By GARY ALLEY
January 2020

In the Gospel of Matthew, the events surrounding Jesus’ life are interpreted as fulfilling Hebrew Scripture’s messianic hopes. Twelve times in Matthew it says that episodes in Jesus’ life “fulfilled” what was spoken by a prophet.[1] Every time an event is highlighted, a recognizable Old Testament quotation is directly given.[2] Every time, that is, except one time.

In Mt 2:19-23, Jesus’ family leaves Egypt after the death of Herod, and settles in Nazareth of the Galilee because of fear of Archelaus who was ruling in Judea. Mt 2:23 explains,

“So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets,
‘that he would be called a Nazarene.’”

The first clue that this verse is an anomaly in Matthew’s fulfillment passages is that one specific prophet is not emphasized. Rather, he says prophets (plural).[3] Perhaps, here, Matthew is signaling that this “quotation” is not a specific verse of reference but rather an allusion to a larger messianic motif.

The second point of interest here, is that Matthew’s quotation from the “prophets” is not a quotation at all—not from the Hebrew Scripture (Old Testament) or any known extra-biblical Jewish writing. Yet, Matthew unabashedly assumes his readers will understand.

The third detail needed to unveil Matthew’s prophetic mystery is Nazareth itself. The reason why there is no Old Testament verse connected to a Nazarene, a resident of the town of Nazareth, is because Nazareth, essentially, did not exist during the time of the prophets.[4]

This idea that the Messiah could come from the Galilee was a significant stumbling block for Jews living during the time of Jesus.

“How can the Messiah come from Galilee? Does not Scripture say that the Messiah will come from David’s descendants and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?... Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.”
John 7:42-42, 51

Jesus as a child with his parents. St. Joseph’s Church, Nazareth.

Biblical prophecies pointed toward a descendant of David from the tribe of Judah, whose family region would be Judea, which could obviously include the ancient cities associated with David’s legacy—Bethlehem, Hebron, and Jerusalem. No wonder when the disciple, Nathaniel, was first introduced to Jesus, he immediately questioned his hometown.

“Philip found Nathanael and told him,
“We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law,
and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”
“Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked.
“Come and see,” said Philip.
When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him,
“Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”
John 1:45-47

Jesus’ response to Nathaniel’s critical question, was praise for his straightforward and erudite query. While Nazareth was a small village or town in the time of Jesus,[5] Nathaniel’s question displayed his knowledge of Scripture’s silence concerning the town of Nazareth within the prophets’ messianic vision.[6] Therefore, perhaps, another way to phrase Nathaniel’s question is “can a Messiah come out of Nazareth?”

Despite the absence of Nazareth within the Old Testament, Matthew’s prophetic connection between Jesus and Nazareth, is usually interpreted from the postulated Hebrew root of Nazareth’s name (נ.צ.ר= N-Tz-R). From this root (N-Tz-R) there are two typical paths of interpretation.

Most commonly, the root is connected to “netzer”, a shoot or bud coming out of a tree trunk. This is linked to Isaiah 11:1’s well-known prophecy about a son of David (son of Jesse) that will spring forth. [7]

A shoot will come up
from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a bud (netzer) will bear fruit.

Like the little town of Nazareth, this bud is tiny and insignificant, but from this small beginning a supernatural leader would be born.

The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him…
He will not judge by what he sees
with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears
with his ears;
but with righteousness
he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
Isa 11:2a, 3b-4

The second avenue of interpreting Nazareth’s root (N-Tz-R) is related to its geographical location. The Hebrew verb “natzar” means “guarded or “protected,” and the noun is “guard” or “watchman.”[8] Some have advocated that Nazareth’s location on a range of high hills, displays it functioning as a “watchman” that watches over an area.[9]

Steven Notley has argued that “protected” is the key to understanding Mt 2:23, but he does not see it connected to Nazareth’s name or its elevated height; rather, he finds Nazareth’s prophetic purpose derived from its geopolitical location during the time of Jesus.

After Herod the Great died around the birth of Jesus, Herod’s kingdom was divided up between three of his sons. Archelaus received the central regions of Judea, Samaria, and Idumea; Philip controlled the northern Iturea and Trachonitis; while Antipas ruled the Galilee and the eastern Jordan region of Perea.

When Joseph brought his family back from Egypt, he avoided Archelaus’ Judea and settled in Antipas’ Galilee. Therefore, according to Notley, the young child Jesus was “protected” or “preserved” from the violence of Archelaus in the Judean region, because he lived under the dominion of Antipas in the Galilee. [10] Following this reading, Mt 2:23’s “he will be called a Nazoraios” is a fulfillment of Isa 42:6 that alludes to Jesus being “called” as a “protected one.”[11]

“I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness;
I will take hold of your hand.
I will protect you
and will make you to be a covenant for the people
and a light for the Gentiles,
to open eyes that are blind,
to free captives from prison
and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.”

Isa 42:6-7

While Jesus’ prophetic link to Nazareth may be debatable, he was known as “the Nazarene”, a resident of Nazareth.[12] This little town is central to the historical identity of Jesus. The author of Matthew’s gospel, writing after the time of Jesus, looked back at events from Jesus’ life—his birth, childhood, ministry, death, and resurrection—and tried to piece together these episodes into the Hebrew prophets’ messianic model. The curious puzzle piece of Nazareth would have been challenging to fit.

And yet, that the salvation of the Lord would come from an unexpected place seems unsurprisingly expected in Scripture. The Bible is rife with stories of unforeseen and unassuming people who obeyed the Lord’s calling for their lives and were critical pieces in God’s redemptive plans.[13]

How apropos that Israel’s Messiah arises from a place with no historical imprint or theological significance. Nazareth is a powerful prophetic symbol, precisely, because it is not powerful. This is the DNA of God’s salvation embedded within Scripture—“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”[14] Though Mt 2:23’s allusion to prophetic verse may be unknown, its prophetic genetic sequence is not.

“Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called.
Not many of you were wise by human standards;
not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.
But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise;
God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.”
1 Cor 1:26-27

[1] Mt 1:22; 2:15; 2:17; 2:23; 4:14; 8:17; 12:17; 13:14; 13:35; 21:4; 26:56; 27:9.
Additionally, in Mt 2:1-6 Herod asks the chief priests and teachers of the law, where the Messiah was to be born. They respond, “in Bethlehem in Judea…for this is what the prophet has written.” Micah 5:2,4 is then quoted as reference. Though this example does NOT have the word “fulfill” like the other twelve examples, it also fits Matthew’s prophetic fulfillment formula. Also note that Mt 26:56 is different than the other eleven “fulfillment” passages because it is not related to a specific episode in Jesus’ life nor linked to a specific Scripture quotation.

[2] Unlike ten of the above examples, in Mt 26:52-56, Jesus is speaking, when he says “But this has all taken place that the writings of the prophets might be fulfilled.” Speaking in generic terms, he does NOT connect a specific prophetic passage to a specific event, which the writer of Matthew does in the other eleven passages. Rather, Jesus talks about prophets (plural) in a general sense.

[3] See footnotes 1 and 2.

[4] “Although there are traces of earlier Bronze Age or Iron Age occupation, none of these suggests a continuity of more than a generation at a time….People have continued to live in Nazareth from the 3d century B.C. to the present day.” Strange, James F. "Nazareth." Anchor Bible Dictionary 4 (1992): 1050-51.

[5] The population of Nazareth in the days of Jesus is estimated to have been no larger than about 480 people. Strange, 1050.

[6] From a recent lecture by Claire Pfann, Academic Dean and Instructor in New Testament at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem. 13 Dec 2019.

[7] Jerome (347-420 AD) is one early example of this midrashic understanding. He writes: “Let these word fanciers and nice critics of all composition tell us where they have read the words; and if they cannot, let me tell them that they are in Isaiah…in the Hebrew idiom it is written thus, There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse and a Nazarene shall grow from his root." Letter 57—To Pammachius on the Best Method of Translating.

[8] Jer 31:6

[9] Merrill, Selah. Galilee in the Time of Christ. Congregational publishing society, 1881 (116).

[10] “So, Matthew concludes his abbreviated description of Jesus’ infancy with a report that Jesus was taken to a remote village in the Galilee and preserved there by the Lord, until the appointed time for the beginning of his prophetic ministry.” Rainey, Anson F., and R. Steven Notley. The Sacred Bridge. Jerusalem: Carta (2006), 349-50.

[11] Notley suggests that Mt 2:23’s “he will be called a Nazoraios” should be understood as a passive Hebrew participle (natzor)—one who is “preserved, protected.”

[12] In Mk. 1:24; 10:47; 14:67; 16:6; Lk. 4:34; 24:19, Jesus is called a “Nazarene” with the expected Greek form, Nazarenos (Ναζαρηνός). The peculiar form Nazoraios (Ναζωραῖος) that Mt 2:23 uses would be a head-scratching Greek transliteration derived from the Hebrew. This form, Nazoraios, is also used to describe Jesus in Mt 26:71; Lk 18:37; Jn. 18:5, 7; 19:19; Acts 2:22; 3:6; 4:10; 6:14; 22:8; 26:9. It is used in Acts 24:5 to describe the followers of Jesus, though they do not hail from Nazareth.

[13] Esther 4:14

[14] 2 Cor 12:9