Post by Lee on Jan 2, 2017 3:58:32 GMT
What have they said that would connect his name with Nazareth? This depends upon the meaning attached to Nazareth.
There are two meanings, both of which would yield some analogy to what is predicted of Christ “by the prophets.”
The first is that which is yielded by the Hebrew root of the name Nazareth, netzer. Though its primary meaning is to reserve, preserve, it comes by derivation, as a noun, to signify “a plant, sucker, or young tree springing from the old root and reserved or preserved when the tree is cut down,” therefore, a branch, as translated in Is. xi. 1, and other places: “a branch shall grow out of his roots.” Scholars suggest that the reason of Nazareth being called by a name having this meaning was the exuberance of its foliage. However this may be, there was a fitness in the man who was to be known as the Branch of David, being brought up in a city having that idea in its name, however derived. It would in that case be one of the many correspondences with which divine ways and things abound as we have seen; and Christ’s transference to a place with such a name would be an incipient commencement of the fulfillment of the prediction that his name would be the Branch.
The second meaning would be found in the unfavorable impression conveyed to the popular mind in Matthew’s day, by a man being known as one brought up at Nazareth. This sense is expressed in the question put by Nathaniel when he heard that the Messiah had been found in Jesus of Nazareth: “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Nazareth was in poor repute; it was a despised place. To be a Nazarene was to be a despised man. Now this is what was “spoken by the prophets” that Jesus was to be—a man despised and rejected—a Nazarene in the sense attachable to the epithet at the time of Christ’s birth.
There is a third meaning for which there is something to be said, though its fitness is not so apparently complete as in the other two cases, viz., the possible correspondence of the name of Nazareth with the Nazarite law which prefigured Christ as much as all other parts of the law which have their “substance” in him. He was to be a separated and holy one unto God after the type of the Nazarite; and this general prophecy may have been taken as corresponding with the name of the city where he was to be brought up; or, indeed, as required by the law of correspondences already glanced at, that he should be brought up in a city so named. (From NR. p 46)
There are two meanings, both of which would yield some analogy to what is predicted of Christ “by the prophets.”
The first is that which is yielded by the Hebrew root of the name Nazareth, netzer. Though its primary meaning is to reserve, preserve, it comes by derivation, as a noun, to signify “a plant, sucker, or young tree springing from the old root and reserved or preserved when the tree is cut down,” therefore, a branch, as translated in Is. xi. 1, and other places: “a branch shall grow out of his roots.” Scholars suggest that the reason of Nazareth being called by a name having this meaning was the exuberance of its foliage. However this may be, there was a fitness in the man who was to be known as the Branch of David, being brought up in a city having that idea in its name, however derived. It would in that case be one of the many correspondences with which divine ways and things abound as we have seen; and Christ’s transference to a place with such a name would be an incipient commencement of the fulfillment of the prediction that his name would be the Branch.
The second meaning would be found in the unfavorable impression conveyed to the popular mind in Matthew’s day, by a man being known as one brought up at Nazareth. This sense is expressed in the question put by Nathaniel when he heard that the Messiah had been found in Jesus of Nazareth: “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Nazareth was in poor repute; it was a despised place. To be a Nazarene was to be a despised man. Now this is what was “spoken by the prophets” that Jesus was to be—a man despised and rejected—a Nazarene in the sense attachable to the epithet at the time of Christ’s birth.
There is a third meaning for which there is something to be said, though its fitness is not so apparently complete as in the other two cases, viz., the possible correspondence of the name of Nazareth with the Nazarite law which prefigured Christ as much as all other parts of the law which have their “substance” in him. He was to be a separated and holy one unto God after the type of the Nazarite; and this general prophecy may have been taken as corresponding with the name of the city where he was to be brought up; or, indeed, as required by the law of correspondences already glanced at, that he should be brought up in a city so named. (From NR. p 46)