The Jews understood that the Messiah would descend from David.  They believed that He would sit “upon the throne of David,” ruling first over the Jews, an earthly ruler such as David had been, and then conquering their enemies; thus being a great warrior and the king of the world.

But they were sadly mistaken in many of their ideas of the Messiah.  They had misread many of the writings of the prophets.  They had given wrong meanings to right words.  They made real what was not so intended.  They overlooked prophecies about the Messiah-King being despised, rejected and slain, though God had commanded lambs to be slain through all those centuries to remind them of the coming Messiah’s cruel death.  Each of those lambs was a “Lamb of God.”  Remember that phrase; we shall meet it again.  They looked for wonders of kinds of which neither Moses nor the prophets had written.  Many did not understand what was meant by the kingdom of God in the hearts of men, as differing from the earthly kingdom of David.  They did not understand that Messiah’s kingdom would be in the hearts of all people.

With such mistaken views of the Messiah at the time of which we are writing, the Jews had not only the great expectation of the centuries, but the strong belief that Messiah was about to appear.

A great event had happened which made them especially anxious for His immediate coming.  The Jewish nation had been conquered by the Romans.  The “Glory of All Lands” was glorious only for what it had been.  Galilee was a Roman province which, like those of Judaea and Samaria, longed for the expected One to free them from the Roman yoke, and show Himself to be the great Messiah-Deliverer of the Jews.  They were prepared to welcome almost any one who claimed to be He.  Such an one was at hand.

In those days appeared a man who has been known as Judas of Galilee.  He had more zeal than wisdom.  In his anger and madness at the Romans he was almost insane.  He was an eloquent man.  He roused the whole Jewish nation.  Multitudes welcomed him as the promised Messiah.  Thousands gathered around him; many of them fishermen, shepherds, vine-dressers and craftsmen of Galilee.  They followed him throughout the entire land with fire and sword, laying waste cities and homesteads, vineyards and cornfields.  Their watchword was, “We have no Lord or master, but God.”

But this rebellion against the Roman government failed.  Judas himself was slain.  Villages in Galilee—­Bethsaida probably one of them—­became hospitals for the wounded in battle.  The whole region was one of mourning for the dead.  There was terrible disappointment concerning Judas of Galilee.  None could say of him, “We have found the Messiah.”  “We have found Him, of whom Moses in the Law, and the prophets, did write.”  Again think of these words; they are yet to be spoken concerning another.

What the five young Galileans of Bethsaida saw and heard of these events must have made a deep impression on them.  They were old enough to be young patriots interested in their nation.  Their sympathies would be with those trying to free their people from Roman power.  Perhaps their thoughts concerning Messiah became confused by the false claims of Judas, the pretender, and his deluded followers.