Responding to Dick Harfield on Matthew 2:23

QUESTION TO DICK HARFIELD: Who is the prophet referred to in Matthew?

DICK HARFIELD'S RESPONSE: Matthew 2:23 refers to a prophet whose identity has long puzzled scholars because there is nothing in the Old Testament or even the Apocrypha that mentions a Nazarene. One popular suggestion is from Judges 13:5, where it says of Samson, "the child shall be a Nazirite." However, Matthew does not say ‘Nazirite ’, and the word has no known link to the town of Nazareth; moreover, Jesus was not a Nazirite and is never described as one. Some believe Isaiah 60:21-22 was the prophecy of which Matthew wrote, because the Hebrew for a small twig is netzer — presumably close enough to be a prophecy that Jesus would be called a Nazarene, but not very plausible.

I believe the real reason is closer to home, as you can read in The Mystery of the Nazarenes. We now know that Matthew’s Gospel was substantially based on Mark’s Gospel, the Greek manuscripts of which always refer to Jesus the Nazarene, never Jesus of Nazareth. 

The four New Testament gospels were all originally anonymous, so the author of Matthew did not know who wrote Mark, nor how ancient it was. Out of respect — after all, he felt Mark so sacred that he was using it as his own source — he refers to its author as a ‘prophet’. The “prophet” was the author of Mark’s Gospel.

MY RESPONSE: Any Jew, therefore, who lived in the territory of Archelaus was in danger. Consequently, Joseph was again warned by God in a dream, [and] he departed for the regions of Galilee. That they came and resided in a city called Nazareth was not only because Joseph and Mary were originally from there (Luke 2:4–5) by divine providence, but that what was spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled. Matthew focuses on two features throughout this narrative: 

(1) divine revelation as indicated by angelic instruction for every move, and 

(2) the fulfilment of a divine plan revealed in the Old Testament.

The specific statement that the Messiah would be called a Nazarene does not appear in the Old Testament. Some interpreters have tried to connect Nazarene with the Hebrew nēser (branch) spoken of in Isaiah 11:1, but that idea is without etymological or other support, as is the idea of trying to tie the prophecy to the “shoot” of Isaiah 53:2. 

Because Matthew speaks of the prophets, plural, it seems that several prophets had made this prediction, though it is not specifically recorded in the Old Testament.

Other sayings and events unrecorded in the Old Testament are nevertheless quoted or referred to in the New. Jude tells us that “Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, ‘Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way’ ” (Jude 14–15). 

Yet no such prophecy is mentioned in Genesis or in any other part of the Old Testament. In a similar way, we know of Jesus’ teaching that “It is more blessed to give than to receive” only because of Paul’s later reference to it (Acts 20:35). The saying is not mentioned by any of the gospel writers, including Luke, who reported the account in Acts. John tells us that he did not even attempt to record everything that Jesus said and did during His earthly ministry (John 21:25).

Matthew does not tell us which prophets predicted that the Messiah would be called a Nazarene, but only that more than one of them did so. 

The prophecy is said to be fulfilled when Jesus was taken to live in Nazareth, where Joseph and Mary had formerly lived. Matthew’s original readers were largely Jewish, and it was probably common knowledge among them who the specific prophets were that had made the prediction. For later readers, the Holy Spirit obviously felt it was enough that we simply know that the prediction was made and that it was fulfilled, as Matthew explains.