14. And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a 15 fame of him through all the region round about. And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all. 16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And, as his custom was, 17 he went into the synagogue on the sabbath-day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, 18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the 19 captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to 20 preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21, 22 And he began to say unto them, This day is the Scripture fulfilled in your ears. And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his 23 mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph’s son? And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard 24 done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. And he said, Verily I say unto you, 25 No prophet is accepted in his own country. But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six 26 months, when great famine was throughout all the land; but unto none of them was 27 Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian. 28 And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, 29 and rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill, 30 (whereon their city was built,) that they might cast him down headlong. But he, pass- ing through the midst of them, went his way.

CHRIST knew and confessed himself to be the promised Messiah of whom Moses wrote and the prophets; he claimed all the prerogatives and exercised all the functions of the Messiah; he read himself on every page of the book of God. And the wonderful harmony between the Christ of prophecy and the Christ of history has at all times justly been regarded as one of the strongest proofs of his divine character and mission. It is impossible to resolve this harmony into accident or to trace it to human divination. It is the exclusive privilege of the divine mind to foreknow the future and to reach the end from the beginning. P. S.

The text and introductory sentence of the first synagogue sermon of our Saviour alone remain; but how much do they reveal to us of the nature, the needfulness, the preciousness of those spiritual offices which our divine Redeemer came on earth to execute, and which he still stands waiting to discharge toward our sinful humanity! It was to a company of a few hundreds at the most that the words of Jesus were spoken in the synagogue at Nazareth; but that audience has multiplied to take in the whole family of mankind. To the men of every land in every age Jesus has been thus proclaiming what the great ends are of his mission to this earth. To open blinded eyes; to heal bruised and bleeding and broken hearts; to unlock the doors, and unloose the fetters of the imprisoned and the bound; to announce to the poor, the meek, the humble, that theirs is the kingdom of heaven; and to proclaim to all that this is the year of our Lord, the long year that takes in all the centuries down to his second coming, the year in every day and hour and moment of which our heavenly Father waits to forgive, receive, accept all contrite ones who come to him. Such, our Saviour tells us, is that great work of grace and power for whose accomplishment he has been anointed of the Father and replenished by the Spirit. H.

It is impossible to fix with certainty the chronological place of so interesting an incident as the preaching of Jesus, and his rejection, at Nazareth. G. P. F.

15,16. The synagogues, introduced into Israel after the Babylonian captivity as places of prayer, were seminaries of religious knowledge, and in the time of Jesus were not only found in Jerusalem, to the number of more than four hundred, but also in small cities. Van O.—The synagogue was simply a rectangular hall, with a pillared portico of Grecian architecture, of which the further extremity (where the “sanctuary” was placed) usually pointed toward Jerusalem. On entering there were seats on one side for the men; on the other, behind a lattice, were seated the women, shrouded in their long veils. At one end was the ark of painted wood, which contained the sacred scriptures; and at one side was the elevated seat for the reader or preacher. In the chief seats were the ten or more “men of leisure,” or leading elders; and preëminent among these the chief of the synagogue. After the prayers two lessons were always read, one from the law, and one from the prophets. F.

The Jewish doctors, to show their reverence for the Scriptures, always stood when they read them, but when they taught the people they sat down. Thus we find our Lord sitting down in the synagogue to preach, after he had read the passage in the prophet which he made the subject of his discourse. The custom of preaching from a text of Scripture seems to have derived its origin from the authority of this example. M.—I attended the Jewish worship at Jerusalem, and was struck with the accordance of the ceremonies with those mentioned in the New Testament. The sacred roll was brought from the chest or closet where it was kept; it was handed by an attendant to the reader; a portion of it was rehearsed; the congregation rose and stood while it was read, whereas the speaker, and all others present, sat during the delivery of the address which formed a part of the service. H. B. H.

18-20. He selects a passage announcing the sublime object of his whole mission, its divine character, and his special endowments for it; expressed in the first person, and so singularly adapted to the first opening of the mouth in his prophetic capacity, that it seems as if made expressly for this occasion. It is from the well-known section of Isaiah’s prophecies whose burden is that mysterious “servant of the Lord,” despised of man, abhorred of the nation, but before whom kings on seeing him are to arise, and princes to worship; in visage more marred than any man and his form than the sons of men, yet sprinkling many nations; laboring seemingly in vain, and spending his strength for naught and in vain, yet Jehovah’s servant to raise up the tribes of

Jacob and be his salvation to the ends of the earth. B.—It stands in the middle of the third great division of the book of Isaiah, that which comprises the prophecies of the person, office, sufferings, triumph, and church of the Messiah (chaps. 49 to 66), and thus by implication announces the fulfilment of all that went before, in him who then addressed them. A.—It was a Scripture universally understood to be descriptive of the coming Messiah, his office, and his work. Jesus gives no reason for appropriating and applying it to himself; he offers nothing in the shape of argument or evidence in favor of his being indeed the Christ, the Anointed of the Holy Ghost. He contents himself with the simple authoritative assertion of the fact. We have indeed but the first sentence given that he spoke on this occasion. What followed, however, we may well believe to have been an exposition of the passage read, as containing an account of the true character, ends, and objects of his mission as the Christ of God. H.

Our Lord most completely verified the words of the prophet, both in their literal and spiritual meaning. He preached the gospel to the poor in fortune, the poor in spirit, and the poor in religious knowledge. He healed the broken-hearted; he raised and comforted those that were oppressed with calamity, disease, and sin. He gave sight to the blind; to those that sat in darkness he disclosed at once the cheerful light of day, and the more glorious light of divine truth. To the captives, to them that were bruised, he preached deliverance: he preached a doctrine which not only released from spiritual bondage those that had been led captive by their sins, but diffused throughout the earth such a spirit of mercy and humanity, that the heavy chains of personal slavery were gradually broken in most parts of the Christian world; and they, that had been for so many ages bruised by the cruel hand of pagan masters, were at length set free. P.—The earliest chapters of the gospels show with what majestic fulness and dignity the Saviour rose to the height of this great commission. Jesus from the beginning stood a king over the souls of men, dispensing promises, scattering heavenly gifts, calming fears, satisfying the cravings of the heart, raising an invisible and deathless kingdom in the human spirit, and bearing himself as, at once, God and man. G.

22. Joseph’s son? This was no learned rabbi from the schools of Gamaliel or Shammai, and yet he spoke with an authority which not even the great scribes assumed! Even a Hillel, when his doctrines failed to persuade, could only secure conviction by appealing to the previous authority of a Shemaia or an Abtalion. But this teacher appealed to no one—this teacher who had but been their village carpenter! F.

23. Do also here.** The fundamental principles on which Christ acted forbade him to accept a challenge of this sort. He could do nothing for those who insisted on seeing in order to believe. Slaves to the outward seeming, and destitute of a spiritual sense, they would have been satisfied with nothing he might do; and he refused them with a rebuke that pointed to the ground of their offence and unbelief. N.—24. No prophet is accepted. His meaning is, Though I should work miracles among you, yet would you not believe me: for, so long as ye will judge of things by outward considerations, no conviction can be strong enough to conquer your unreasonable prejudices. S. C.—

25-27. Many widows . . . many lepers . . . were in Israel.** These instances are quoted by our Lord, in order to prove that they who are nearest to the means of grace are often least inclined to profit by them; on which account they are justly granted to others of a more humble and teachable disposition. The application to the people of Nazareth was so undeniable, that they were prepared to destroy him whom, just before, they had regarded with admiration. Mann.

28. What then?** Were they in his estimation (and he but “the carpenter!”) no better than Gentiles and lepers? This was the climax of all that was intolerable to them, as coming from a fellow-townsman. F.—This avowed preference of other places before the dwelling of his youth; this refusal to grant to Nazareth any share in the fame of his extraordinary works; and the reproof so obviously concealed in his words and conduct, mingled with other fanatical motives, wrought the whole assembly to a pitch of frenzy. H. M.

29. The hill whereon their city was built.** The village of Nazareth is situated in a little upland vale among the hills of Galilee, two miles from Esdraelon, and six west of Tabor. The vale is about a mile long, by a quarter broad, with irregular branches shooting out from it into wild glens. A girdle of rounded hill-tops encircles the vale. The hill on the north side overtops all the others. It has a steep declivity, and its lower slopes are seamed with three or four ravines, divided by precipitous ridges of naked rock. In these ravines, and on the shelving banks which run down from them into the vale, stand the houses of Nazareth. This is the “hill on which the city was built;” and there is more than one cliff along its side which would have suited the purposes of the fanatical population, in attempting to take the Saviour’s life. J. L. P. (See Section 12.)—Nazareth and Bethlehem have a similar population to-day. Each has about 3,000 inhabitants, each is largely Christian, and without Jews. J. G. B.

30. It is not meant that they were struck with blindness, that he became invisible, or that there was an external miracle. This is the very thing which the evangelist means to deny by passing through the midst. T.—Apart from anything supernatural, there seems to have been in the presence of Jesus a spell of majesty which even his most ruthless and hardened enemies acknowledged, and before which they involuntarily bowed. It was to this that he owed his escape when the maddened Jews in the temple took up stones to stone him; it was this that made the bold and bigoted officers of the Sanhedrim unable to arrest him as he taught in public during the feast of Tabernacles at Jerusalem; it was this that made the armed band of his enemies, at his mere look, fall before him to the ground in the garden of Gethsemane. Suddenly, quietly he asserted his freedom, waived aside his captors, and overawing them by his simple glance, passed through their midst unharmed. F.

16-30. It was the custom of the Jews to invite any eminent teacher who might come into their synagogues, to speak to the people. Here, having received the book from the reader, he applied to himself a prophecy which predicted the appearance of Christ. He stopped before he came to that clause which denounced threatening and vengeance to the Jews; and confined himself to the beautiful description of the benevolent character of the Messiah. Having applied the prophecy to himself he sat down. He refused to work a miracle among the people of Nazareth; he appeared to desire to show the world that his usefulness must be founded on holiness, as well as on his preaching and miracles. They had known him thirty years. Of his manner of life, of his character and conversation during that period, the evangelists are silent. The appeal of our Lord to the people of Nazareth, after living among them thirty years as a man, may account for their silence. No imperfection, no taint of sin, of weakness, or of folly, could be found through that whole period, to enable those among whom he would be in the least esteem, to invalidate his lofty claim to the rank of the Divine Being, whom their prophets had announced. G. T.

Section 26.—Dwells in Capernaum. Calls Four Fishermen. Draught of Fishes.