Luke 5:1-3 And it came to pass, that, as the people pressed on him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret,… The Sea of Galilee is shaped like a pear, with a width at the broadest part of 6.75 miles, and a length of 121; miles; that is, it is about the same length as our own Windermere, but considerably broader, though in the clear air of Palestine it looks somewhat smaller. Nothing can exceed the bright clearness of the water, which it is delightful to watch as it runs in small waves over the shingle. Its taste, moreover, is sweet, except near the hot springs and at Tiberias, where it is polluted by the sewerage of the town. There is much more level ground on the eastern side than the western, yet the western side was always, in Bible times, much more thickly peopled by the Hebrews than the other; partly from the fact that "beyond Jordan" was almost a foreign country; partly because the land above the lake on the east was exposed to the Arabs; and in some measure also because it always had a large intermixture of heathen population. (Geikie's "Holy Land and the Bible.") Parallel Verses KJV: And it came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret, |
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