Matthew 2:22-23

Settlement in Nazareth in Galilee. Joseph returns with mother and child to Israel, but not to Judaea and Bethlehem. ἀκούσας … Ἡρῴδου : Archelaos reigns in his father's stead. A man of kindred nature, suspicious, truculent (Joseph., Ant., 17, 11, 2), to be feared and avoided by such as had cause to fear his father. βασιλεύει, reigns, not in the strict sense of the word. He exercised the authority of an ethnarch, with promise of a royal title if he conducted himself so as to deserve it. In fact he earned banishment. At Herod's death the Roman emperor divided his kingdom into four parts, of which he gave two to Archelaus, embracing Judaea, Idumaea and Samaria; the other two parts were assigned to Antipas and Philip, also sons of Herod: to Antipas, Galilee and Peraea; to Philip, Batanea, Trachonitis and Auranitis. They bore the title of Tetrarch, ruler of a fourth part (Joseph., Ant., 17, 11, 4). ἐφοβήθη ἐκεῖ ἀπελθεῖν. It is implied that to settle in Judaea was the natural course to follow, and that it would have beer followed but for a special reason. Schanz, taking a hint from Augustine, suggests that Joseph wished to settle in Jerusalem, deeming that city the most suitable home for the Messiah, but that God judged the despised Galilee a better training school for the future Saviour of publicans, sinners and Pagans. This hypothesis goes on the assumption that the original seat of the family was Nazareth. ἐκεῖ : late Greek for ἐκεῖσε. In later Greek authors the distinction between ποῖ ποῦ, οἷ οὗ, ὅποι ὅπου, ἐκεῖ and ἐκεῖσε practically disappeared. Rutherford's New Phrynichus, p. 114. Vide for another instance, Luke 21:2. Others explain the substitution as a case of attraction common in adverbs of place. The idea of remaining is in the mind = He feared to go thither to abide there. vide Lobeck's Phryn., p. 44, and Fritzsche. χρηματισθεὶς τῆς Γαλιλαίας : again oracular counsel given in a dream, implying again mental perplexity and need of guidance. Going to Galilee, Judaea being out of the question, was not a matter of course, as we should have expected. The narrative of the first Gospel appears to be constructed on the assumption that Nazareth was not the original home of the holy family, and to represent a tradition for which Nazareth was the adopted home, Bethlehem being the original. “The evangelist did not know that Nazareth was the original seat of the family.” Weiss, Matt. evang. p. 98.