proclaiming the same message, travelled upward, along the winding Jordon which cleft
the land of promise. It was probably the autumn of the year 779 (a.u.c.), which, it may be
noted, was a Sabbatic year.8 Released from business and agriculture, the multitudes
flocked around him as he passed on his Mission. Rapidly the tidings spread from town
and village to distant homestead, still swelling the numbers that hastened to the banks of
the sacred river. He had now reached what seems to have been the most northern point of
his Mission-journey, 9 Beth-Abara ('the house of passage,' or 'of shipping') - according to
the ancient reading, Bethany ('the house of shipping') - one of the best known fords
across the Jordan into Peræa. 10 Here he baptized.11 The ford was little more than twenty
miles from Nazareth. But long before John had reached that spot, tidings of his word and
work must have come even into the retirement of Jesus' Home-Life.
7. Deeply as we appreciate the beauty of Keim's remarks about the character and views of
John, we feel only the more that such a man could not have taken the public position nor
made such public proclamation of the Kingdom as at hand, without a direct and objective
call to it from God. The treatment of John's earlier history by Keim is, of course, without
historical basis.
8. The year from Tishri (autumn) 779 to Tishri 780 was a Sabbatic year. Comp. the
evidence in Wieseler, Synopse d. Evang. pp. 204, 205.
9. We read of three places where John baptized: 'the wilderness of Judæa' - probably the
traditional site near Jericho; Ænon, near Salim, on the boundary between Sam aria and
Judæa ( Conder's Handbook of the Bible, p. 320); and Beth-Abara, the modern Abarah,
'one of the main Jordan fords, a little north of Beisân' (u. s.).
10. It is one of the merits of Lieut. Conder to have identified the site of Beth-Abara. The
word probably means 'the house of passage' (fords), but may also mean 'the house of
shipping,' the word Abarah in Hebrew meaning 'ferryboat,' 2 Sam. xix. 18. The reading
Bethania instead of Bethabara seems undoubtedly the original one, only the word must
not be derived (as by Mr. Conder, whose explanations and comments are often
untenable), from the province Batanea, but explained as Beth-Oniyah, the 'house of
shipping.' (See Lücke, Comment. u. d. Evang. Joh. i. pp. 392. 393.).
11. St. John i. 28.
It was now, as we take it, the early winter of the year 780.12 Jesus had waited those
months. Although there seems not to have been any personal acquaintance between Jesus
and John - and how could there be, when their spheres lay so widely apart? - each must
have heard and known of the other. Thirty years of silence weaken most human
impressions - or, if they deepen, the enthusiasm that had accompanied them passes away.
Yet, when the two met, and perhaps had brief conversation, each bore himself in
accordance with his previous history. With John it was deepest, reverent humility - even
to the verge of misunderstanding his special Mission, and work of initiation and
preparation for the Kingdom. He had heard of Him before by the hearing of the ear, and
when now he saw Him, that look of quiet dignity, of the majesty of unsullied purity in the
only Unfallen, Unsinning Man, made him forget even the express command of God,
which had sent him from his solitude to preach and baptize, and that very sign which had
been him by whic h to recognise the Messiah. 13 14 In that Presence it only became to him a
question of the more 'worthy' to the misunderstanding of the nature of his special calling.