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Mat_4:15-16. As the evangelist, Mat_2:23, found a prophecy in support of the settlement at Nazareth, so also now for the removal to Capernaum, viz. Isa_8:22; Isa_9:1 (quoted from memory, but adhering to the LXX.): The land of Zdbulon and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people which sat in darkness, and so on.
γῆ is not the vocative, but the nominative, corresponding to ὁ λαός , etc., Mat_4:16. The article was not required; see Winer, p. 114 f. [E. T. 22]. As, by the ὁδὸν θαλάσσης , the τὴν παραθαλασσίαν expressed of Capernaum in Mat_4:13 is prophetically established, so must θαλάσσης , in the sense of the evangelist, refer to the Sea of Galilee, the Lake of Gennesareth. These words, namely, determine the situation of γῆ Ζαβ . and γῆ Νεφθ ., and are to be translated seawards. The absolute accusat. ὁδόν is quite Hebraistic, like øÌÆøÆêÀ in the sense of versus (Eze_8:5; Eze_40:20; Eze_41:11 f., Eze_42:1 ff.; 1Ki_8:48; 2Ch_6:38; Deu_1:2; Deu_1:19),—a usage which is partly retained in the LXX. 1Ki_8:48, ὁδὸν γῆς αὐτων , in the direction of their land; exactly so in 2Ch_6:38, and most probably also in Deu_1:19. In this sense has the evangelist also understood øÌÆøÆêÀ äÇéÈí in the original text of the passage before us; so also Aquila and Theodotion, not the LXX., according to B (in A, by an interpolation). No completely corresponding and purely Greek usage is found, as the accusatives of direction, in Bernhardy, p. 144 f., comp. Kühner, II. 1, p. 268 f., do not stand independent of a verb. πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδ . is not, like ὁδὸν θαλ , a determination of the position of γῆ Ζαβ . and γῆ Νεφθ ., as these tribes were situated on this side the Jordan, while πέραν (in answer to Bengel, Kuinoel, Linder in the Stud. u. Krit. 1862, p. 553) can never signify on this side (Crome, Beitr. p. 83 ff.); but it designates, after these two lands, a new land as the theatre of the working of Jesus, viz. Peraea (comp. on Mat_4:25), whose customary designation was òáø äéøãï , πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου —that is, the land east of Jordan. The evangelist includes this land as well as Γαλιλ . τ . ἐθνῶν , because it stands in the prophetic passage along with the others (not with reference to the Peraean ministry of Jesus, de Wette, Bleek, which has no place here), leaving it, besides, to the reader to decide that it was only in γῆ Ζαβουλὼν … θαλάσσης that the specific element of locality which was to be demonstrated from the prophecies was contained. The citation, moreover, which specially sets forth that Jesus; after He had quitted Nazareth, settled at Capernaum, on the borders of Zebulon and Naphtali, in their telic connection with a divine prediction ( ἵνα of the divine determination), shows in this very circumstance the Messianic fulfilment of the historical relation of the prophetic declaration, according to which there was announced to northern Galilee safety and salvation from the oppression of the Assyrians, and consequently theocratical, political salvation.
Γαλ . τ . ἐθνῶν ] ðÌÀìÄéì äÇðÌåÉéÄí (district of the heathen), that is, in keeping with the originally appellative term âìéì , which had become a proper name, Upper Galilee, in the neighbourhood of Phoenicia, inhabited by a mixed population of heathens (Strabo, xvi. p. 760) and Jews. 1Ma_5:15 : Γαλιλ . ἀλλοφύλων . Its geographical limits are defined by Joseph. Bell. iii. 3. 1.