Mark 3:7, commentary and pictures

After healing the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath, Jesus withdrew with His disciples to the sea and shore of Galilee in the face of hostility, and news of that healing spread and drew crowds after Him. That move to the shore of the Sea of Galilee also came after He had set the disciples apart for gospel work, and a great crowd was already gathering there early in the morning. Withdrawing to Galilee was a move to where the work could go forward, not a search for seclusion or isolation, since the province held a crowded population with a much larger mixture of people of other nations than Judea. The Galileans were despised by the rabbis of Jerusalem as rude and unlearned, yet they were a more favorable field because they were more earnest and sincere, less under the control of bigotry, and more open to receive truth.

A great multitude from Galilee followed Him, and from Judea and the surrounding cities, villages, and adjoining provinces, gathering to hear Him and to seek relief from illness. There He taught and healed the sick and those possessed by demons, and those who reached out to touch Him in faith were healed, while the demons as they left their victims acknowledged Him as the Son of God. Enthusiasm ran so high that He was often obliged to hide Himself, with precautions needed lest the Roman authorities be aroused to fear an insurrection.

As the crowd grew too large for the narrow beach, He went up the mountain to a level place where the people could gather, drawing His disciples close around Him. From that place He taught the mixed crowd the principles of His kingdom in the Sermon on the Mount. It was a period such as the world had never seen before, when heaven was brought down to men and hungering and thirsting souls that had long waited for the redemption of Israel feasted upon the grace of a merciful Saviour.