Galilee, Sea of

The Sea of Galilee is a freshwater lake in northeastern Israel, approximately thirteen miles long and eight miles wide, lying about 690 feet below sea level in the Jordan Rift Valley. In Scripture it is called by several names: the Sea of Chinnereth or Cinnereth in the Old Testament (Numbers 34:11), the Lake of Gennesaret (Luke 5:1), the Sea of Tiberias in John's Gospel (John 6:1), and most famously the Sea of Galilee in Matthew and Mark (Matthew 4:18). The lake was fed by the Jordan River flowing from the north and drained it to the south toward the Dead Sea.

The Sea of Galilee forms the geographic setting for a large portion of Jesus's Galilean ministry. He called his first disciples from its shores — Simon, Andrew, James, and John, all fishermen. He calmed a storm on its waters, walked upon it, and fed thousands on its hillsides. The fishing industry of towns such as Capernaum, Bethsaida, and Magdala on its shores provided the economic context for many of his disciples and several of his parables. The lake's susceptibility to sudden violent storms, caused by cold air descending from the surrounding hills onto the warm water, provides the natural background to the miracle of stilling the storm (Matthew 8:24).