And when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth.
And when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord they returned into Galilee And when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth. Are we to conclude from this that the parents of Jesus went straight back to Nazareth from these temple scenes, and that the visit of the Magi, the flight into Egypt, and the return thence, recorded by Matthew (Matthew 2:1-23), all took place before the presentation of the Babe in the temple? So some think, but in our judgment very unnaturally. To us it seems far more natural to suppose that the presentation in the temple took place during the residence of the parents at Bethlehem, where they appear at first to have thought it their duty henceforth to reside (see the note at Matthew 2:22). In this case all that is recorded by Luke in the preceding verses was over before the Magi arrived in Jerusalem. Nor is there any difficulty in Luke's saying here, that "when they had performed all they returned to Galilee." If, indeed, we had no account of any intermediate transactions, we should of course conclude that they went straight from Jerusalem to Nazareth. But if we have reason to believe that the whole transactions of Matthew 2:1-23 occurred in the interval, we have only to conclude that our Evangelist, having no information to communicate to his readers between those events, just passes them by. A precisely similar, and at least equally important, omission by Matthew himself occurs at Luke 4:12 (on which see note).