Mark 3:8

From Idumæa. — The only passage in the New Testament in which this country is named. It had acquired a considerably wider range than the Edom of the Old Testament, and included the whole country between the Arabah and the Mediterranean. It was at this time under the government of Aretas (2 Corinthians 11:32), the father of the wife whom Herod Antipas had divorced, and this had probably brought about a more frequent intercourse between its inhabitants and those of Galilee and Peræa.

They about Tyre and Sidon. — The fact is interesting in its connection with the history of the Syro-Phœnician woman (Matthew 15:21; Mark 7:24) as showing how it was that our Lord’s appearance in that region was welcomed as that of one whose fame had travelled thither before Him.