instead, the Romans made itineraria which were simply lists of roads (and in some cases, sea routes) with distances between the major points along the way.  These itineraria ranged from small local road lists to ones covering vast distances.

Julius Caesar and Mark Antony commissioned the first known master itinerary of all Roman roads in 44 BC.  Skilled Greek geographers were hired to compile the information on the Roman road system, and this task took over 25 years to complete. The result was a master itinerarium which was engraved on a stone set up in Rome from which travelers could make copies. The famous Tabula Peutingeriana is a later copy of another, Fifth Century, schematic listing of the Roman roads from Spain in the West to India in the East.
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So, with such an itinerarium, if you knew where a person was from, you could know where he or she could go and how long it would take them to get there. The possible roads any person could take were well documented, and the Romans were doubtless especially proud of this.  We should remember this fact as the context in which the apostle Paul wrote, in his letter to the Romans themsleves, of the wisdom and knowledge of God – whose paths (Greek hodoi: “travelled ways,” “roads”) were “beyond tracing out” (Romans 11:33).

In writing this Paul makes a point about the greatness of God that is easy to read over.  The documentation of the Roman roads demonstrated not only human ability to know exactly where and how others could come and go, the itineraria symbolized Rome’s – and humanity’s – knowledge and control of the world: over the very universe from a human perspective. 
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In pointing out to the Romans that God’s paths were beyond “tracing out,” Paul did more than simply tell them that God was great beyond our comprehension. That is an essential part of his meaning, of course, but he also reminded them of the true scale of things and that it was God, not Rome, who “mapped” the world and controlled it with unimaginable power.  

“For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:28-31)

In this parable with complementary halves, Jesus gave back-to-back examples of the potential problems resulting from a lack of planning. The first example, of building a tower without first counting the cost, is sometimes thought to be based on a failed building project in Jerusalem planned by Pontius Pilate – which may be possible if the allusion is not to building a watchtower on an estate or vineyard. The principle is straightforward, and the example expands upon the concept of building on a firm foundation given in the Parable of the Two Builders (Matthew 7:24-27). In that parable the focus is the nature of what we build upon, in this parable it is our spiritual preparation and dedication that is at issue, even if we have a proper basis for our faith.

In the second example Jesus gives, he does appear to make an allusion to a specific event of that time. Herod Antipater (c. 21 BC – AD 39), known by the nickname Antipas, was the first century ruler under the Romans of Galilee and Perea on the east side of the Jordan. Antipas divorced his first wife Phasaelis, the daughter of King Aretas IV of Nabatea, to marry his brother’s wife Herodias (as condemned by John the Baptist: Luke 3:18-20), and this divorce added further friction to a dispute with Aretas over territory on the border of Perea and Nabatea. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, Antipas declared war on Aretas without proper planning, and his army was routed by the larger forces of the other king. These contemporary events would have been clear in the minds of Jesus’ hearers and would have made the allusion to the king at war seem particularly real.

Many commentators explain the verbal pictures used in this parable as simply prompting us to count the cost before engaging in the struggle that the follower of Christ faces against the many forces that “war” against him or her: not only those of our own human nature, but also external physical and spiritual forces (Ephesians 6:12). But if that is the meaning, the allusion to asking for “terms of peace” when realizing one is outnumbered does not seem to make sense. Other commentators see the parable differently – that the king with a much stronger force represents God, with whom we should ally ourselves rather than becoming His enemy. In this case the terms of peace make better sense and perhaps tie better to the words that follow the parable on being willing to renounce everything that we have (as “terms of peace”), which was the point that Jesus was making as he gave these two small parables:

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26-27).

The spiritual costs of building the “tower,” like the cost of engaging in “war,” Jesus tells us, are the costs of being willing to give up family, friends, possessions, position or anything else that might be necessary in order to succeed in what we set out to do – though, as biblical scholar Joachim Jeremias has written, this double parable is an “exhortation to self-examination” – are we willing to give up anything necessary –  rather than to planned self-denial.

* From our FREE eBook, The City on a Hill:  Lessons from the Parables of Jesus, available for download on our sister site here.

Fifth in Our Lessons from the Kings Series

Josiah was undoubtedly one of ancient Judah’s best rulers. This king ruled for thirty-one years (c. 640-609 BC), accomplishing great good during his reign.  Yet his death is puzzling and provides a sobering lesson to anyone who reads the story. 

Perhaps under the influence of Jeremiah, in his eighteenth year Josiah began a great reformation of the faith of Judah. He first repaired the Temple of Solomon and renewed the ancient covenant with God (2 Kings 23). The king then began to cleanse Judah of idolatry. The temple was purged and idolatrous “high places” were destroyed throughout Judah and even beyond. Josiah clearly returned to the one God and humbly led his people to return also.  But something went horribly amiss. Josiah did not die in peace, as we might expect, but as a result of a foolish gamble.

To understand Josiah’s sad demise we need to understand the basics of international relations in his day. When Josiah ascended the throne the ancient Near East was in political flux.  That world’s established “superpower,” the Assyrian Empire, was disintegrating and the Neo-Babylonian Empire was rising to replace it.  Egypt, another key power player under the strong pharaoh Necho II, led an army north to fight the Babylonians. 

This is where Josiah enters the picture. Necho requested permission to pass through Judah on the main road to Syria in order to fight the Babylonians, but, ironically – considering Judah’s soon-coming downfall at the hands of the Babylonians – Josiah refused.  According to II Chronicles 35:20-21 Necho  then sent messengers to Josiah saying, “ … I am not coming against you today but against the house with which I am at war, and God has ordered me to hurry. Stop for your own sake from interfering with God who is with me, so that He will not destroy you.” This message is amazing not only in that Necho pleaded with the relatively minor king Josiah not to interfere, but also claimed that God Himself instructed him to do what he was doing. 

Was this just a detail of cleverly contrived psychological warfare, or was Necho really marching under the influence of God who raises kingdoms and diminishes them (Daniel 2:21)?  The biblical account appears to indicate the latter as  Chronicles tells us that “Josiah … would not listen to what Necho had said at God’s command but went to fight him on the plain of Megiddo”  (2 Chronicles 35:22, emphasis added).  The results of this battle were disastrous for the Judean king.  Archers shot Josiah, and he was taken back to Jerusalem, where he died (vs. 23).

Josiah’s taking a huge chance with his life at Megiddo not only led to his own death, but also to the loss of Judean independence. So what happened to this good king of Judah?   Proverbs 26:17 gives the principle of  not meddling in a matter that does not concern us, and Josiah may have paid the price for not knowing or heeding that principle. Josiah certainly took a huge chance with his own life – and lost. There is no doubt that God sometimes  mercifully protects those who love Him from the results of foolish decisions and actions, but He does not guarantee that He will do this in any or every circumstance, and the principle of not “tempting” God by taking unnecessary risks (Deuteronomy 6:16) certainly applies here.  We can jeopardize our success, our happiness, and even our lives through taking foolish chances – despite our relationship with God.

The great lesson we can all learn from Josiah’s demise is don’t run the stop lights of life – physical or spiritual.