The motives which brought Jesus back to Bethabara must remain in the indefiniteness in
which Scripture has left them. So far as we know, there was no personal interview
between Jesus and the Baptist. Jesus had then and there nothing further to say to the
Baptist; and yet on the day following that on which John had, in such manner, pointed
Him out to the bystanders, He was still there, only returning to Galilee the next day. Here,
at least, a definite object becomes apparent. This was not merely the calling of His first
disciples, but the necessary Sabbath rest; for, in this instance, the narrative supplies the
means of ascertaining the days of the week on which each event took place. We have
only to assume, that the marriage in Cana of Galilee was that of a maiden, not a widow.
The great festivities which accompanied it were unlikely, according to Jewish ideas, in
the case of a widow; in fact, the whole mise en scène of the marriage renders this most
improbable. Besides, if it had been the marriage of a widow, this (as will immediately
appear) would imply that Jesus had returned from the wilderness on a Saturday, which, as
being the Jewish Sabbath, could not have been the case. For uniform custom fixed the
marriage of a maiden on Wednesdays, that of a widow on Thursday.33 Counting
backwards from the day of the marriage in Cana, we arrive at the following results. The
interview between John and the Sanhedrin-deputation took place on a Thursday. 'The
next day,' Friday, Jesus returned from the wilderness of the Temptatio n, and John bore
his first testimony to 'the Lamb of God.' The following day, when Jesus appeared a
second time in view, and when the first two disciples joined Him, was the Saturday, or
Jewish Sabbath. It was, therefore, only the following day, or Sunday,34 that Jesus returned
to Galilee,35 calling others by the way. 'And the third day' after it36 - that is, on the
Wednesday - was the marriage in Cana.37
33. For the reasons of this, comp. 'Sketches of Jewish Social Life,' p. 151.
34. St. John
1. 43.
35. This may be regarded as another of the undesigned evidences of the Hebraic origin of
the fourth Gospel. Indeed, it might also be almost called an evidence of the truth of the
whole narrative.
36. St. John ii. 1.
37. Yet Renan speaks of the first chapters of St. John's Gospel as scattered notices,
without chronological order!
If we group around these days the recorded events of each, they almost seem to intensify
in significance. The Friday of John's first pointing to Jesus as the Lamb of God, which
taketh away the sin of the world, recalls that other Friday, when the full import of that
testimony appeared. The Sabbath of John's last personal view and testimony to Christ is
symbolic in its retrospect upon the old economy. It seems to close the ministry of John,
and to open that of Jesus; it is the leave-taking of the nearest disciples of John from the
old, their search after the new. And then on the first Sunday - the beginning of Christ's
active ministry, the call of the first disciples, the first preaching of Jesus.
As we picture it to ourselves: in the early morning of that Sabbath John stood, with the
two of his disciples who most shared his thoughts and feelings. One of them we know to
ha ve been Andrew (v. 40); the other, unnamed one, could have been no other than John