Matthew 2:23, “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.”
Isaiah 11:1 . And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:
Now here in the Bible do we have a prophet or prophets saying that the Messiah would be born in Nazareth and that he would be called a Nazarene. I really do not find this anywhere in Scripture. Yet, even today Jesus is referred to as the Nazarene. In fact in the Middle East today Christians in Muslim communities are called the followers of the Nazarene and are identified by the Arabic letter Nun which looks like a u with a dot over it.
The name for the town of Nazareth may have come from the Semitic root nzr which means to keep watch, or to protect. There are some who claim that this may have been the home of a particular Jewish sect called the Nazarites who took on a vow to live a life of separation as nzr also means to consecrate and make separate. They would not cut their hair or drink wine. Some feel that Jesus Himself was a Nazarite which could be. There are a lot of uncertainties here. But one thing is for certain, the Hebrew Bible makes no mention of the town of Nazareth or that the Messiah would be a Nazarene. Or does it?
The Pershitta or Aramaic Bible shows something very curious that you would not pick up on in your Greek New Testament. The Aramaic word for Nazarite is spelled Nun, Tsade, and Resh, where the Hebrew word for Nazarite is spelled Nun, Zayin, and Resh. There appears to be a Semitic play on words here as the Tsade and the Zayin both make a z sound. We distinguish between the two by showing the Tsade as a ts and the Zayin as a z.
The Hebrew verb nazar means to take a vow or to consecrate. Examples of a Nazarite in the Old Testament would be Samuel and Samson. Today in the Assyrian Church the order of the Nazarites is preserved. Such individuals will not cut their hair, marry or use alcohol. Yet, there are many who do not take a Nazarite vow in that culture, yet they will still seek to live a separated life. Such individuals are called a Nazarene as an Aramaic figure of speech.
It is possible the writer of the Gospel meant this as a figure of speech playing on the Hebrew word nazar, that Jesus lived a consecrated life and was called a Nazarene, not only because he came for Nazareth but that he lived a nazar life.
Still, that does not answer the question as to where in Scripture does it say that the prophets would say the Messiah was from Nazareth and would be called a Nazarene. The town of Nazareth really did not exist during the time of the prophets. It is not mentioned in the Old Testament, the Talmud makes no reference to it in the 63 towns of Galilee that it mentions. Josephus mentions 45 cities of Galilee and none are called Nazareth. No trade routes ran through the city so it was isolated which brought about the saying, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Archaeologist have uncovered evidence of a town in the area but have no idea when it started to be called Nazareth.
What is very likely is that the writer of Matthew was making a Semitic play on the word ntsr. The ancient Persians used the word ntsr to express the idea of a green plant. The Aramaic word ntsr with the Sade means a branch.
Even the Talmud in Sanhedrin 43a recognizes Isaiah 11:1 as a prophecy of the Messiah and renders the word ntsr as a branch. In other words the writer was making a play on the word and the use of the Sade in Aramaic and the Zayin in Hebrew to express two thoughts. One is that Jesus was the ntsr spoken of in Isaiah 11:1 and that he also came from the town of nzr. That he was also one who was consecrated for a special task.
I mean it would make perfect sense to the Semitic people of the first century, but it leaves the Western twenty first century people scratching their heads wondering, “Say what?”
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