Questions in Connection with “the Nazarene”

Originally posted on December 29, 2009 – by Andre Piet

In Brief

In response to last Sunday’s study, a few questions came in, which I would like to address briefly here. The crux of the study was that the name “Nazarene” is based on the word of the prophets (Matt. 2:23) and derived from Isaiah 11:1, where it speaks of the felled trunk of Jesse from which a sprout (Hebrew: netser) would come forth that would bear fruit. A netser (> Nazarene) is a descendant of Jesse and David. When Judea got a heathen royal house, David’s descendants may have moved to northern Galilee, and the small settlement that arose came to be called Nazareth (after its inhabitants). Both Mary and Joseph, who came from very different branches of the family, could trace their genealogy back to David. With all this, the name “Nazarene” was a prophetically charged name because it was synonymous with “a branch from David’s line.”
So much, briefly, for the content of the study.

question 1. Does Matthew 2:23 not refer to an oral tradition of the prophets? Does it not say: “spoken through the prophets”?

It is true that this expression could possibly refer to oral traditions. This unmistakably seems to be the case in Matthew 27:9. But one certainly cannot conclude that in advance from such a generally occurring idiom. Thus we read in John 1:23: “… according as Isaiah the prophet said,” when referring to Isaiah 40:3. See also “… does not the scripture say” (John 7:42); “the scripture is saying…” (1 Tim. 5:18); “David is saying” (Rom. 11:9); etc.

Question 2. How can Matthew 2:23 be traced back to one prophecy (Isa. 11:1) if it explicitly says that it was spoken “through the prophets”? Plural, then.

Although Matthew 2:23 refers directly to the “sprout” (netser) in Isaiah 11:1, the word “Branch” (tsemach), which is related in meaning, is used for the Messiah by both Jeremiah (23:5; 33:15) and Zechariah (3:8; 6:12).
In the second place, “the prophets” can also refer to a part of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). Thus Paul says in Acts 13:40, when quoting one text (Hab. 1:5): “Beware, then, lest that which is declared in the prophets may be coming on you…”

Question 3. If the name “Nazarene” is prophetic, how then could Nathanael say, “Can anything good be from Nazareth?” (John 1:47)

Probably Nathanael’s suspicion was the same as what we later find in that same Gospel of John.

… yet others said, “The Christ is not coming out of Galilee! Does not the scripture say that the Christ is coming from the seed of David and from Bethlehem, the village where David was?” (…)
Search and see that out of Galilee a prophet is not being roused.
John 7:41,42, 52

Nathanael heard that Jesus came “from Nazareth” and therefore, to him, He did not fit the profile of the promised Messiah. The Messiah (“anything good”) would come from Bethlehem, not from Nazareth. Nathanael did not know of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem and on that basis drew the wrong conclusion.

See also the article:
Nazirite, Nazorean & Nazarene

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