Mark 1:5 And there went out to him all the land of Judaea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan… It was a mixed multitude of almost every class. The other Evangelists help us to realize its heterogeneous character. There were Pharisees, whose scrupulous routine of external observance had woven around them a web of self-satisfied pride; and Sadducees, whose reaction from superstition had landed them in a cold and heartless infidelity. Among these there would be followers of Shammai, cleaving to tradition and rigidly orthodox; sympathisers also with his opponent Hillel, just emerging from that slavery to the letter which had taken the very life out of their religion. There were soldiers, too, who, through the lawless rapacity of their generals, had learned to think only of loot and plunder; and the bated publicans, with their overreaching and fraudulent exactions, the byword for all that was lowest and most contemptible — all were there, and for all he had the same message, "Repent." The Rabbis have a wonderful comment on the import of that message. "If," they say, "Israel would repent, they would be redeemed." (H. M. Luckock, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And there went out unto him all the land of Judaea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins. |
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