John 3:22

Ver. 22. “ After this Jesus came with his disciples into the country of Judea; and he tarried there with them and baptized. ”

Μετὰ ταῦτα (after this), connects this passage, in a general way, with John 2:23-25: “ Following upon this activity of Jesus at Jerusalem.” ᾿Ιουδαία γῆ (the land of Judea), denotes the country, as opposed to the capital. The imperfect he was tarrying, and he was baptizing, indicate that this sojourn was of some duration. The expression, he was baptizing, is more exactly defined in John 4:2: “ Yet Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples. ” The moral act belonged to Jesus; the material operation was wrought by the disciples. If these two passages were found in two different Gospels, criticism would not fail immediately to see in them a contradiction, and would accuse of harmonistic bias the one who should seek to explain it. The intention of the narrator in our passage is only to place this baptism under the responsibility of Jesus Himself.