John Lightfoot on Matthew 3:1

[John The Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judea.] That John was born in Hebron, one may not unfitly conjecture by comparing Luke 1:39 with Joshua 21:11; and that he was born about the feast of the Passover, namely, half a year before the nativity of our Saviour, Luke 1:36. So the conceptions and births of the Baptist and our Saviour ennobled the four famous tekuphas [revolutions] of the year: one being conceived at the summer solstice, the other at the winter; one born at the vernal equinox, the other at the autumnal.

"John lived in the deserts, until he made himself known unto Israel," Luke 1:80. That is, if the pope's school may be interpreter, he led the life of a hermit. But,

I. Be ashamed, O papist, to be so ignorant of the sense of the word wilderness, or desert; which in the common dialect sounds all one as if it had been said, "He lived in the country, not in the city; his education was more coarse and plain in the country, without the breeding of the university, or court at Jerusalem." An oblation for thanksgiving consists of five Jerusalem seahs, which were in value six seahs of the wilderness; that is, six country seahs.

"A Jerusalem seah exceeds a seah of the wilderness by a sixth part."

"The trees of the wilderness are those which are common, and not appropriate to one master": that is, trees in groves and common meadows.

So 2 Corinthians 11:26: "in perils in the city, and in perils in the country."

II. The wildernesses of the land of Canaan were not without towns and cities; nor was he presently to be called an Eremite who dwelt in the wilderness. The hill-country of Judea, John's native soil, is called by the Talmudists, The royal mountain, or hill; and by the Psalmist, The desert hill-country, Psalm 75:6; and yet "in the royal mountain were a myriad of cities."

III. David passed much of his youth in the wilderness, 1 Samuel 17:28: but yet, who will call him an eremite? In the like sense I conceive John living in the deserts, not only spending his time in leisure and contemplation, but employing himself in some work, or studies. For when I read, that the youth of our Saviour was taken up in the carpenter's trade, I scarcely believe his forerunner employed his youth in no calling at all.

Beginning now the thirtieth year of his age, when, according to the custom of the priests, he ought to have come to the chief Sanhedrim to undergo their examination, and to be entered into the priesthood by them, "the word of God coming unto him," Luke 3:2, as it had done before to the prophets, he is diverted to another ministry.