Decapolis

Jesus and His disciples left the region of Tyre and traveled north, to Sidon and the surrounding area. At some point, they left Phoenicia and returned to Galilee. The gospels do not record the specifics, but Jesus and His disciples probably returned to Capernaum and maybe paused there to rest. From there, they may have boarded one of the disciples' fishing boats and then sailed to the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee, to the Decapolis, a confederacy of ten Greek cities located in a region southeast of the Sea of Galilee.

There, Jesus went up on a mountain and sat down. Large crowds came to Jesus, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and the people laid them at His feet, and Jesus healed them. 

Some people brought to Jesus a man who was deaf and hardly able to speak, and they begged Jesus to place His hand on the man. So, Jesus took him aside privately, away from the crowd, and put His fingers into the man’s ears. Then Jesus spit and touched the man’s tongue. And looking up to heaven, Jesus sighed deeply and said to the man, “Ephphatha!” (which means, “Be opened!”). Immediately the man’s ears were opened and his tongue was released, and he began to speak plainly.

The crowd was amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled restored, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they glorified the God of Israel.

Jesus ordered the people not to tell anyone what they had seen. But the more He ordered them, the more widely the people proclaimed it. The people were utterly astonished and said, “He has done all things well! He makes even the deaf hear and the mute speak!”

See Matthew 15:29-31; Mark 7:31-37

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