Matthew 2:23

Matthew 2:23. It does not follow that Matthew was not aware of the previous residence of Joseph in Nazareth. There is no contradiction between his statements and those of Luke. Each mentions those facts most important for his special purpose. Matthew's narrative is not a biography, but brings up facts to prove the fulfilment of prophecy. He reserves the mention of Nazareth until he can say: ‘that it might be fulfilled,' etc. Nor was it strange that Joseph, though previously a resident of Galilee, should at first seek to return to Judea. The revelations made to him would suggest Bethlehem as the proper place to train this ‘child.' ‘He naturally supposed that He who was of the tribe of Judah should dwell in the land of Judah, the most religious, most sacred part of Palestine; and, as the promised Messiah, should be brought as near as possible to the theocratic centre, where He might have frequent intercourse with the priests and rabbins, and be educated under the very shadow of the temple. Only through a special command of God, was he led to return with Jesus to Galilee; and that he made his abode in the obscure vale of Nazareth, can only be explained by the fact, of which Matthew is wholly silent, that this had been his earlier residence, as related by Luke.' (Andrews.) All difficulties are met, if we suppose that when Joseph and Mary left Nazareth at the time of the census, they intended to settle at Bethlehem, which they would regard as the most suitable place of residence for the expected child, the infant Messiah.

A city called Nazareth. Implying the comparative obscurity of the place. ‘It is situated on the northern edge of the great central plain of Jezreel or Esdraelon, into which it opens through a narrow pass in the wall of hills by which it is surrounded. The name Nazareth, seems to be an Aramaic form of a Hebrew word, meaning a shoot or twig, and applied by Isaiah (Isaiah 11:1) to the Messiah as a shoot from the prostrate trunk or stem of Jesse, i.e. , to his birth from the royal family of Judah in its humble and reduced estate. This coincidence of name, as well as the obscurity of Nazareth itself and the general contempt for Galilee at large, established an association between our Lord's humiliation and his residence at this place, so that various predictions of his low condition were fulfilled in being called a Nazarene.' (J. A. Alexander.)

That it might be fulfilled. God so willed it, irrespective of Joseph's design of settling there.

Prophets. Indefinite, because what follows is a summing up of the sense of a number of prophetic allusions.

That he should be called a Nazarene. He was thus called, as an inhabitant of Nazareth (comp. Acts 24:6: ‘sect of the Nazarenes'); but no prophet uses these words or applies this name to the Messiah. It cannot be a quotation from a lost or apocryphal book, nor is the term identical with ‘Nazarite.' ‘The various allusions to the despised and humble appearance of the Messiah are, so to speak, concentrated in that of Nezer. The prophets applied to Him the term branch or bush, in reference to his insignificance in the eyes of the world; and this appellation was specially verified, when He appeared as an inhabitant of despised Nazareth,” the town of shrubs.”' (Lange.)