WEEKLY BIBLE COMMENTARY 7-22

By Wes Woodard

Matthew 2 – “Joseph Moves to Nazareth”

“Now when King Herod had died an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, …. Take the Child and His mother and go back to the Land of Israel. But when Joseph heard Herod’s son was ruling in Judea he was afraid to go there. Being warned in a dream he left and moved north to Galilee and resided in the town of Nazareth.”  Galilee was where the uneducated Jews lived. Nazareth had Roman soldiers stationed in it! This was an area and town despised by the educated Jewish religious leaders.  When Jesus began His ministry at age 30, the religious leaders assumed he was born in Nazareth since He had been raised there.  This was a major error!