Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat.
Mark 3:20. And they come into the house. Mark undoubtedly takes in a somewhat extended period of time, when he passes from the miracles to that wicked conspiracy which the relatives of Christ formed with each other, to bind him as if he had been a madman.
In these verses, we have, I. The choice Christ made of the twelve apostles to be his constant followers and attendants, and to be sent abroad as there was occasion, to preach the gospel. Observe, 1. The introduction to this call or promotion of disciples; He goes up into a mountain, and his errand thither was to pray.
Commenting on Mark 3:13-21
When his friends heard of it,.... Not his spiritual friends, his disciples and followers, that believed in him; but his kinsmen, as the Syriac and Ethiopic versions render the words, who were so according to the flesh; when they heard where he was, and what a crowd was about him, so that he could not so much as take the necessaries of life for his...