Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Luke 4:42

"And when it was day, he came out and went into a desert place: and the multitudes sought after him, and came unto him, and would have stayed him, that he should not go from them." — Luke 4:42 (ASV)

Shifting quickly from dusk to dawn, Luke portrays Jesus in a sharply contrasted setting. He is alone. Surprisingly, in view of his special attention to prayer (cf. 5:16), Luke does not tell us that Jesus is praying (cf. Mark 1:35). But Luke does strongly affirm why Jesus refused to linger at Capernaum. He felt an urgent need (“must”; GK 1256) to preach the kingdom of God throughout all “the land of the Jews” (see NIV note). That is why God sent him into the world.

Here, then, Luke has provided representative incidents from the ministry of Jesus. It is the kind of activity summarized in Ac 10:38 as “doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil.”