CRITICAL NOTES
Matthew 2:22. Archelaus.—Succeeded to Judæa, Samaria and Idumea, but Augustus refused him the title of king till it should be seen how he conducted himself, giving him only the title of Ethnarch. Above this, however, he never rose. The people, indeed, recognised him as his father’s successor; and so it is here said that he “reigned in the room of his father Herod.” But after ten years’ defiance of the Jewish law and cruel tyranny, the people lodged heavy complaints against him, and the Emperor banished him to Vienne in Gaul, reducing Judæa again to a Roman province. Then “the sceptre” clean “departed from Judah” (Brown). Galilee, where Antipas, brother of Archelaus, was ruling under the title of Tetrarch. He was a tyrant too, but not so savage as Archelaus (Morison).
Matthew 2:23. Nazareth.—Said to signify “the Protectress” (Heb. 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. 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.
1. Nazarene cannot = Nazarite: the word differs in form, and in no sense could Christ be called a Nazarite.
2. The quotation is probably not from a lost prophecy. One meaning of the word Nazorœus 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 Hebrew natsar, to save or protect, 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. 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” (see Smith’s Bib. Dict.); or:
2. He who is called “Notsri” (my protector) dwells at “Natsaret” (the protectress) (Carr).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Matthew 2:19-23
Settled obscurity.—The main idea of the last passage in comparison with the passage which preceded it was that of contrast. The main idea of the present passage in comparison with the last is that of continuation. Things are found to remain—things are meant to remain—notwithstanding some changes, very much as they were. What the infant Jesus was seen to become in the last story, He is seen to continue in this. We may see this exhibited:
1. In the circumstances of His return from Egypt.
2. In its immediate consequences.
3. In its final result.
I. In the circumstances of His return.—There is a clear correspondence between these—certain minor differences only excepted—and those of the previous flight. Take the differences first: Herod was alive on the former occasion. Not only is he now no longer alive, but the same is true also of all who had sought “the young Child’s life” (Matthew 2:20). The word “flee,” also, was used on the former occasion; the word “go” only on this—probably because the occasion was not an urgent one as before. Also, probably, for the same reason, we read nothing now of going “by night.” But, these exceptions excepted, all else is very much as before. The same kind of messenger or “angel”; the same sphere of appearance, in a vision or “dream”; the same kind and style of injunction; the same gracious vouchsafing of reasons in support of it; and the same ready and implicit obedience thereto, are found here as before (Matthew 2:19-21). In all respects the Child is to go back as it had previously come. With much care and clearness of injunction, there was nothing of the royal, in the first of these cases. There is neither less nor more, in either respect, in this last.
II. In the immediate consequences of this return.—
1. On their negative side.—The direct route from Egypt to “the land of Israel” (Matthew 2:21), would bring Joseph and his charges first to the territory of “Judæa” (Matthew 2:22). Possibly, also, there were other reasons which would bring Joseph there first. He might naturally think of going back first to the exact locality he had left. He was connected with it, as we know (Luke 2:4), by his ancestry. Also by the way in which the story of Jesus had been connected with it so far. He might even be thinking, for the same reasons, of making that place his abode. If such were his intentions, they seem to account exactly for what we read of him next, viz. that “when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judæa in the room of his father Herod (Matthew 2:22), he was afraid to go thither.” He was afraid to do, that is to say, (so it seems to mean), what he had thought of doing before. Anyway we find that he was checked in this way from taking a step which would have had (if taken) a certain kind of kingly appearance about it. Going back to “Bethlehem” with its many associations, might not have amounted to much in the then lowly estate of the house of David; but it might also have looked like a tacit assertion of the royalty of their rights. Even so much as this, therefore, at that time, was not to be done.
2. On their positive side.—When thus checked, Joseph, of course, would be in some doubt. If not “thither,” then “whither”? So he would ask. We know that he had connections in Galilee; as also that it was from Galilee, some time before, that he had come up to Bethlehem to be taxed (Luke 2:4). Also we know from other sources (Jos., Ant., XVII. viii. 1), that Galilee was not included in the jurisdiction of this son of Herod—a man already distinguished for his cruelty (ibid., ix. 3)—but in that of his brother Antipas. If these things led Joseph, of themselves (as seems not improbable) to think of going to Galilee, the idea was confirmed—or may have been altogether suggested—by a fourth communication from heaven. “Being warned of God in a dream, he withdrew into the parts of Galilee,” into that despised province, that is to say, that obscure locality, where he would be almost as much of an exile, and quite as far from anything kingly, as in Egypt itself. So directly did God thus order again, that Jesus should still be as He was.
III. The final result.—There is an air—
1. Of great deliberation in what we read about this. “He came and dwelt”—he took up his abode—he settled down—in that part of the world. He did so also—it is further noted—“in a city called Nazareth;” as though to bid us observe that he did so, notwithstanding its name; notwithstanding the well-known ill repute of its name (cf. John 1:46). For all this the Evangelist would have us observe that this was the place which he “chose”—so far, but so far only, like him we read of in Genesis 13:11. There is an air—
2. Of even greater deliberation in what accompanies this. To “dwell” in such a city—to be brought up in such a city—would either mean no distinction at all, or else distinction of a most unenviable description. Yet this, we are reminded, is just what God Himself had planned of old about the Messiah. The prophets had foretold in many places that He was to bear a name of special reproach. It was the fulfilment of such passages that God had in view in the choice of this place. He meant Jesus of Bethlehem not to be known as such, but as “Jesus of Nazareth” among men. He meant David’s Son—for a time at any rate—to be lost in the crowd. He meant to continue, in a word, what He had begun to indicate, when He bade Joseph take that infant King, and “flee” for His life!
From the passage thus considered we see:
1. How deliberate sometimes are God’s ways.—As with Moses who was forty years in the wilderness (Acts 7:30) before being sent to effect the deliverance of Israel; as with John the Baptist (Luke 1:80), so with that Greater than either whom we are told about here. He is purposely sent into, and left in obscurity for nearly thirty years of His life—nearly a “generation” in fact (Luke 3:23). The sudden blaze of Luke 2:46-47, only makes this the more strange. How was it that One who could speak so well on that occasion was afterwards in silence so long?
2. How significant they are here.—When we see a lamp of great brilliancy lit and rejoiced in, and then immediately taken down and hid “under a bushel,” and afterwards kept there, though still unseen, with sedulous care, what do we expect if the master of the house is one who knows what he does? Evidently, that he has some great purpose in view! Most probably, also, that that purpose is of too profound a nature to be understood by us yet!
HOMILIES ON THE VERSES
Matthew 2:19. Joseph.—
I. A pattern of self-abnegating submission.
II. An example of its rewards.—The angel ever comes again to those who have once obeyed and continue to wait.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Matthew 2:22. Joseph’s new fear.—
1. No wonder the children of wicked parents are suspected till their regeneration appear. Joseph fears lest Archelaus should be father-like or father-worse.
2. When God will comfort a man He removeth one doubt as well as another. Cf. chap. Matthew 1:20. The Lord’s warrant and clear direction doth quiet the mind.—David Dickson.
Matthew 2:23. The prophets mission.—The prophets are not primarily poets; poetry is not their professional office: they only happen by the way to be poetically gifted; they have another function to the purposes and uses of which they bend all their imaginative gifts.
I. They are intensely and supremely practical.—They have practical ends to serve, practical objects to achieve; they are statesmen directing, controlling the natural mind to political issues; they are furthering alliances, carrying out policies, making history.
II. They are preachers.—Aiming at the conscience rather than the imagination, claiming the will rather than the emotions.
III. They have an official commission to fulfil to which all their poetical capacities are directed—not merely exercising the gift of genius of singling out the truth implanted in them by God, that is the high mission of every poet; but a formal and certified commission to convey orders, to declare a Divine message, to promote a definite, deliberate counsel of God, to point forward to a certified and warranted goal of national history.—Canon Scott-Holland.
Prophecy.—What are the conditions and assumptions which are involved in prophecy?
I. It assumes one God, enduring, unchanging, supreme, who inhabiteth eternity.
II. The one God is holy.—He has a fixed spiritual character which constitutes His unity—a character which is consistent and true and rational, working by definite vital principles, a character of deliberate purpose, of certified aim, not wilfully wayward, not incalculably uncertain, but firm—loving for ever what He has once loved, and hating for ever what He has once hated.
III. He is a God who reveals Himself to man.—This revelation of Himself must be adapted to the measure of man’s capacity; it must be progressive, educational, disciplinary. The “I am” can but gradually reveal what it will be, and yet all that it will reveal itself to be will be only an unveiling of the eternal “I am.” And history is the medium of this unveiling.
IV. A specialised history.—God’s purpose is definite and real; it cannot remain vague, primeval, tentative, and diffused. It must disentangle itself, sharpen its outlines, shape its materials, push its way forward.
V. As the mind of God opens it points more and more to a fixed fulfilment.—Ibid.
Jesus at Nazareth.—Equally rich was the present life on which the eyes of the boy Jesus looked out. Across Esdraelon, opposite to Nazareth, there emerged from the Samarian hills the road from Jerusalem, thronged annually with pilgrims, and the road from Egypt with its merchants going up and down. The Midianite caravans could be watched for miles coming up from the fords of Jordan; and the caravans from Damascus wound round the foot of the hill on which Nazareth stands. Or if the village boys climbed the northern edge of their home, there was another road almost within sight, where the companies were still more brilliant—that direct highway between Acre and the Decapolis, along which legions marched, and princes swept with their retinues, and all sorts of travellers from all countries went to and fro. The Roman ranks, the Roman eagles, the wealth of noblemen’s litters and equipages cannot have been strange to the eyes of the boys of Nazareth, especially after their twelfth year, when they went up to Jerusalem, or with their fathers visited famous Rabbis, who came down from Jerusalem, peripatetic among the provinces. Nor can it have been the eye only which was stirred. For all the rumour of the Empire entered Palestine close to Nazareth—the news from Rome about the Emperor’s health, about the changing influence of the great statesmen, about the prospects at court of Herod, or of the Jews, about Cæsar’s last order concerning the tribute, or whether the policy of the procurator would be sustained. Many Galilæan families must have had relatives in Rome; Jews would come back to this countryside to tell of the life of the world’s capital. Moreover, the scandals of the Herods buzzed up and down these roads; pedlars carried them, and the peripatetic Rabbis would moralise upon them. And the customs, too, of the neighbouring Gentiles—their loose living, their sensuous worship, their absorption in business, the hopelessness of the inscriptions on their tombs, multitudes of which were readable (and some are still) on the roads round Galilee—all this would furnish endless talk in Nazareth, both among men and boys. Here, then, He grew up and suffered temptation, who was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. The perfect example of His purity and patience was achieved—not easily as behind a wide fence which shut the world out—but amid rumour and scandal and every provocation to unlawful curiosity and premature ambition. A vision of all the kingdoms of the world was as possible from Nazareth as from the Mount of Temptation. The pressure and problems of the world outside God’s people must have been felt by the youth of Nazareth as by few others; yet the scenes of prophetic missions to it—Elijah’s and Elisha’s—were also within sight. But the chief lesson which Nazareth has for us is the possibility of a pure home and a spotless youth in the very face of the evil world.—Professor G. A. Smith in Expositor.