John 1:46

John 1:46. And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see. The mind of Nathanael (who, from his close association with Philip, is probably to be identified with the Bartholomew of the earlier Gospels) is, as we shall more fully see below (John 1:47-48), full at the moment of that prophetic hope the fulfilment of which was associated, not with Nazareth, but with Bethlehem or Jerusalem. To him all good was summed up in the thought of the coming King; and it may have been that at the moment a place unconnected with the great promise of God seemed to him a place from which no good could come. Such considerations go far towards explaining his disparaging remark; though they do not completely remove the impression which we receive from the words, that Nazareth was a place held in very low esteem. We have, however, no other information that such prejudice (whether well or ill founded) existed; and the only notices in Scripture which can throw light on the subject are the records of the obstinate unbelief of the Nazarenes (Matthew 13:58) and their attempt upon the life of Jesus (Luke 4:29).