SECTION X

the settlement in Nazareth

(Luke 2; Matt. 2)

The pious evangelist, Anna, may perhaps have spoken almost too much of the wondrous Child in Jerusalem. Archelaus was just the man to renew the attacks of his father upon the life of the Messiah. Augustus had not made him king, but only ethnarch of Judea. Though already warned, however, by an appeal of the people against his succession, he treated both Jews and Samaritans with cruel harshness. The danger to the holy family could not have been so great as to make it unsafe for them to enter Jerusalem; for Herod had not publicly persecuted the Messiah, and still less was this child of a poor mother publicly known as the Messiah. Nevertheless the holy family might have incurred danger by a continued sojourn under the sceptre of this despot. The grave expressions of Simeon concerning the sorrows in store for Mary, might have contributed to the anxieties of the parents of Jesus. Finally, a divine warning again vouchsafed to Joseph in a dream decided them on not remaining in Judea, and Mary was obliged to sacrifice her day-dream of bringing up her child for His high vocation in the city of David, to the divine guidance.

Joseph arose and turned aside into the parts of Galilee (2:22).

They returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth (Luk 2:39).

Matthew found it difficult for his Jewish heart to reconcile itself to the fact that Jesus grew up in Nazareth. Hence he sought, above all things, to point out the harmony of this strange phenomenon with the Old Testament. It was with this motive that he wrote the significant sentence: He came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene. Matthew speaks, as it seems, from the point of view of a Galilean, who was abiding on the shores of the lake of Gennesareth, when the parents of Jesus again settled in Nazareth. It was then that the Messiah came into his neighbourhood, then first that He became a dweller in Nazareth. It is the main point with him that the Messiah, who had not yet dwelt in Nazareth, became by this settlement a Nazarene. In his purpose of bringing forth this fact, it is a matter of indifference to him that the parents of Jesus had also formerly dwelt there. But that Jesus should become a Nazarene, seems to him such a difficulty, that he cites the prophets collectively as witnesses to the fact that this was involved in the destiny of the Messiah.

They said, He shall be called a Nazarene. Neither an extinct saying of some prophet, nor any single prophetic utterance in general, can be here alluded to, and still less the similarity in sound of the word Nezer (נֵצֶר Isa 11:1), the branch.¹ Nothing but a desperate desire to find an explanation at any cost could lay hold on the word Nazarite. It was only at a period when the word Nazarene was applied as a term of reproach to Christians, that the Evangelist, in a free and vivid interpretation of the Old Testament, could say, when contemplating the many passages in which the contempt the Messiah should be held in was declared, that Christ had been designated by the prophets as a Nazarene.² The full boldness and ingenuity of this declaration will be understood, when we consider that he wrote it for Jewish Christians, who were called Nazarenes, and perhaps also for Jews, who, in their prejudice, applied this name to Christians. He gave even Jews credit for not fastening upon such a sentence, in which all the prophets are said to concur, as a literal quotation from the prophetic writings.³

Though Jewish prejudice against Jesus was subsequently often fostered by the circumstance that He came from Nazareth, it was yet a master-stroke of divine wisdom that He should have grown up in that town. The retirement which concealed Him while He dwelt in one of the least noted districts, and among the least esteemed of the people, ensured the uninterrupted and original development of His unique life. It was as a miracle from heaven that this life was first to be displayed in the midst, and upon the high places, of Jewish popular life.

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Notes

The often recurring assertion of modern criticism, that Matthew assumes that the parents of Jesus always lived in Bethlehem, before their settlement in Nazareth here mentioned, is supported, first, by the fact (chap. 2:1), that the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem is spoken of without any previous mention of the journey of the parents. But since he had already spoken of Mary and Joseph in the first chapter, it might have been expected that the supposed assumption, with respect to their dwelling, would have come to light there, if it had really existed; while the fact of his not mentioning Bethlehem till he relates the birth of Jesus, seems rather to testify that he had in view another place than the ordinary abode of the parents. His reason for not naming the latter may be explained by the intention of his Gospel. He would not unnecessarily state anything which might add to the difficulties of Jewish Christians. Hence he does not name Nazareth till the passage in which he is obliged to do so, and where he can appeal to a decided motive, and a divine direction. That Mary and Joseph had formerly dwelt at Nazareth, is, in this passage (chap. 2:23), a merely accessory circumstance. It is worthy of observation, that the words, He shall be called a Nazarene, must be referred to Joseph, if the passage is interpreted in a strictly literal manner. But since all are agreed that the sentence refers to Jesus, it may be asked whether the change of subject takes place with the quotation, or before. At all events, it is in accordance with the whole passage to believe that the Evangelist had the Messiah in view in the words καὶ ἐλθὼν κατῴκησε, even though he does not formally say so.

1) This passage, taken in conjunction with Isa. liii. 2, might indeed occasion the Evangelist to find a special relation between the words Nezer and Nazareth, In both instances, the fresh life springing in silence, in one from the dry ground, in the other from contempt, form their single joint signification.

2) E.g., Ps. cxviii. 22; Zech. xi. 13.

3) [Alford leaves this ‘an unsolved difficulty.’ The very erudite discussion of Mill (pp. 334-342) seems, however, to shed all requisite light upon it. He advocates the view, that this title referred to His being a branch of the root of David, but that this required Him to grow up slowly and unseen as a tender plant ; therefore He was brought up in Nazareth. ‘A town of which this was to be the fate, and which, purely in consequence of Christ’s early residence there, should furnish first to Him and then to His followers one of their most familiar titles,—a title first bestowed contemptuously, yet accepted and recognized afterwards with very different feelings, —may well be conceived an object of the divine predestination and care from the first. Fitly, and providentially, therefore, was it so named, that when both our Lord and His followers were called Nazarenes, a title applied by the prophets to both was thus unconsciously conferred,’ —ED.]