John Calvin Commentary Luke 3:1

"Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene," — Luke 3:1 (ASV)

When Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea. It is probable that this was the second year of Pilate’s government. For since Tiberius had held the reins of government, he had, as Josephus informs us (Josephus, Ant. 18.2.2), appointed Valerius Gratus to be governor of Judea in place of Annius Rufus. This change might have taken place in his second year. The same Josephus writes that Valerius was governor of Judea for “eleven years, when Pontius Pilate came as his successor” (Josephus, Ant. 18.2.2). Pilate, therefore, had governed the province for two years when John began to preach the Gospel.

This Herod, whom Luke makes tetrarch of Judea, was the second heir of Herod the Great and succeeded his father by will. Archelaus had received the ethnarchy of Judea, but when he was banished to Vienna (Josephus, Wars 2.vii.3) by Augustus, that portion fell into the hands of the Romans. Luke mentions here two sons of Herod, — Herod Antipas, who had been made tetrarch of Galilee and governed Samaria and Peraea, — and Philip, who was tetrarch of Trachonitis and Iturea, and reigned from the Sea of Tiberias, or Gennesareth, to the foot of Lebanon, which is the source of the river Jordan.

Lysanias has been falsely supposed to be the son of Ptolemy Mennaeus, King of Chalcis, who had been put to death long before by Cleopatra, about thirty years before the birth of Christ, as Josephus relates (Josephus, Ant. 15.4.1). He could hardly even be the grandson of Ptolemy, who, as the same Josephus records, kindled the Parthian war (Josephus, Wars 1.xiii.1); for then he must have been more than sixty years of age at the time of which Luke speaks.

Besides, since it was under Antigonus that the Parthian war commenced, he must have been a full-grown man even then. Now, Ptolemy Mennaeus died not long after the murder of Julius Caesar, during the triumvirate of Lepidus, Antony, and Octavius (Josephus, Wars 1.xiii.1). But as this grandson of Ptolemy bore the name of Lysanias as well as his father, he might have left a son who had the same surname. Meanwhile, there can be no hesitation in rejecting the error of those who make Lysanias live sixty years after he had been killed by Cleopatra.

The word Tetrarch is used here in a sense that is not quite accurate, as if the whole country had been divided into four parts. But as at first there was a fourfold division into districts, so afterwards, when other changes took place, the names Tetrarch and Tetrarchies were retained by way of honor. In this sense, Pliny enumerates seventeen tetrarchies of one country.