<p>7:1 <i>And after these things Jesus walked in Galilee; for he would not walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him</i>- This is an exemplification in practice of how the Lord's life was not taken from Him, but He gave it at the time and in the manner which He Himself wished. He knew that if He went to Judea and walked openly, He would be killed. And He wished to die at Passover, not tabernacles (:2). This conscious self-giving of the Lord is hard to plumb, but it remains our constant pattern. Yet we note that the Lord did in fact teach openly at the feast of tabernacles. He did go into Judea. His reasoning may have been that He could be killed on the way, but He judged rightly that public opinion was sufficiently for Him that He would not be killed by the Jews within Jerusalem at the time of the tabernacles feast. This could have all been beamed into Him by the Father, but I prefer to imagine His own sensitivity and spiritual reasoning leading Him to these conclusions.</p>