The Pulpit Commentary — Mark — Volume 1 — Section 112

Vers. 13-22. Parallel passages: Matt. ix. 9-17; Luke v. 27-39.-Call of Levi, Feo.sting, and Fasting. I. THE CALL OF LEVL 1.Publicans,who were tltey1 The publicans proper, who paid a certain sum contracted for into the public treasury (publicum), were Roman knights, a wealthy class of citizens. These, again, had their agents who sublet or acted as their owns gents in subletting, the collection of the taxes, usually to natives of the country from which the taxes were to be collected. The correct name of these tax- collectors was portitores. 2. Objects ofpublic odium. No class of men was so obnoxious to the Jews. They were looked on as unpatriotic, because they were in the service of a foreign government; they were regarded as irreligious, because they were engaged in an occupation suggestive of subjection to alien rule, and so derogatory to the high position of that people whom God had chosen for his peculiar posses~ion and honoured with special privileges; in addition to all this, they were generally extortioners who by unjust exactions oppressed their countrymen. Thus regarded as traitors to their country and as apostates from the national faith, while at the same time they were exorbitant in their demands on their fellow-citizens, they were not without some reason subjects of odium and obloquy-men who had thus lost caste, both social and religious. 3. St. Matthew originally a publican. To this obnoxious class of men belonged the son of Alphreus, called Levi by St. Mark and St. Luke, but in the first Gospel named Matthew, which means" gift of Jehovah," nearly the same as Theodore, or Dositheus or Dorotheus, in Greek. That Levi was identical with the evangelist Matthew scarcely admits of any reasonable doubt. Busily employed in this obnoxious trade, he sat one day a.s usual at the custom-house or place of toll on the shore of the Lake of Gennesaret. 4. His call. Capernaum, now, as we have seen, probably Tell Hum, was then a busy mart of merchandise and a commercial centre, whence roads diverged, one to Damascus in the north <'.&St; a second to Tyre in the north-west on the Mediterranean seaboard; a third ran southward to Jerusalem, the capital of the country; while a fourth led to Sepphoris or Dio-Cmsarea, the Roman capital of the province. It was exactly the kind of •place where one would expect to find a custom-house for collecting the tolls of the lake, harbour dues, and duties on exports and imports, or other taxes. AB our Lord went past, he fixed his eyes on (St. Luke, E8euaTo, equivalent to observed) the tax-gatherer, who sat as wual at his post, not slothful in his business such as it was, and addressed to him the ~lain, direct invitation," Fullow me." Strange to say, that simple utterance had more than wagic effect on this once unscrupulous, perhaps hardened custom-house officer. We are far from affinning that this was the first time that Levi had come in contact with Jesus. Gospel light had shined through all that once dark district; there can Le little doubt that he had heard ~ome of his discourses and listened to the gracious words that so often foll from his lips, or he had witnessed some of those works of wonder which he performed. Perhaps he had mingled in that crowd of the Capernaum_ites, which St. Mark reports in the preceding section of his Gospel, and had been a silent spectator_ wl,en the poor paralytic had been so benefited and blessed in both body and soul. 5. His love to Jesus. De this as it may, he, at all events, immediately accepted the invitation, and without demur or delay rose up at once--./,eft all, as St. Luke tdLi us-and followed Jesus. Nor was this all; he shows his love to Jesus in ariother way-by an entertainment ~iven in his hon~ur .. lle made a great feast i~ his vwll hoUl:ie, as St. Luke further inforu,s us. From tins circumstance we naturally mfer on. lL 1-28,J TIIE GOSPEL ACCX>RDING TO ST. MATIK.