OUR FATHER WHO GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON Part 4

Having laid low in Egypt with his family for a period of time, Joseph got a notification that it was now safe to return to the land Israel because the threat that had sent them into Egypt had now passed. 

Mathew chapter 2 verses 19 - 23 tells us of the instruction from the angel to return to the land of Israel and where the family ended up.

19 After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20 and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.”

21 So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, 23 and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.

Whereas the context of Jesus' birth was Bethlehem and Judea, the angel's instruction was to return to the more general area designated as Israel.

Judea is the province that includes Jerusalem, Bethlehem and the territory down to the border with Egypt.

Israel however, contains Judea but also covers all the way north to the areas around the sea of Galilee and it was to this wider geographical territory that Joseph was to return to.

Upon re-entering Israel, Joseph learned that Herod's son Archelaus had taken over the throne and he reasoned that it was possible that the Herodic dynasty had an ongoing vendetta against the promised king of Israel. This concern was confirmed in a dream and he was guided to take his family far away from the political hotspots and to go northwards to Galilee where he settled in a small town named Nazareth.

Even though selecting Nazareth was seemingly serendipitous, Matthew indicates that it fulfilled a prophecy that said that Jesus would be called a Nazarene.

There is no scripture that directly says that the Messiah would be called a Nazarene but there are two indirect references that could be considered to have been fulfilled.

1. Isaiah chapter 11 verse 1: A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. This prophecy names the Messiah as the branch and a branch in Hebrew is 'netser' which is closly related to the word Nazareth.                                                          
2. Isaiah chapter 53 verse 3: He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. This prophecy indicates the rejection and indignities that the Messiah would be subjected to where He would be despised and held in low esteem. In a similar way, the town of Nazareth was held low esteem by the people of the day with even Nathaniel, one of the disciples of Jesus, when learning that Jesus was from Nazareth, asked in John chapter 1 verse 46, "Can anthing good come from Nazareth? To be called a Nazarene was to designated as a low value person who can be dismissed.

(Sourced from www.gotquestions.com)

Of the two propositions for what Mathew was referencing, I favor the latter because of the support it recieves from other scripture such as Psalm 22 verse 6 - 7 (But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by everyone, despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads.) And the direct denigration of Nazareth in John chapter 1

verse 46.

Having said that, it is possible that the classification of Nazarene is a double-entendre that implicates both the role of 'branch' and the role of the 'rejected one' for the one labled the Nazarene.

Thus we reach the end of Mathew chapter 2 and will next embark on the study of the ministry of John the baptist.

Amen.

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