Judæa. Maximus the Confessor: Where neither a noisy mob would interrupt his preaching, and whither no unbelieving hearer would retire; but those only would hear, who sought to his preaching from motives of divine worship. Jerome: (In. Is. 40:3.) Consider how the salvation of God, and the glory of the Lord, is preached not in Jerusalem, but in the solitude of the Church, in the wilderness to multitudes. Hilary of Poitiers: Or, he came to Judæa, desert by the absence of God, not of population, that the place of preaching might witness the few to whom the preaching was sent. Glossa Ordinaria: The desert typically means a life removed from the temptations of the world, such as befits the penitent. See also Related Bible parts: Isaiah 40, Mark 1, Luke 3, John 1 References Sources 03:01