Biblion Bible Commentary
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In the Fifteenth Year of Tiberius
Luke 3:1-6
1 Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, · WEB
Six rulers are named to date the moment, and then the word of God bypasses all of them.
Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee Luke 3:1.
No other Gospel does this. Six offices are listed — an emperor, a governor, three tetrarchs and a high priesthood — which is how a serious historian of that world dated an event, by cross-referencing the men in power. The claim being made is that this is checkable.
It also does something the list does not advertise. Reading down it, the reader passes every center of authority in that part of the world, from Rome to the temple, and then:
The word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness Luke 3:2.
The phrase is the prophets' own — the word of the Lord came to is how Jeremiah and Hosea and Ezekiel begin. After four centuries it resumes, and it goes past all six names to a man with no office standing in an empty place. The high priesthood is named in the same breath, and it is named twice over, Annas and Caiaphas, one office with two men in it — which tells its own story about who was actually running it.
He came into all the region around the Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for remission of sins Luke 3:3. The Jordan is where Israel entered the land, and a movement calling the nation out to the river to start again is making a point before a word is preached.
Washing was familiar; what was new was who was being asked to do it. Ritual washing was for the unclean and for Gentiles coming in, and John is telling the covenant people to go through the outsiders' door.
"The voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Make ready the way of the Lord'" Luke 3:4 Isaiah 40:3. The quotation is used by all four Gospels. This one runs it further than the others, and the extra lines are the reason.
"Every valley will be filled. Every mountain and hill will be brought low. The crooked will become straight, and the rough ways smooth" Luke 3:5. The image is roadworks before a royal visit, and the leveling is the Magnificat's again — the high brought down and the low raised.
"All flesh will see God's salvation" Luke 3:6.
That is where this Gospel stops the quotation, and no other account includes the line. All flesh — not all Israel. The book's whole horizon is set by a clause the writer chose not to leave out.
settled What this mark means