Bibelkommentare

It appeareth by Luke 2:4, that Joseph dwelt in Nazareth before our Saviour was born; and, Luke 2:39, after Mary’s purification it is said, they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth; and, Luke 4:16, he was there brought up. Hence, John 1:45, he is called by Philip, Jesus of Nazareth. But the following words of this verse afford as great difficulties as any other in holy writ.

1. How Christ could be called a Nazarene, who apparently was born at Bethlehem.

2. How the evangelist saith that was fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet,

He shall be called a Nazarene; whereas there is no such saying in all the prophets.

There is a strange variety of opinions as to these questions. Spanhemius acquiesceth in that which seemeth least liable to exception, viz. That Christ was to put a period to that order of Nazarites amongst the Jews, whose rules we have Numbers 6:2,3; of which order Samson was, as appears by Judges 13:7, and Joseph was called ryzn Genesis 49:26, the very same word which is used Judges 13:7. Both Joseph and Samson were eminent types of Christ. And it was spoken of Christ by the prophets, (the holy men of God who wrote the Scriptures), that Christ should be called ryzn Nezir, as it is in the Hebrew, in that it was spoken of those that were his types; who are both expressly so called. The word signifieth a holy person, one separated to God, and from ordinary converse with men. Christ was to be such a Nazarite, separated to God, for the accomplishment of our redemption, and, like Joseph, separated from his brethren: Isaiah 53:3, he was rejected of men:—we hid as it were our faces from him, and we esteemed him not. God by his singular providence so ordered it, that he who was the antitype to all the Nazarites, and the true Nezir, or person separated, should be educated at Nazareth, a poor contemptible town: John 1:46, Nathanael said, Can there any good come out of Nazareth? That while his education there gave the Jews an occasion to reproach him, as a Nazarene, because born at Nazareth, believers amongst the Jews might understand him to be the true Nazarite, understood in Joseph and Samson called by this name, as types and figures of him who was to come, separated by God to a more excellent end, and from men in a more eminent manner. So that what the prophets spake of this nature concerning Christ, they spake of those who were the true types of Christ. Those who will read Spanhemius, and Poli Critica, will find large discourses about the difficulties of this text, but this seemeth to be Spanhemius’s opinion, improving the notion of Mr. Calvin.

Verse 23. - And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth. En-Nasira, now of from five thousand to six thousand souls, in the hills on the northern edge of the Plain of Esdraelon, not mentioned in the Old Testament or by Josephus. "Nazareth is a rose, and, like a rose, has the same rounded form, enclosed by mountains as the flower by its leaves" (Quaresimus, in Stanley, 'Sinai and Palestine,' p. 365). Observe the (:) in the Revised Version, showing that the following "fulfilment" is not to be considered as part of Joseph's intention. Dwelt; settled down after the exile life (cf Acts 7:4). That (ὅπως). The purpose lay in the Divine overruling of Joseph's action, ὄπως with πληρωθῇ, Matthew 8:17 and Matthew 13:35 only. In each case it is used with reference to general statements, i.e. it marks a less close connection than that implied by ἵνα. It might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets. He shall be called (Revised Version, that he should be called; ὅτι κληθήσεται; cf. also the Geneva) a Nazarene. The Revised Version expresses the fact that the quotation is not of words, but of substance, for although the recitative ὅτι is found in St. Matthew (Matthew 7:23; Matthew 9:18; Matthew 14:26; Matthew 27:43, 47) and even before verbal citations from Scripture after γέγραπται (Matthew 4:6) and ἀνέγνωετε (Matthew 21:16, contrast 42), yet it does not occur after the formula τὸ ῤηθέν κ.τ.λ. By the prophets. Not "in the prophets" (Acts 13:40), which might have preferred (yet cf. Hebrews 1:1) only to the book containing their writings, and then would not in itself have implied more than one passage there. The present phrase (διὰ τῶν προφητῶν) suggests personality rather than writing, and implies either that two or more prophets were the agents by whom the words were spoken, or, better, that in some way the whole company of the prophets (cf. Acts 3:25; Hebrews 1:1) spoke the message now summarized. In this way the phrase will indicate that even if the following words are found in the utterances of only one prophet, they also represent a phase of teaching common to all. A Nazarene. Those interpretations which connect this with נזר (nzr) ,

(1) in the sense of "separated" (Lightfoot, 'Hor. Hebr.'),

(a) generally (cf. Psalm 69:7);

(b) specifically as "Nazarite" (נזיר, Ναζηραῖος, so Tyndale to Rheims); or

(2) in the sense of "diadem" (נֵזֶר, "Zu Cronberg [נזרת] hat der Gekronte gewohnet," Bengel); are inadmissible in the light of the fact that, in Jewish writings, both "Nazareth" (נַצְרָת, Neub., 'Geogr.,' p. 190) and "Nazarene" (נוצרי) are from נצר (ntsr). Thus the reference to the prophets requires that they speak of Messiah by some term belonging to this root, and not to נזר (nzr). What this term is may be gathered from the true text of Talm. Bab., 'Sanh.,' 43a (cf. 'Levy,' s.v. נצר, and for the passage in full, Rabbinowicz, 'Var. Leer.'), where, after enumerating five disciples of Jesus the Nazarene (ישו הנוצרי), among them Netzer, a summary is given of their trial and condemnation. Of Netzer it is said, "They brought Netzer up for trial. He said to the judges, Shall Netzer be slain? It is written, 'A branch (netzer, נצר) out of his roots shall bear fruit (Isaiah 11:1).'They answered him, Yea, Netzer shall be slain. For it is written, 'But thou art cast forth away from thy sepulchre like an abominable branch'" (netzer, Isaiah 14:19). It does not now concern us to inquire which, if any, of the twelve disciples is here spoken of by the name of Netzer. But it is evident that the Jews

(1) connected this name closely with Jesus the Nazarene just before mentioned, and

(2) saw a connexion between it and "the Branch" of Isaiah 11:1. True that they rejected the disciple's application of the passage, but they did not reject the identity of the expressions. The application which was made, even according to the Talmud, is fully expressed by the evangelist here. There, as we may see if we read between the lines, the disciple claimed for his Christianity that it corresponded to the promise of Isaiah; here the evangelist more definitely claims a correspondence between that promise and Jesus. He is not concerned with deeper points of similarity, though they could not fail to suggest themselves both to him and to his readers, but merely notices that the very dwelling-place of Jesus answers to the promise of Messiah. Netzer he was to be; the Divine working brought it about that this, though in adjectival form, was his common appellation. Observe that

(1) to netzer in Isaiah 11:1 the word tsemah, corresponds in Jeremiah 23:5 and Zechariah 3:8;

(2) the fulfilment consists, not in carrying out a definite statement to its logical issue in history, but in the existence of a strange correspondence which implies Divine foresight and arrangement. Why Joseph settled at Nazareth rather than at any other spot in Galilee, St. Matthew gives no hint. The reason is found in the fact recorded by St. Luke that Mary (Luke 1:26) and Joseph (Luke 2:4) had lived there before the Birth. It is true that St. Matthew's account taken alone gives the impression that this was not the case, but the impression is not so strong as to warrant even the assertion that St. Matthew was ignorant of the earlier residence, much less that his account in fact contradicts St. Luke's. The mutual independence and the general trustworthiness of the two accounts of the Birth and Infancy is shown by the fact that in their less important details they cannot always be reconciled. (On our present difficulties in arranging the events recorded in Matthew 1:2 and Luke 1:2, cf. Ellicott, 'Lects.,' p. 70; Godet, 'Luke,' transl., 1. pp. 153-156.)

(23) He shall be called a Nazarene.—For an account of Nazareth, see Note on Luke 1:26. Here it will be enough to deal with St. Matthew’s reference to the name as in itself the fulfilment of a prophetic thought. He does not, as before, cite the words of any one prophet by name, but says generally that what he quotes had been spoken by or through the prophets. No such words are to be found in the Old Testament. It is not likely that the Evangelist would have quoted from any apocryphal prophecy, nor is there any trace of the existence of such a prophecy. The true explanation is to be found in the impression made on his mind by the verbal coincidence of fact with prediction. He had heard men speak with scorn of “the Nazarene,” and yet the very syllables of that word had also fallen on his ears in one of the most glorious of the prophecies admitted to be Messianic—“There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Netzer (Branch) shall grow out of his roots” (Isaiah 11:1). So he found in the word of scorn the nomen et omen of glory. The town of Nazareth probably took its name from this meaning of the word, as pointing, like our -hurst and -holt, to the trees and shrubs for which it was conspicuous. The general reference to the prophets is explained by the fact that the same thought is expressed in Jeremiah 23:5; Jeremiah 33:15; Zechariah 3:8; Zechariah 6:12, though there the Hebrew word is Zemach, and not Netzer. A like train of thought is found in the language of Tertullian and other early Christian writers to their heathen opponents—“You call us Christians,” they say,” worshippers of Christos, but you pronounce the words Chrestiani and Chrestos, i.e., you give us a name which in your own language (Greek) means ‘good,’ and so you unconsciously bear testimony to the life we really lead.” This seems the only tenable explanation of the passage. It is hardly likely that the Evangelist should have referred to the scorn with which Nazareth was regarded. Any reference to the Nazarite vow is out of the question, (1) because the two words are spelt differently, both in Greek and Hebrew, and (2) because our Lord’s life represented quite a different aspect of holiness from that of which the Nazarite vow was the expression. That vow, as seen pre-eminently in the Baptist, represented the consecration which consists in separation from the world. The life of Christ manifested the higher form of consecration which is found in being in the world but not of it, mingling with the men and women who compose it, in order to purify and save.

23. a city called Nazareth] St Matthew gives no intimation of any previous residence of Mary and Joseph at Nazareth.

Nazareth] Said to signify “the Protectress” (Hebr. natsar), a small town of central Galilee, on the edge of the plain of Esdraelon, beautifully situated on the side of a steep hill within a sheltered valley.

He shall be called a Nazarene] The meaning of this passage was probably as clear to the contemporaries of St Matthew, as the other references to prophecy Matthew 2:15; Matthew 2:17; for us it is involved in doubt. First, it may be said Nazarene cannot = Nazarite: the word differs in form, and in no sense could Christ be called a Nazarite. Secondly, the quotation is probably not from a lost prophecy. One meaning of the word Nazoræus is an inhabitant of Nazareth, but the word either (1) recalls the Hebrew word netser a Branch, a title by which the Messiah is designated Isaiah 11:1, or (2) connects itself in thought with the Hebr. natsar, to save or protect (see above), and so has reference to the name and work of Jesus, or (3) is a synonym for “contemptible” or “lowly,” from the despised position of Nazareth. Of these (3) is perhaps the least probable explanation. The play upon words which (1) and (2) involve is quite characteristic of Hebrew phraseology. The sound of the original would be either (1) He whom the prophet called the “Netser” dwells at “Netser”—(for this form of Nazareth see Smith’s Bib. Dict.), or (2) He who is called “Notsri” (my protector) dwells at “Natsaret” (the protectress).

In any case the passage gains fresh interest from the fact that the early Christians were called Nazarenes in scorn. Cp. Acts 24:5. For them it would be a point of triumph that their enemies thus unconsciously connected them with a prophetic title of their Master.

The prophets

Note the plural, as indicating not any one prediction in particular, but a summary of the import of several prophetic statements, such as Psalm 22:6, Psalm 22:8; Psalm 69:11, Psalm 69:19; Isaiah 53:2, Isaiah 53:3, Isaiah 53:4.

A Nazarene

A term of contempt (compare John 1:46, and John 7:52). The very name of Nazareth suggested insignificance. In Hebrew it meant sprout or shoot. The name is prophetically given to the Messiah (Isaiah 11:1). In Isaiah 10:33, Isaiah 10:34, the fate of Assyria is described under the figure of the felling of a cedar forest. The figure of the tree is continued at the opening of ch. 11 concerning the Jewish state. The cedar throws out no fresh suckers, but the oak is a tree "in which, after the felling, a stock remaineth" (Isaiah 6:13; compare Job 14:9). There is a future then for Israel, represented by the oak. "There shall come forth a shoot from the stock of Jesse, and a twig from his roots shall bear fruit." As David sprang from the humble family of Jesse, so the Messiah, the second David, shall arise out of great humiliation. The fact that Jesus grew up at Nazareth was sufficient reason for his being despised. He was not a lofty branch on the summit of a stately tree; not a recognized and honored son of the royal house of David, now fallen, but an insignificant sprout from the roots of Jesse; a Nazarene, of an upstart sprout-town.

Matthew 2:23. κατῳκησεν. κατοικεῖν in Sept[11] is used regularly for יָשַׁב in the sense of to dwell, and with ἐν in Luke and Acts (Luke 13:4; Acts 1:20, etc.) in the same sense. Here with εἰς it seems to mean going to settle in, adopting as a home, the district of Galilee, the particular town called Nazareth.—εἰς πόλιν is to be taken along with κατῴ. not with ἐλθὼν. Arrived in Galilee he transferred his family to Nazareth, as afterwards Jesus migrated to Capernaum to carry on there His ministry (Matthew 4:13, where the same form of expression recurs).—Ναζαρέτ, a town in lower Galilee, in the tribe of Zebulon, nowhere mentioned in O. T. or Josephus.—ὅπως πληρωθῇ, etc.: a final prophetic reference winding up the history of the infancy. ὅπως not ἵνα, as usual, but with much the same meaning. It does not necessarily imply that a prophetic oracle consciously influenced Joseph in making his choice, but only that the evangelist saw in that choice a fulfilment of prophecy. But what prophecy? The reference is vague, not to any particular prophet, but to the prophets in general. In no one place can any such statement be found. Some have suggested that it occurred in some prophetic book or oracle no longer extant. “Don’t ask,” says Euthy. Zig., “in what prophets; you will not find: many prophetic books were lost” (after Chrys.). Olearius, in an elaborate note, while not adopting, states with evident sympathy this view as held by others. Jerome, following the Jewish scholars (eruditi Hebraeorum) of his time, believed the reference to be mainly to Isaiah 11, where mention is made of a branch (נָצֶר) that shall spring out of Jesse’s root. This view is accepted by most modern scholars, Catholic and Protestant, the name of the town being viewed as a derivative from the Hebrew word (a feminine form). The epithet Ναζωραῖος will thus mean: “the man of Nazareth, the town of the off-shoot”. De Wette says: “In the spirit of the exegetical mysticism of the time, and applying what the Jews called Midrasch, deeper investigation, the word is used in a double sense in allusion at once to נֵצֶר, Isaiah 11:1, sprout, and to the name of Nazareth”. There may be something in the suggestion that the reference is to Jdg 13:7 : ὅτι Ναζιραῖον θεοῦ ἔσται, and the idea: one living apart in a secluded town. (So Furrer in Die Bedeutung der bibl. Geographie für d. bib. Exegese, p. 15.)

[11] Septuagint.

This final prophetic reference in the history of the infancy is the weakest link in the chain. It is wasted effort to try to show its value in the prophetic argument. Instead of doing this, apologists would act more wisely by frankly recognising the weakness, and drawing from it an argument in favour of historicity. This may very legitimately be done. Of all the incidents mentioned in this chapter, the settlement in Nazareth is the only one we have other means of verifying. Whether it was the original or the adopted home of Jesus may be doubtful, but from many references in the Gospels we know that it was His home from childhood till manhood. In this case, therefore, we certainly know that the historic fact suggested the prophetic reference, instead of the prophecy creating the history. And the very weakness of the prophetic reference in this instance raises a presumption that that was the nature of the connection between prophecy and history throughout. It is a caveat against the critical theory that in the second chapter of Matthew we have an imaginary history of the infancy of Jesus, compiled to meet a craving for knowledge on the subject, and adapted to the requirements of faith, the rudiments of the story consisting of a collection of Messianic prophecies—the star of Jacob, princes bringing gifts, Rachel weeping for her children, etc. The last of the prophetic references would never have occurred to any one, whether the evangelist or any other unknown source of the tradition, unless there had been a fact going before, the settlement in Nazareth. But given the fact, there was a strong desire to find some allusion to it in the O. T. Faith was easily satisfied; the faintest allusion or hint would do. That was in this ease, and presumably in most cases of the kind, the problem with which the Christian mind in the Apostolic age was occupied: not creating history, but discovering in evangelic facts even the most minute, prophetic fulfilments. The evangelist’s idea of fulfilment may provoke a smile, but it might also awaken a feeling of thankfulness in view of what has been stated. It is with the prophetic references in the Gospels as with songs without words. The composer has a certain scene or state of mind in his view, and writes under its inspiration. But you are not in his secret, and cannot tell when you hear the music what it means. But let the key be given, and immediately you find new meaning in the music. The prophecies are the music; the key is the history. Given the prophecies alone and you could with difficulty imagine the history; given the history you can easily understand how religious fancy might discover corresponding prophecies. That the prophecies, once suggested, might react on the facts and lead to legendary modifications is of course not to be denied.

Matthew 2:23. Ἐλθών] to Galilee.

εἰς πόλιν] εἰς does not belong to ἐλθών (Fritzsche, Olshausen), but to κατῴκησεν, beside which it stands in Genesis 13:18; κατῴκ. includes the movement connected with the settlement, and that in such a way that the latter was the predominating element in the thought of the writer: he went and settled at Nazareth. Comp. Matthew 4:13; Acts 7:4; 2 Chronicles 19:4. See Kühner, I. p. 471.

Nazareth[373]] in Lower Galilee, in the tribe of Zabulon, situated on a hill (Luke 4:20), with pleasant environs. Robinson, Paläst. III. p. 419 ff.; Ritter, Erdk. XVI. p. 739 ff.; Furer, Wander, durch Paläst. p. 267 ff.; Tobler, Nazar. in Paläst., 1868. Mentioned neither in the O. T. nor in Josephus.

ὅπως] in order that. See Matthew 1:22.

διὰ τῶν προφ.] not the plural of category (Matthew 2:20, so Fritzsche), according to which Isaiah only could be meant, but the prophets generally, Luke 18:31; Romans 1:2.

ὅτι] not the Recitativum, although its use in the Gospel of Matthew cannot be denied, Matthew 7:23, Matthew 9:18, Matthew 14:26, Matthew 27:43; Matthew 27:47, but “that,” as no individual express statement is quoted.

Ναζωραῖος] of Nazareth, Matthew 26:71. In Isaiah 11:1, the Messiah, as the offspring of David, is called נֵצֶר, shoot, with which, in the representation of the evangelist, this designation was identified, only expressed by another word, namely, צֶמַח (Jeremiah 23:5; Jeremiah 33:15; Zechariah 3:8; Zechariah 6:12; Isaiah 4:2); therefore he wrote, διὰ τῶν προφητῶν. In giving this prophetic title of נצר to the Messiah, he entirely disregards the historical meaning of the same (LXX. Isaiah 11:1 : ἄνθος), keeps by the relationship of the name Nazareth to the word נצר, and recognises, by virtue of the same, in that prophetic Messianic name Nezer, the typical reference to this, that Jesus, through His settlement in Nazareth, was to become a ΝΑΖΩΡΑῖΟς; the translator therefore, rightly apprehending this typical reference, expressed the Hebrew נצר by ΝΑΖΩΡΑῖΟς, although he may have also found in the original Hebrew draft of the Gospel בן נצר, or, more probably, נצרי. The evangelist must in any case have derived the name Nazareth from נצר, and it is likewise probable in itself; see Hengstenberg, Christol. II. p. 124 ff. “Eruditi Hebraei” already referred the ΝΑΖΩΡ. ΚΛΗΘ. back to the נצר; see Jerome on Isaiah 11:1, and, more recently, Piscator, Casaubon, Jansen, Maldonatus, Surenhusius, Bauer (bibl. Theol. I. p. 163), Fritzsche, Gieseler, Kern, Krabbe, de Wette, B. Crusius, Köstlin, Bleek, Hengstenberg, Kahnis, Anger, formerly also Hilgenfeld. But others (Chrysostom, Theophylact, Clericus, Grätz) regard the words as a quotation from a lost prophetical book. But always, where in the N. T. the prophets are quoted, those in the completed canon are meant. Others (Michaelis, Paulus, Kuinoel, Gersdorf, Kaüffer, Olshausen, Ebrard, Lange) are of opinion that Ναζωραῖος refers to the despised and melancholy position of the Messiah depicted by the prophets in accordance with Psalms 22, Isaiah 53. For Nazareth was despised, see John 1:47; John 7:52. But the question here is not as to a prophetic description (of the lowliness of the Messiah), but as to the definite prophetic name (κληθήσεται), to which the settlement in Nazareth may correspond; and, indeed, the evangelist must have found the name itself in the prophets, and not have inserted it ex eventu, namely, because Nazareth served to make the Messiah an object of misapprehension (in answer to Hofmann, Weissag. u. Erfüll. p. 66). For that reason also the opinion of others is to be rejected (Erasmus, Beza, Calvin, Grotius, Wetstein, Hilgenfeld), who, after Tertullian and Jerome, take Ναζ. for the Hebrew נָזִיר, that it might be fulfilled … that He shall be (called) a Nazarite. Jesus had neither represented Himself to be such a consecrated person, Matthew 11:19, nor can any passage in the prophets be pointed out as referring to this; therefore Ewald, in opposition to διὰ τῶν προφ., assumes the statement to be taken from an Apocryphal book, in which the Messiah, on His first appearance, was represented as a Nazarite, so that the evangelist was led, from the similarity of the word, to infer a reference to Nazareth. If, however, in Ναζωραῖος the Hebrew נֹצֵר, Preserver, has been supposed to be contained, and that in such a way that it had as its basis either Exodus 34:6 f. (Zuschlag in Guericke’s Zeitschr. 1854, III. p. 417 ff.) or Psalm 31:24 (Riggenbach in the Stud. u. Krit. 1855, p. 606 f.), then something entirely foreign is thus imported, as in those passages there is to be found neither a designation of the Messiah nor any prophetic declaration. Still more arbitrary is the reference of Hitzig in the theol. Jahrb. 1842, p. 410, to Isaiah 49:6, where נְצוּרֵי has been taken as singular, and explained as a predicate of the Messiah, as the leader of those who are saved. Delitzsch has referred to Isaiah 42:6; so that Christ is predicted as He who is preserved in dangers (נָצוּר, Isaiah 49:6), whilst Nazareth was His place of concealment.

[373] Upon the form of the name Ναζαρά, which, although attested as ancient in many ways, is yet found only in a few passages in the Mss. of the N. T., and very unequally supported (Tischendorf, 8th ed., has received it into the text in Matthew 4:13, and in Luke 4:16), see Keim, I. p. 319; comp. also Delitzsch, Jesus u. Hillel, p. 13. In the passage before us it is without any support, as well as in Matthew 21:11, and in the remaining passages of the other evangelists, except Luke 1:26; Luke 4:16. The form Ναζαράθ is often found in Mss., as also Ναζαράτ. But it is the admission of Ναζαρέτ (or Ναζαρέθ) alone into the text that can be justified, and that as the standing reading, all the more that even in Matthew 4:13 and in Luke 4:16 there is by no means a decisive predominance of testimony for Ναζαρά, which has no support, moreover, in Acts 10:38. Although Nazara was the original form of the name (see in answer to Ewald’s doubts, Keim, II. p. 421 f.), which is probable, it must notwithstanding have been strange to the evangelists.

REMARK.

The evangelist expresses himself in Matthew 2:23 in such a manner that throughout the narrative Nazareth cannot appear to the reader as the original dwelling-place of Joseph and Mary. Bethlehem rather, according to his account, appears to be intended as such (Matthew 2:22), whilst Nazareth was the place of sojourn under the special circumstances which occurred after the death of Herod. The account given by Luke is quite different. This variation is to be admitted, and the reconciliation of both accounts can only be brought about in an arbitrary manner,[374] which is all the more inadmissible that, on the whole, the narratives of Matthew and Luke regarding the birth and early infancy of Jesus in important points mutually exclude each other. Amid all their other variations, however, in the preliminary history in which they are independent of one another, they agree in this, that Bethlehem was the place of birth, and it is in opposition to the history to relegate this agreement to the sphere of dogmatic reflection, and to transport the birth of Jesus to Nazareth (Strauss, Hilgenfeld, Keim), since the designation of Jesus as belonging to Nazareth (Matthew 13:34; Mark 6:1; Luke 4:19) finds its natural and complete explanation in the short and passing sojourn of His parents at Bethlehem after His birth, whereas, had Jesus Himself been a native of Galilee, He would neither have found a believing reception amongst His people, nor, on the other hand, could His Messiahship have been held to be based on a prophetic foundation. Comp. also Luke 2:39 and John 7:42.

[374] That Joseph, brought to Bethlehem by the census, settled there. Matthew accordingly represents Bethlehem as his dwelling-place. The flight to Egypt, however, again soon broke up the residence in Bethlehem, so that the sojourn was only a passing one, and therefore Luke rightly regarded the subsequent settlement at Nazareth as a return thither. See Neander, Ebrard, Hofmann, Krabbe, Lange. Wieseler’s reasons also (chronolog. Synopse, p. 35 ff.) against the view that Matthew makes Bethlehem appear as the original dwelling-place of Jesus, will not stand. This view is to be regarded, by the account in Matthew, which is to be looked on as independent, and standing by itself, as a necessary exegetical result by means of ver. 22, and is undoubtedly confirmed by ver. 23, where Joseph’s settlement in Nazareth appears as something new, which must occur in order to fulfil a prophetic prediction, so that consequently no reader of Matthew could come to think that Nazareth had been Joseph’s dwelling-place. Wieseler, however, has, moreover, strikingly demonstrated the unhistorical nature of the view that Jesus was born at Nazareth.