A city in the story of God
Nazareth
Nazareth was an obscure Galilean village so unremarkable that a future disciple asked whether any good thing could come out of it. Yet this is the town where Jesus grew up, and where He was first rejected.
“And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.”Matthew 2:23
The city in Scripture
The city in Scripture. Nazareth was a small village in the hills of lower Galilee, not mentioned in the Old Testament and seemingly of little account in its day. It was the home of Joseph and Mary, where the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would bear the Son of God (Luke 1:26-33). After the flight to Egypt, the family returned and settled there, so that Jesus was called a Nazarene (Matt 2:23), and He spent about thirty hidden years in the town before His public ministry. Nathanael voiced the common scorn: Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? (John 1:46). When Jesus later stood in the Nazareth synagogue and read from Isaiah, declaring the Scripture fulfilled, His neighbors were offended, saying, Is not this the carpenter's son? (Matt 13:55). Luke records that they rose up and thrust Him out of the city, and led Him to the brow of the hill to cast Him down, but He passed through their midst (Luke 4:28-30). He marveled at their unbelief and did few mighty works there (Mark 6:5-6). The village that raised Him could not receive Him.
What it came to mean
What it came to mean. Nazareth came to mean lowliness and hiddenness, the ordinary place God chose for His Son's growing years. There is no record of miracles in those decades, only a boy who increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man (Luke 2:52), learning a trade, keeping the feasts, living an unremarkable human life. Nazareth teaches that most of a faithful life is hidden, and that God is at work in the years no one records. It also came to stand for a deeper truth, that the world despises what God honors. Nathanael's question, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth, exposes how the kingdom overturns human estimates of worth. The Messiah did not come from the capital or the palace but from a village people mocked. For all who feel unseen and unimportant, Nazareth is a witness that God's favor rests where the world would never look, and that hidden faithfulness is never wasted.
How it points to Christ
How it points to Christ. Nazareth points to Christ by showing the humility of the incarnation. He who was rich became poor (2 Cor 8:9), and part of that poverty was to be from a scorned town, known as Jesus of Nazareth (John 19:19), the name written on His cross. His own received him not (John 1:11), and Nazareth was the first to show it, rejecting Him in the synagogue where He had worshipped as a boy. In that synagogue He read Isaiah's words, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, and said, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears (Luke 4:18-21). The despised town held the anointed Servant. His neighbors saw only the carpenter's son and missed the Son of God. Nazareth reminds us that Christ is easily overlooked by the familiar and the proud, and received only by those willing to believe what their eyes would not have guessed.
Questions people ask
Why did people look down on Nazareth?
It was a small, obscure Galilean village not mentioned in the Old Testament and of little regard. Nathanael's question in John 1:46 reflects a common assumption that nothing important came from it.
Why did Nazareth reject Jesus?
Luke 4 records that His neighbors were offended because they knew Him only as the carpenter's son, and His words about God's grace reaching outsiders angered them, so that they tried to cast Him from a hill.
Is Nazareth in the Old Testament?
No, Nazareth is not named in the Old Testament. Matthew 2:23 connects His being called a Nazarene to the prophets in a broader sense, which scholars discuss in various ways.