Mark 3:7-12--A Great Crowd Follows Jesus

Mark 3:7-12
English Standard Version

A Great Crowd Follows Jesus
7 Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed, from Galilee and Judea 8 and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him. 9 And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him, 10 for he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him. 11 And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” 12 And he strictly ordered them not to make him known.

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Jesus tries to get away from the large crowds so that He can have some time to teach His disciples.  There are large crowds following Him from Jerusalem and all of Galilee and Judea and the land of the Edomites that in the New Testament has been named Idumea (we simply called it Edom in the Old Testament).  Also there were crowds following from "Beyond the Jordan" (probably meaning the cities of the Decapolis) and from as far away as Tyre and Sidon to the north.  The only place that seems notably absent would be the region of Samaria, but we know that Jesus made a stop there in John 4 to make sure that He preached the gospel to these ostracized people too.

Jesus used Simon's boat as a pulpit so that they could push out from the shore a bit and the crowds would not crush Him or drive Him into the sea.  Then He could sit down in the boat and teach (all day if necessary) for He had been healing many people so that everyone from the area that had any kind of disease or infirmity or who was oppressed by demons would come to Him for healing, and demons that would come out of the demonized would cry out, "You are the Son of God," for they knew He was not yet ready to be revealed in this way, but in doing so, they could speak the truth and yet still try to hurt His mission and ministry.  So He strictly ordered the demons to be quiet and that they were not to make Him known (for it was not yet His time to have the Jewish leaders understand who He was because that would put things in motion for His crucifixion, and it was not time for that yet).