David Zebedee

• respected Jesus as mechanic, but took little stock in his religious views

129:1.12Of the sons of Zeb­e­dee, James was the most in­ter­ested in Je­sus as a teacher, as a philoso­pher. John cared most for his re­li­gious teach­ing and opin­ions. David re­spected him as a me­chanic but took lit­tle stock in his re­li­gious views and philo­sophic teach­ings.

• father Zebedee went to live with

138:5.4Zeb­e­dee and Sa­lome had gone to live with their son David so that their large home could be turned over to Je­sus and his twelve apos­tles. Here Je­sus spent a quiet Sab­bath with his cho­sen mes­sen­gers; he care­fully out­lined the plans for pro­claim­ing the king­dom and fully ex­plained the im­por­tance of avoid­ing any clash with the civil au­thor­i­ties, say­ing: “If the civil rulers are to be re­buked, leave that task to me. See that you make no de­nun­ci­a­tions of Cae­sar or his ser­vants.” It was this same evening that Ju­das Is­car­iot took Je­sus aside to in­quire why noth­ing was done to get John out of prison. And Ju­das was not wholly sat­is­fied with Je­sus’ at­ti­tude.

• followed Jesus after draught of fishes

145:1.1On Fri­day morn­ing of this same week, when Je­sus was teach­ing by the sea­side, the peo­ple crowded him so near the wa­ter’s edge that he sig­naled to some fish­er­men oc­cu­py­ing a near-by boat to come to his res­cue. En­ter­ing the boat, he con­tin­ued to teach the as­sem­bled mul­ti­tude for more than two hours. This boat was named “Si­mon”; it was the for­mer fish­ing ves­sel of Si­mon Pe­ter and had been built by Je­sus’ own hands. On this par­tic­u­lar morn­ing the boat was be­ing used by David Zeb­e­dee and two as­so­ciates, who had just come in near shore from a fruit­less night of fish­ing on the lake. They were clean­ing and mend­ing their nets when Je­sus re­quested them to come to his as­sis­tance.

• followed Jesus after draught of fishes

145:1.2Af­ter Je­sus had fin­ished teach­ing the peo­ple, he said to David: “As you were de­layed by com­ing to my help, now let me work with you. Let us go fish­ing; put out into yon­der deep and let down your nets for a draught.” But Si­mon, one of David’s as­sis­tants, an­swered: “Mas­ter, it is use­less. We toiled all night and took noth­ing; how­ever, at your bid­ding we will put out and let down the nets.” And Si­mon con­sented to fol­low Je­sus’ di­rec­tions be­cause of a ges­ture made by his mas­ter, David. When they had pro­ceeded to the place des­ig­nated by Je­sus, they let down their nets and en­closed such a mul­ti­tude of fish that they feared the nets would break, so much so that they sig­naled to their as­so­ciates on the shore to come to their as­sis­tance. When they had filled all three boats with fish, al­most to sink­ing, this Si­mon fell down at Je­sus’ knees, say­ing, “De­part from me, Mas­ter, for I am a sin­ful man.” Si­mon and all who were con­cerned in this episode were amazed at the draught of fishes. From that day David Zeb­e­dee, this Si­mon, and their as­so­ciates for­sook their nets and fol­lowed Je­sus.

• supervised Bethsaida encampment

148:0.1From May 3 to Oc­to­ber 3, A.D. 28, Je­sus and the apos­tolic party were in res­i­dence at the Zeb­e­dee home at Beth­saida. Through­out this five months’ pe­riod of the dry sea­son an enor­mous camp was main­tained by the sea­side near the Zeb­e­dee res­i­dence, which had been greatly en­larged to ac­com­mo­date the grow­ing fam­ily of Je­sus. This sea­side camp, oc­cu­pied by an ever-chang­ing pop­u­la­tion of truth seek­ers, heal­ing can­di­dates, and cu­rios­ity devo­tees, num­bered from five hun­dred to fif­teen hun­dred. This tented city was un­der the gen­eral super­vi­sion of David Zeb­e­dee, as­sisted by the Al­pheus twins. The en­camp­ment was a model in or­der and san­i­ta­tion as well as in its gen­eral ad­min­is­tra­tion. The sick of dif­fer­ent types were seg­re­gated and were un­der the super­vi­sion of a be­liever physi­cian, a Syr­ian named El­man.

• plunged Kirmeth into lake

148:8.3About this time there ar­rived at the Beth­saida en­camp­ment a trance prophet from Bag­dad, one Kirmeth. This sup­posed prophet had pe­cu­liar vi­sions when in trance and dreamed fan­tas­tic dreams when his sleep was dis­turbed. He cre­ated a con­sid­er­able dis­tur­bance at the camp, and Si­mon Ze­lo­tes was in fa­vor of deal­ing rather roughly with the self-de­ceived pre­tender, but Je­sus in­ter­vened and al­lowed him en­tire free­dom of ac­tion for a few days. All who heard his preach­ing soon rec­og­nized that his teach­ing was not sound as judged by the gospel of the king­dom. He shortly re­turned to Bag­dad, tak­ing with him only a half dozen un­sta­ble and er­ratic souls. But be­fore Je­sus in­ter­ceded for the Bag­dad prophet, David Zeb­e­dee, with the as­sis­tance of a self-ap­pointed com­mit­tee, had taken Kirmeth out into the lake and, af­ter re­peat­edly plung­ing him into the wa­ter, had ad­vised him to de­part hence—to or­ga­nize and build a camp of his own.

• guarded Jesus › ordered messengers to safeguard Jesus

154:2.3This week of rest en­abled Je­sus to visit many fam­i­lies and groups about the sea­side. He also went fish­ing with David Zeb­e­dee on sev­eral oc­ca­sions, and while he went about alone much of the time, there al­ways lurked near by two or three of David’s most trusted mes­sen­gers, who had no un­cer­tain or­ders from their chief re­spect­ing the safe­guard­ing of Je­sus. There was no pub­lic teach­ing of any sort dur­ing this week of rest.

• fearless and efficient leader

154:5.1May 22 was an event­ful day in the life of Je­sus. On this Sun­day morn­ing, be­fore day­break, one of David’s mes­sen­gers ar­rived in great haste from Tiberias, bring­ing the word that Herod had au­tho­rized, or was about to au­tho­rize, the ar­rest of Je­sus by the of­fi­cers of the San­hedrin. The re­ceipt of the news of this im­pend­ing dan­ger caused David Zeb­e­dee to arouse his mes­sen­gers and send them out to all the lo­cal groups of dis­ci­ples, sum­mon­ing them for an emer­gency coun­cil at seven o’clock that morn­ing. When the sis­ter-in-law of Jude (Je­sus’ brother) heard this alarm­ing re­port, she has­tened word to all of Je­sus’ fam­ily who dwelt near by, sum­mon­ing them forth­with to as­sem­ble at Zeb­e­dee’s house. And in re­sponse to this hasty call, pres­ently there were as­sem­bled Mary, James, Joseph, Jude, and Ruth.

• fearless and efficient leader

154:5.3Je­sus con­sented to David Zeb­e­dee’s con­tin­u­ing his coun­try­wide mes­sen­ger ser­vice, and in bid­ding the Mas­ter farewell pres­ently, David said: “Go forth to your work, Mas­ter. Don’t let the big­ots catch you, and never doubt that the mes­sen­gers will fol­low af­ter you. My men will never lose con­tact with you, and through them you shall know of the king­dom in other parts, and by them we will all know about you. Noth­ing that might hap­pen to me will in­ter­fere with this ser­vice, for I have ap­pointed first and sec­ond lead­ers, even a third. I am nei­ther a teacher nor a preacher, but it is in my heart to do this, and none can stop me.”

• guarded Jesus › posted 25 sentinels about Zebedee house

154:6.7An­drew did not re­call that David had posted some twenty-five sen­tinels about the Zeb­e­dee house, and that no one could take them by sur­prise; so he asked Je­sus what should be done. The Mas­ter stood there in si­lence while his mother, hav­ing heard the words, “I have no mother,” was re­cov­er­ing from the shock in the gar­den. It was at just this time that a woman in the room stood up and ex­claimed, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and blessed are the breasts that nursed you.” Je­sus turned aside a mo­ment from his con­ver­sa­tion with An­drew to an­swer this woman by say­ing, “No, rather is the one blessed who hears the word of God and dares to obey it.”

• David Zebedee

156:6.3Leav­ing Ze­bu­lun, they jour­neyed over to the junc­tion with the Mag­dala-Sidon road near Gis­chala, and thence they made their way to Gen­nesaret on the west­ern shores of the lake of Gal­i­lee, south of Ca­per­naum, where they had ap­pointed to meet with David Zeb­e­dee, and where they in­tended to take coun­sel as to the next move to be made in the work of preach­ing the gospel of the king­dom.

156:6.4Dur­ing a brief con­fer­ence with David they learned that many lead­ers were then gath­ered to­gether on the op­po­site side of the lake near Kheresa, and ac­cord­ingly, that very evening a boat took them across. For one day they rested qui­etly in the hills, go­ing on the next day to the park, near by, where the Mas­ter once fed the five thou­sand. Here they rested for three days and held daily con­fer­ences, which were at­tended by about fifty men and women, the rem­nants of the once nu­mer­ous com­pany of be­liev­ers res­i­dent in Ca­per­naum and its en­vi­rons.

• David Zebedee

157:6.1Je­sus and the apos­tles re­mained an­other day at the home of Cel­sus, wait­ing for mes­sen­gers to ar­rive from David Zeb­e­dee with funds. Fol­low­ing the col­lapse of the pop­u­lar­ity of Je­sus with the masses there oc­curred a great falling off in rev­enue. When they reached Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi, the trea­sury was empty. Mat­thew was loath to leave Je­sus and his breth­ren at such a time, and he had no ready funds of his own to hand over to Ju­das as he had so many times done in the past. How­ever, David Zeb­e­dee had fore­seen this prob­a­ble diminu­tion of rev­enue and had ac­cord­ingly in­structed his mes­sen­gers that, as they made their way through Judea, Samaria, and Gal­i­lee, they should act as col­lec­tors of money to be for­warded to the ex­iled apos­tles and their Mas­ter. And so, by evening of this day, these mes­sen­gers ar­rived from Beth­saida bring­ing funds suf­fi­cient to sus­tain the apos­tles un­til their re­turn to em­bark upon the De­capo­lis tour. Mat­thew ex­pected to have money from the sale of his last piece of prop­erty in Ca­per­naum by that time, hav­ing ar­ranged that these funds should be anony­mously turned over to Ju­das.

• David Zebedee

158:8.1En­ter­ing Ca­per­naum at twi­light, they went by un­fre­quented thor­ough­fares di­rectly to the home of Si­mon Pe­ter for their evening meal. While David Zeb­e­dee made ready to take them across the lake, they lin­gered at Si­mon’s house, and Je­sus, look­ing up at Pe­ter and the other apos­tles, asked: “As you walked along to­gether this af­ter­noon, what was it that you talked about so earnestly among your­selves?” The apos­tles held their peace be­cause many of them had con­tin­ued the dis­cus­sion be­gun at Mount Her­mon as to what po­si­tions they were to have in the com­ing king­dom; who should be the great­est, and so on. Je­sus, know­ing what it was that oc­cu­pied their thoughts that day, beck­oned to one of Pe­ter’s lit­tle ones and, set­ting the child down among them, said: “Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, ex­cept you turn about and be­come more like this child, you will make lit­tle prog­ress in the king­dom of heaven. Whoso­ever shall hum­ble him­self and be­come as this lit­tle one, the same shall be­come great­est in the king­dom of heaven. And whoso re­ceives such a lit­tle one re­ceives me. And they who re­ceive me re­ceive also Him who sent me. If you would be first in the king­dom, seek to min­is­ter these good truths to your breth­ren in the flesh. But whoso­ever causes one of these lit­tle ones to stum­ble, it would be bet­ter for him if a mill­stone were hanged about his neck and he were cast into the sea. If the things you do with your hands, or the things you see with your eyes give of­fense in the prog­ress of the king­dom, sac­ri­fice these cher­ished idols, for it is bet­ter to en­ter the king­dom mi­nus many of the beloved things of life rather than to cling to these idols and find your­self shut out of the king­dom. But most of all, see that you de­spise not one of these lit­tle ones, for their an­gels do al­ways be­hold the faces of the heav­enly hosts.”

• set up big camp at Pella

163:5.2Af­ter the break­ing up of the Ma­g­a­dan Camp, David Zeb­e­dee re­turned to Beth­saida and be­gan im­me­di­ately to cur­tail the mes­sen­ger ser­vice. The king­dom was tak­ing on a new phase. Daily, pil­grims ar­rived from all parts of Pales­tine and even from re­mote re­gions of the Ro­man Em­pire. Be­liev­ers oc­ca­sion­ally came from Mes­o­po­ta­mia and from the lands east of the Tigris. Ac­cord­ingly, on Sun­day, De­cem­ber 18, David, with the help of his mes­sen­ger corps, loaded on to the pack an­i­mals the camp equipage, then stored in his fa­ther’s house, with which he had for­merly con­ducted the camp of Beth­saida by the lake. Bid­ding farewell to Beth­saida for the time be­ing, he pro­ceeded down the lake shore and along the Jor­dan to a point about one-half mile north of the apos­tolic camp; and in less than a week he was pre­pared to of­fer hos­pi­tal­ity to al­most fif­teen hun­dred pil­grim vis­i­tors. The apos­tolic camp could ac­com­mo­date about five hun­dred. This was the rainy sea­son in Pales­tine, and these ac­com­mo­da­tions were re­quired to take care of the ever-in­creas­ing num­ber of in­quir­ers, mostly earnest, who came into Perea to see Je­sus and to hear his teach­ing.

163:5.3David did all this on his own ini­tia­tive, though he had taken coun­sel with Philip and Mat­thew at Ma­g­a­dan. He em­ployed the larger part of his for­mer mes­sen­ger corps as his helpers in con­duct­ing this camp; he now used less than twenty men on reg­u­lar mes­sen­ger duty. Near the end of De­cem­ber and be­fore the re­turn of the sev­enty, al­most eight hun­dred vis­i­tors were gath­ered about the Mas­ter, and they found lodg­ing in David’s camp.

• closed camp at Pella, sold equipment

171:1.4Act­ing on the in­struc­tions of the Apos­tle An­drew, David Zeb­e­dee closed the vis­i­tors’ camp at Pella on Wednes­day, March 15. At this time al­most four thou­sand vis­i­tors were in res­i­dence, and this does not in­clude the one thou­sand and more per­sons who so­journed with the apos­tles at what was known as the teach­ers’ camp, and who went south with Je­sus and the twelve. Much as David dis­liked to do it, he sold the en­tire equip­ment to nu­mer­ous buy­ers and pro­ceeded with the funds to Je­ru­sa­lem, sub­se­quently turn­ing the money over to Ju­das Is­car­iot.

• financial overseer of kingdom at Philadelphia
• self-appointed defender of Lazarus

171:1.5David was pres­ent in Je­ru­sa­lem dur­ing the tragic last week, tak­ing his mother back with him to Beth­saida af­ter the cru­ci­fix­ion. While await­ing Je­sus and the apos­tles, David stopped with Laz­a­rus at Beth­any and be­came tremen­dously ag­i­tated by the man­ner in which the Phar­isees had be­gun to per­se­cute and ha­rass him since his res­ur­rec­tion. An­drew had di­rected David to dis­con­tinue the mes­sen­ger ser­vice; and this was con­strued by all as an in­di­ca­tion of the early es­tab­lish­ment of the king­dom at Je­ru­sa­lem. David found him­self with­out a job, and he had about de­cided to be­come the self-ap­pointed de­fender of Laz­a­rus when pres­ently the ob­ject of his in­dig­nant so­lic­i­tude fled in haste to Phil­a­del­phia. Ac­cord­ingly, some­time af­ter the res­ur­rec­tion and also af­ter the death of his mother, David be­took him­self to Phil­a­del­phia, hav­ing first as­sisted Martha and Mary in dis­pos­ing of their real es­tate; and there, in as­so­ci­a­tion with Ab­ner and Laz­a­rus, he spent the re­main­der of his life, be­com­ing the fi­nan­cial over­seer of all those large in­ter­ests of the king­dom which had their cen­ter at Phil­a­del­phia dur­ing the life­time of Ab­ner.

• closed camp at Pella, sold equipment
• gave Judas funds from equipment sale

172:2.3Early that morn­ing David Zeb­e­dee had turned over to Ju­das the funds re­al­ized from the sale of the equip­ment of the Pella en­camp­ment, and Ju­das, in turn, had placed the greater part of this money in the hands of Si­mon, their host, for safe­keep­ing in an­tic­i­pa­tion of the ex­i­gen­cies of their en­try into Je­ru­sa­lem.

• David Zebedee

176:2.9As these thir­teen men re­sumed their jour­ney to­ward the camp, they were speech­less and un­der great emo­tional ten­sion. Ju­das had fi­nally con­firmed his de­ci­sion to aban­don his as­so­ciates. It was a late hour when David Zeb­e­dee, John Mark, and a num­ber of the lead­ing dis­ci­ples wel­comed Je­sus and the twelve to the new camp, but the apos­tles did not want to sleep; they wanted to know more about the de­struc­tion of Je­ru­sa­lem, the Mas­ter’s de­par­ture, and the end of the world.

• guarded Jesus › Jesus declined offer of guards by

177:0.3When Je­sus made ready to go into the hills alone, David Zeb­e­dee ac­costed him, say­ing: “You well know, Mas­ter, that the Phar­isees and rulers seek to de­stroy you, and yet you make ready to go alone into the hills. To do this is folly; I will there­fore send three men with you well pre­pared to see that no harm be­falls you.” Je­sus looked over the three well-armed and stal­wart Galileans and said to David: “You mean well, but you err in that you fail to un­der­stand that the Son of Man needs no one to de­fend him. No man will lay hands on me un­til that hour when I am ready to lay down my life in con­for­mity to my Fa­ther’s will. These men may not ac­com­pany me. I de­sire to go alone, that I may com­mune with the Fa­ther.”

• sent for Salome and Jesus’ family

177:3.3About four o’clock, run­ners came to David Zeb­e­dee bring­ing him word from his mother at Beth­saida and from Je­sus’ mother. Sev­eral days pre­vi­ously David had made up his mind that the chief priests and rulers were go­ing to kill Je­sus. David knew they were de­ter­mined to de­stroy the Mas­ter, and he was about con­vinced that Je­sus would nei­ther ex­ert his di­vine power to save him­self nor per­mit his fol­low­ers to em­ploy force in his de­fense. Hav­ing reached these con­clu­sions, he lost no time in dis­patch­ing a mes­sen­ger to his mother, urg­ing her to come at once to Je­ru­sa­lem and to bring Mary the mother of Je­sus and ev­ery mem­ber of his fam­ily.

• David Zebedee

177:5.1Since it was Wednes­day, this evening at the camp was a so­cial hour. The Mas­ter en­deav­ored to cheer his down­cast apos­tles, but that was well-nigh im­pos­si­ble. They were all be­gin­ning to re­al­ize that dis­con­cert­ing and crush­ing events were im­pend­ing. They could not be cheer­ful, even when the Mas­ter re­counted their years of event­ful and lov­ing as­so­ci­a­tion. Je­sus made care­ful in­quiry about the fam­i­lies of all of the apos­tles and, look­ing over to­ward David Zeb­e­dee, asked if any­one had heard re­cently from his mother, his young­est sis­ter, or other mem­bers of his fam­ily. David looked down at his feet; he was afraid to an­swer.

• David Zebedee

177:5.3The at­mo­sphere of the camp was charged with an in­ex­pli­ca­ble ten­sion. Silent mes­sen­gers came and went, com­mu­ni­cat­ing with only David Zeb­e­dee. Be­fore the evening had passed, cer­tain ones knew that Laz­a­rus had taken hasty flight from Beth­any. John Mark was omi­nously silent af­ter re­turn­ing to camp, not­with­stand­ing he had spent the whole day in the Mas­ter’s com­pany. Ev­ery ef­fort to per­suade him to talk only in­di­cated clearly that Je­sus had told him not to talk.

• knew of plan to kill Jesus; Judas’s part

178:2.3David Zeb­e­dee, through the work of his se­cret agents in Je­ru­sa­lem, was fully ad­vised con­cern­ing the prog­ress of the plan to ar­rest and kill Je­sus. He knew all about the part of Ju­das in this plot, but he never dis­closed this knowl­edge to the other apos­tles nor to any of the dis­ci­ples. Shortly af­ter lunch he did lead Je­sus aside and, mak­ing bold, asked him whether he knew—but he never got fur­ther with his ques­tion. The Mas­ter, hold­ing up his hand, stopped him, say­ing: “Yes, David, I know all about it, and I know that you know, but see to it that you tell no man. Only doubt not in your own heart that the will of God will pre­vail in the end.”

• knew of plan to kill Jesus; Judas’s part

182:2.1The apos­tles were greatly shocked when they re­turned to their camp and found Ju­das ab­sent. While the eleven were en­gaged in a heated dis­cus­sion of their traitorous fel­low apos­tle, David Zeb­e­dee and John Mark took Je­sus to one side and re­vealed that they had kept Ju­das un­der ob­ser­va­tion for sev­eral days, and that they knew he in­tended to be­tray him into the hands of his en­e­mies. Je­sus lis­tened to them but only said: “My friends, noth­ing can hap­pen to the Son of Man un­less the Fa­ther in heaven so wills. Let not your hearts be trou­bled; all things will work to­gether for the glory of God and the sal­va­tion of men.”

• David Zebedee

182:2.5Af­ter the eight apos­tles had fi­nally gone to their tents, and while Pe­ter, James, and John were stand­ing by to re­ceive the Mas­ter’s or­ders, Je­sus called to David Zeb­e­dee, “Send to me your most fleet and trust­wor­thy mes­sen­ger.” When David brought to the Mas­ter one Ja­cob, once a run­ner on the overnight mes­sen­ger ser­vice be­tween Je­ru­sa­lem and Beth­saida, Je­sus, ad­dress­ing him, said: “In all haste, go to Ab­ner at Phil­a­del­phia and say: ‘The Mas­ter sends greet­ings of peace to you and says that the hour has come when he will be de­liv­ered into the hands of his en­e­mies, who will put him to death, but that he will rise from the dead and ap­pear to you shortly, be­fore he goes to the Fa­ther, and that he will then give you guid­ance to the time when the new teacher shall come to live in your hearts.’” And when Ja­cob had re­hearsed this mes­sage to the Mas­ter’s sat­is­fac­tion, Je­sus sent him on his way, say­ing: “Fear not what any man may do to you, Ja­cob, for this night an un­seen mes­sen­ger will run by your side.”

• knew of plan to kill Jesus; Judas’s part

182:2.9None of the apos­tles ex­pected any­thing out of the or­di­nary to hap­pen that night since it was al­ready so late. They sought sleep that they might rise up early in the morn­ing and be pre­pared for the worst. They thought that the chief priests would seek to ap­pre­hend their Mas­ter early in the morn­ing as no sec­u­lar work was ever done af­ter noon on the prepa­ra­tion day for the Pass­over. Only David Zeb­e­dee and John Mark un­der­stood that the en­e­mies of Je­sus were com­ing with Ju­das that very night.

• guarded Jesus › stood guard at Gethsemane
• served of his own heart

182:2.10David had ar­ranged to stand guard that night on the up­per trail which led to the Beth­any-Je­ru­sa­lem road, while John Mark was to watch along the road com­ing up by the Kidron to Geth­sem­ane. Be­fore David went to his self-im­posed task of out­post duty, he bade farewell to Je­sus, say­ing: “Mas­ter, I have had great joy in my ser­vice with you. My broth­ers are your apos­tles, but I have de­lighted to do the lesser things as they should be done, and I shall miss you with all my heart when you are gone.” And then said Je­sus to David: “David, my son, oth­ers have done that which they were di­rected to do, but this ser­vice have you done of your own heart, and I have not been un­mind­ful of your de­vo­tion. You, too, shall some day serve with me in the eter­nal king­dom.”

182:2.11And then, as he pre­pared to go on watch by the up­per trail, David said to Je­sus: “You know, Mas­ter, I sent for your fam­ily, and I have word by a mes­sen­ger that they are tonight in Jeri­cho. They will be here early to­mor­row forenoon since it would be dan­ger­ous for them to come up the bloody way by night.” And Je­sus, look­ing down upon David, only said: “Let it be so, David.”

182:2.12When David had gone up Oli­vet, John Mark took up his vigil near the road which ran by the brook down to Je­ru­sa­lem. And John would have re­mained at this post but for his great de­sire to be near Je­sus and to know what was go­ing on. Shortly af­ter David left him, and when John Mark ob­served Je­sus with­draw, with Pe­ter, James, and John, into a near-by ravine, he was so over­come with com­bined de­vo­tion and cu­rios­ity that he for­sook his sen­tinel post and fol­lowed af­ter them, hid­ing him­self in the bushes, from which place he saw and over­heard all that tran­spired dur­ing those last mo­ments in the gar­den and just be­fore Ju­das and the armed guards ap­peared to ar­rest Je­sus.

186:3.1Shortly af­ter Je­sus was turned over to the Ro­man sol­diers at the con­clu­sion of the hear­ing be­fore Pi­late, a de­tach­ment of the tem­ple guards has­tened out to Geth­sem­ane to dis­perse or ar­rest the fol­low­ers of the Mas­ter. But long be­fore their ar­rival these fol­low­ers had scat­tered. The apos­tles had re­tired to des­ig­nated hid­ing places; the Greeks had sep­a­rated and gone to var­i­ous homes in Je­ru­sa­lem; the other dis­ci­ples had like­wise dis­ap­peared. David Zeb­e­dee be­lieved that Je­sus’ en­e­mies would re­turn; so he early re­moved some five or six tents up the ravine near where the Mas­ter so of­ten re­tired to pray and wor­ship. Here he pro­posed to hide and at the same time main­tain a cen­ter, or co-or­di­nat­ing sta­tion, for his mes­sen­ger ser­vice. David had hardly left the camp when the tem­ple guards ar­rived. Find­ing no one there, they con­tented them­selves with burn­ing the camp and then has­tened back to the tem­ple. On hear­ing their re­port, the San­hedrin was sat­is­fied that the fol­low­ers of Je­sus were so thor­oughly fright­ened and sub­dued that there would be no dan­ger of an up­ris­ing or any at­tempt to res­cue Je­sus from the hands of his ex­e­cu­tion­ers. They were at last able to breathe eas­ily, and so they ad­journed, ev­ery man go­ing his way to pre­pare for the Pass­over.

186:3.2As soon as Je­sus was turned over to the Ro­man sol­diers by Pi­late for cru­ci­fix­ion, a mes­sen­ger has­tened away to Geth­sem­ane to in­form David, and within five min­utes run­ners were on their way to Beth­saida, Pella, Phil­a­del­phia, Sidon, Shechem, He­bron, Da­mas­cus, and Alexan­dria. And these mes­sen­gers car­ried the news that Je­sus was about to be cru­ci­fied by the Ro­mans at the in­sis­tent be­hest of the rulers of the Jews.

186:3.3Through­out this tragic day, un­til the mes­sage fi­nally went forth that the Mas­ter had been laid in the tomb, David sent mes­sen­gers about ev­ery half hour with re­ports to the apos­tles, the Greeks, and Je­sus’ earthly fam­ily, as­sem­bled at the home of Laz­a­rus in Beth­any. When the mes­sen­gers de­parted with the word that Je­sus had been buried, David dis­missed his corps of lo­cal run­ners for the Pass­over cel­e­bra­tion and for the com­ing Sab­bath of rest, in­struct­ing them to re­port to him qui­etly on Sun­day morn­ing at the home of Nicode­mus, where he pro­posed to go in hid­ing for a few days with An­drew and Si­mon Pe­ter.

• believed Jesus would rise from tomb

186:3.4This pe­cu­liar-minded David Zeb­e­dee was the only one of the lead­ing dis­ci­ples of Je­sus who was in­clined to take a lit­eral and plain mat­ter-of-fact view of the Mas­ter’s as­ser­tion that he would die and “rise again on the third day.” David had once heard him make this pre­dic­tion and, be­ing of a lit­eral turn of mind, now pro­posed to as­sem­ble his mes­sen­gers early Sun­day morn­ing at the home of Nicode­mus so that they would be on hand to spread the news in case Je­sus rose from the dead. David soon dis­cov­ered that none of Je­sus’ fol­low­ers were look­ing for him to re­turn so soon from the grave; there­fore did he say lit­tle about his be­lief and noth­ing about the mo­bi­liza­tion of all his mes­sen­ger force on early Sun­day morn­ing ex­cept to the run­ners who had been dis­patched on Fri­day forenoon to dis­tant cities and be­liever cen­ters.

186:3.5And so these fol­low­ers of Je­sus, scat­tered through­out Je­ru­sa­lem and its en­vi­rons, that night par­took of the Pass­over and the fol­low­ing day re­mained in seclu­sion.

• David Zebedee

187:6.1In the midst of the dark­ness of the sand­storm, about half past three o’clock, David Zeb­e­dee sent out the last of the mes­sen­gers car­ry­ing the news of the Mas­ter’s death. The last of his run­ners he dis­patched to the home of Martha and Mary in Beth­any, where he sup­posed the mother of Je­sus stopped with the rest of her fam­ily.

• believed Jesus would rise from tomb

188:1.8Aside from David Zeb­e­dee and Joseph of Ari­mathea, very few of Je­sus’ dis­ci­ples re­ally be­lieved or un­der­stood that he was due to arise from the tomb on the third day.

• David Zebedee

188:3.3Mary the mother of Je­sus, with Ruth and Jude, re­turned to Beth­any to join their fam­ily this Sat­ur­day evening just be­fore sun­set. David Zeb­e­dee re­mained at the home of Nicode­mus, where he had ar­ranged for his mes­sen­gers to as­sem­ble early Sun­day morn­ing. The women of Gal­i­lee, who pre­pared spices for the fur­ther em­balm­ing of Je­sus’ body, tar­ried at the home of Joseph of Ari­mathea.

• believed Jesus would rise from tomb

190:1.2When the apos­tles re­fused to be­lieve the re­port of the five women who rep­re­sented that they had seen Je­sus and talked with him, Mary Mag­da­lene re­turned to the tomb, and the oth­ers went back to Joseph’s house, where they re­lated their ex­pe­ri­ences to his daugh­ter and the other women. And the women be­lieved their re­port. Shortly af­ter six o’clock the daugh­ter of Joseph of Ari­mathea and the four women who had seen Je­sus went over to the home of Nicode­mus, where they re­lated all these hap­pen­ings to Joseph, Nicode­mus, David Zeb­e­dee, and the other men there as­sem­bled. Nicode­mus and the oth­ers doubted their story, doubted that Je­sus had risen from the dead; they con­jec­tured that the Jews had re­moved the body. Joseph and David were dis­posed to be­lieve the re­port, so much so that they hur­ried out to in­spect the tomb, and they found ev­ery­thing just as the women had de­scribed. And they were the last to so view the sepul­chre, for the high priest sent the cap­tain of the tem­ple guards to the tomb at half past seven o’clock to re­move the grave cloths. The cap­tain wrapped them all up in the linen sheet and threw them over a near-by cliff.

• dropped Judas’s bag in Matthew’s lap

190:1.3From the tomb David and Joseph went im­me­di­ately to the home of Eli­jah Mark, where they held a con­fer­ence with the ten apos­tles in the up­per cham­ber. Only John Zeb­e­dee was dis­posed to be­lieve, even faintly, that Je­sus had risen from the dead. Pe­ter had be­lieved at first but, when he failed to find the Mas­ter, fell into grave doubt­ing. They were all dis­posed to be­lieve that the Jews had re­moved the body. David would not ar­gue with them, but when he left, he said: “You are the apos­tles, and you ought to un­der­stand these things. I will not con­tend with you; nev­er­the­less, I now go back to the home of Nicode­mus, where I have ap­pointed with the mes­sen­gers to as­sem­ble this morn­ing, and when they have gath­ered to­gether, I will send them forth on their last mis­sion, as her­alds of the Mas­ter’s res­ur­rec­tion. I heard the Mas­ter say that, af­ter he should die, he would rise on the third day, and I be­lieve him.” And thus speak­ing to the de­jected and for­lorn am­bas­sadors of the king­dom, this self-ap­pointed chief of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and in­tel­li­gence took leave of the apos­tles. On his way from the up­per cham­ber he dropped the bag of Ju­das, con­tain­ing all the apos­tolic funds, in the lap of Mat­thew Levi.

• fearless and efficient leader

190:1.7The apos­tles, the spir­i­tual corps of the king­dom, are this day as­sem­bled in the up­per cham­ber, where they man­i­fest fear and ex­press doubts, while these lay­men, rep­re­sent­ing the first at­tempt at the so­cial­iza­tion of the Mas­ter’s gospel of the broth­er­hood of man, un­der the or­ders of their fear­less and ef­fi­cient leader, go forth to pro­claim the risen Sav­ior of a world and a uni­verse. And they en­gage in this event­ful ser­vice ere his cho­sen rep­re­sen­ta­tives are will­ing to be­lieve his word or to ac­cept the ev­i­dence of eye­wit­nesses.

• married Ruth, left for Philadelphia after crucifixion

190:1.10In about one week from this time John Zeb­e­dee took Mary the mother of Je­sus to his home in Beth­saida. James, Je­sus’ el­dest brother, re­mained with his fam­ily in Je­ru­sa­lem. Ruth re­mained at Beth­any with Laz­a­rus’s sis­ters. The rest of Je­sus’ fam­ily re­turned to Gal­i­lee. David Zeb­e­dee left Beth­any with Martha and Mary, for Phil­a­del­phia, early in June, the day af­ter his mar­riage to Ruth, Je­sus’ young­est sis­ter.

• at Jesus’ 4th appearance

190:2.6And David did not long wait, for the fourth ap­pear­ance of Je­sus to mor­tal rec­og­ni­tion oc­curred shortly be­fore two o’clock in this very home of Martha and Mary, when he ap­peared vis­i­bly be­fore his earthly fam­ily and their friends, twenty in all. The Mas­ter ap­peared in the open back door, say­ing: “Peace be upon you. Greet­ings to those once near me in the flesh and fel­low­ship for my broth­ers and sis­ters in the king­dom of heaven. How could you doubt? Why have you lin­gered so long be­fore choos­ing to fol­low the light of truth with a whole heart? Come, there­fore, all of you into the fel­low­ship of the Spirit of Truth in the Fa­ther’s king­dom.” As they be­gan to re­cover from the first shock of their amaze­ment and to move to­ward him as if to em­brace him, he van­ished from their sight.