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Chapter 10 | Table
of Contents | Chapter 12
The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah
Alfred Edersheim
1883
Book III
THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
TRANSFIGURATION
Chapter 11
THE FIRST GALILEAN MINISTRY.
(St. Matthew 4:13-17; St. Mark 1:14,15; St.
Luke 4:15-32.)
The visit to Nazareth was in many respects decisive. It
presented by anticipation an epitome of the history of the Christ. He came to
His own, and His own received Him not. The first time He taught in the
Synagogue, as the first time He taught in the Temple, they cast Him out. On the
one and the other occasion, they questioned His authority, and they asked for a
'sign.' In both instances, the power which they challenged was, indeed, claimed
by Christ, but its display, in the manner which they expected, refused. The
analogy seems to extend even farther - and if a misrepresentation of what Jesus
had said when purifying the Temple formed the ground of the final false charge
against Him,1
the taunt of the Nazarenes: 'Physician, heal thyself!' found an echo in the
mocking cry, as He hung on the Cross: 'He saved others, Himself He cannot
save.'2
1. St. Matt. xxvi. 60, 61.
2. St. Matt. xxvi. 40-42.
It is difficult to understand how, either on historical
grounds, or after study of the character of Christ, the idea could have arisen3
that Jesus had offered, or that He had claimed, to teach on that Sabbath in the
Synagogue of Nazareth. Had He attempted what, alike in spirit and form, was so
contrary to all Jewish notions, the whole character of the act would have been
changed. As it was, the contrast with those by whom He was surrounded is almost
as striking, as the part which He bore in the scene. We take it for granted,
that what had so lately taken place in Cana, at only four miles' distance, or,
to speak more accurately, in Capernaum, had become known in Nazareth. It raised
to the highest pitch of expectancy the interest and curiosity previously
awakened by the reports, which the Galileans had brought from Jerusalem, and by
the general fame which had spread about Jesus. They were not to test, whether their
countryman would be equal to the occasion, and do in His own city what they had
heard had been done for Capernaum. To any ordinary man the return to Nazareth
in such circumstances must have been an ordeal. Not so to the Christ, Who, in
utter self-forgetfulness, had only this one aim of life - to do the Will of Him
that sent Him. And so His bearing that day in the Synagogue is itself evidence,
that while in, He was not of, that time.
3. And yet most commentators - following, I suppose, the lead of Meyer - hold
that Christ had 'stood up' in the sense of offering or claiming to read.
Realising the scene on such occasions, we mark the contrast. As
there could be no un-Jewish forwardness on the part of Jesus, so, assuredly,
would there be none of that mock-humility of reluctance to officiate, in which
Rabbinism delighted. If, as in the circumstances seems likely, Jesus commenced
the first part of the service, and then pronounced before the 'Ark' those
Eulogies which were regarded as, in the strictest sense, the prayer (Tephillah),
we can imagine - though we can scarcely realise - the reverent solemnity, which
would seem to give a new meaning to each well-remembered sentence. And in His
mouth it all had a new meaning. We cannot know what, if any, petitions
He inserted, though we can imagine what their spirit would have been. And now,
one by one, Priest, Levite, and, in succession, five Israelites, had read from
the Law. There is no reason to disturb the almost traditional idea, that Jesus
Himself read the concluding portion from the Prophets, or the so-called Haphtarah.
The whole narrative seems to imply this. Similarly, it is most likely that the Haphtarah
for that day was taken from the prophecies of Isaiah,4
and that it included the passage5
quoted by the Evangelist as read by the Lord Jesus.6
We know that the 'rolls' on which the Law was written were distinct from those
of the Prophets;7
and every probability points to it, that those of the Prophets, at least the
Greater, were also written on separate scrolls. In this instance we are
expressly told, that the minister 'delivered unto Him the book of the prophet
Esaias,' we doubt not, for the Haphtarah,8
and that, 'when He had unrolled the book,' He 'found' the place from which the
Evangelist makes quotation.
4. Although we cannot feel quite sure of this.
5. Is. lxi. 1, 2.
6. St. Luke iv. 18, 19.
7. Baba B. 13 b.
8. I infer this from the fact, that the Book of the Prophet Isaiah was given
to Him by the Minister of the Synagogue. Since the time of Bengel it has been a kind of traditional idea that, if this was the Haphtarah for the
day, the sermon of Christ in Nazareth must have taken place on the Day of
Atonement, for which in the modern Jewish lectionary Is. lviii. 6 forms part of the Haphtarah. There are, however, two objections to this view: 1. Our
modern lectionary of Haphtarahs is certainly not the same as that in the time of Christ. 2. Even in our modern lectionary, Is. lxi. 1, 2 forms no
part of the Haphtarah, either for the Day of Atonement, nor for any
other Sabbath or festive day. In the modern lectionary Is. lvii. 14 to Is.
lviii. 14 is the Haphtarah for the Day of Atonement.
When unrolling, and holding the scroll, much more than the
sixty-first chapter of Isaiah must have been within range of His eyes. On the
other hand, it is quite certain that the verses quoted by the Evangelist could
not have formed the whole Haphtarah. According to traditional rule,9
the Haphtarah ordinarily consisted of not less than twenty-one verses,10
though, if the passage was to be 'targumed,' or a sermon to follow, that number
might be shortened to seven, five, or even three verses. Now the passage quoted
by St. Luke consists really of only one verse (Is. lxi. 1), together with a
clause from Is. lviii. 6,11
and the first clause of Is. lxi. 2. This could scarcely have formed the whole Haphtarah.
There are other reasons also against this supposition. No doubt Jesus read
alike the Haphtarah and the text of His discourse in Hebrew, and then
'targumed' or translated it: while St. Luke, as might be expected, quotes (with
but two trifling alterations12)
from the rendering of the LXX. But, on investigation, it appears that one
clause is omitted from Is. lxi. 1,13
and that between the close of Is. lxi. 1 and the clause of verse 2, which is
added, a clause is inserted from the LXX. of Is. lviii. 6.14
This could scarcely have been done in reading the Haphtarah. But, if as
we suppose, the passages quoted formed the introductory text of Christ's
discourse, such quotation and combination were not only in accordance with Jewish
custom, but formed part of the favourite mode of teaching - the Charaz -
or stringing, like pearls, passage to passage, illustrative of each other.15
In the present instance, the portion of the scroll which Jesus unrolled may
have exhibited in close proximity the two passages which formed the
introductory text (the so-called Pethichah). But this is of
comparatively small interest, since both the omission of a clause from Is. lxi.
1, and the insertion of another adapted from Is. lviii. 6, were evidently
intentional. It might be presumptuous to attempt stating the reasons which may
have influenced the Saviour in this, and yet some of them will instinctively
occur to every thoughtful reader.
9. Massech. Soph. xii. 7.
10. This symbolically: 7 x 3, since each of the seven readers in the Law had to read at least three verses.
11. 'To set at liberty those that are bruised.' The words are taken, with but a slight necessary alteration in the verb, from the LXX. rendering of Is. lviii. 6. The clause from Is. lxi. 2 is: 'To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.'
12. Preaching instead of proclaiming, in Is. lxi. 2, and in the form of the verb in the clause from Is. lviii. 6. Besides, the insertion of the clause: 'to heal
the broken-hearted,' is spurious.
13. All the best MSS. omit the words, 'To heal the broken-hearted.'
14. See above, Note 2.
15. See the remarks on this point in the previous chapter. If I rightly understand the
somewhat obscure language of Surenhusius (Biblos Katallages, pp.
339-345), such is also the view of that learned writer. This peculiarly Jewish method of Scriptural quotation by 'stringing together' is employed by St. Paul in Rom. iii. 10-18.
It was, indeed, Divine 'wisdom' - 'the Spirit of the Lord' upon
Him, which directed Jesus in the choice of such a text for His first Messianic
Sermon. It struck the key-note to the whole of His Galilean ministry. The
ancient Synagogue regarded Is. lxi. 1, 2, as one of the three passages,16
in which mention of the Holy Ghost was connected with the promised redemption.17
In this view, the application which the passage received in the discourse of
our Lord was peculiarly suitable. For the words in which St. Luke reports what
followed the Pethichah, or introductory text, seem rather a summary,
than either the introduction or part of the discourse of Christ. 'This day is
this Scripture fulfilled in your ears.' A summary this, which may well serve to
guide in all preaching. As regards its form, it would be: so to present the teaching
of Holy Scripture, as that it can be drawn together in the focus of one
sentence; as regards its substance, that this be the one focus: all Scripture
fulfilled by a present Christ. And this - in the Gospel which He bears to the
poor, the release which He announces to the captives, the healing which He
offers to those whom sin had blinded, and the freedom He brings to them who
were bruised; and all as the trumpet-blast of God's Jubilee into His world of
misery, sin, and want! A year thus begun would be glorious indeed in the
blessings it gave.
16. The other two being Is. xxxii. 14, 15, and Lament. iii. 50.
17. See the Appendix on the Messianic passages.
There was not a word in all this of what common Jewish
expectancy would have connected with, nay, chiefly accentuated in an
announcement of the Messianic redemption; not a word to raise carnal hopes, or
flatter Jewish pride. Truly, it was the most un-Jewish discourse for a Jewish
Messiah of those days, with which to open His Ministry. And yet such was the
power of these 'words of grace.' that the hearers hung spell-bound upon them.
Every eye was fastened on Him with hungry eagerness. For the time they forgot
all else - Who it was that addressed them, even the strangeness of the message,
so unspeakably in contrast to any preaching of Rabbi or Teacher that had been
heard in that Synagogue. Indeed, one can scarcely conceive the impression which
the Words of Christ must have produced, when promise and fulfilment, hope and
reality, mingled, and wants of the heart, hitherto unrealised, were wakened,
only to be more than satisfied. It was another sphere, another life. Truly, the
anointing of the Holy Ghost was on the Preacher, from Whose lips dropped these
'words of grace.' And if such was the announcement of the Year of God's
Jubilee, what blessings must it bear in its bosom!
The discourse had been spoken, and the breathless silence with
which, even according to Jewish custom, it had been listed to,18
gave place to the usual after-sermon hum of an Eastern Synagogue. On one point
all were agreed: that they were marvellous words of grace, which had proceeded
out of His mouth. And still the Preacher waited, with deep longing of soul, for
some question, which would have marked the spiritual application of what He had
spoken. Such deep longing of soul is kindred to, and passes into almost
sternness, just because he who so longs is so intensely in earnest, in the
conviction of the reality of his message. It was so with Jesus in Nazareth.
They were indeed making application of the Sermon to the Preacher, but in quite
different manner from that to which His discourse had pointed. It was not the
fulfilment of the Scripture in Him, but the circumstance, that such an one as
the Son of Joseph, their village carpenter, should have spoken such words, that
attracted their attention. Not, as we take it, in a malevolent spirit, but
altogether unspiritually, as regarded the effect of Christ's words, did one and
another, here and there, express wonderment to his neighbour.
18. See the previous chapter. It was the universal rule to listen to the sermon in perfect silence (Pes. 110 a; Moed K. a). The questions and objections commenced afterwards.
They had heard, and now they would fain have seen.
But already the holy indignation of Him, Whom they only knew as Joseph's son,
was kindled. The turn of matters; their very admiration and expectation; their
vulgar, unspiritual comments: it was all so entirely contrary to the Character,
the Mission, and the Words of Jesus. No doubt they would next expect, that here
in His own city, and all the more because it was such, He would do what they
had heard had taken place in Capernaum. It was the world-old saying, as false,
except to the ear, and as speciously popular as most such sayings: 'Charity
begins at home' - or, according to the Jewish proverb, and in application to
the special circumstances: 'Physician, heal thyself.'19
Whereas, if there is any meaning in truth and principle; if there was any
meaning and reality in Christ's Mission, and in the discourse He had just
spoken, Charity does not begin at home; and 'Physician, heal thyself' is
not of the Gospel for the poor, nor yet the preaching of God's Jubilee, but
that of the Devil, whose works Jesus had come to destroy. How could He, in His
holy abhorrence and indignation, say this better than by again repeating,
though now with different application, that sad experience, 'No prophet is
accepted in his own country,' which He could have hoped was for ever behind
Him;20 and by
pointing to those two Old Testament instances of it, whose names and authority
were most frequently on Jewish lips? Not they who were 'their own,' but they
who were most receptive in faith - not Israel, but Gentiles, were those most
markedly favoured in the ministry of Elijah and of Elisha.21
19. The proverb really is: 'Physician, heal thine own lameness' (Ber. R. 23, ed. Warsh. p. 45 b).
20. St. John iv. 44.
21. The statement that the famine in the time of Elijah lasted three and a half years is in accordance with universal Jewish tradition. Comp. Yalkut on 1 Kings xvi., vol. ii. p. 32 b.
As we read the report of Jesus' words, we perceive only dimly
that aspect of them which stirred the wrath of His hearers to the utmost, and
yet we do understand it. That He should have turned so fully the light upon the
Gentiles, and flung its large shadows upon them; that 'Joseph's Son' should
have taken up this position towards them; that He would make to them spiritual
application unto death of His sermon, since they would not make it unto life:
it stung them to the quick. Away He must out of His city; it could not bear His
Presence any longer, not even on that holy Sabbath. Out they thrust Him from
the Synagogue; forth they pressed Him out of the city; on they followed, and
around they beset Him along the road by the brow of the hill on which the city
is built - perhaps to that western angle, at present pointed out as the site.22
This, with the unspoken intention of crowding Him over the cliff,23
which there rises abruptly about forty feet out of the valley beneath.24
If we are correct in indicating the locality, the road here bifurcates,25
and we can conceive how Jesus, Who had hitherto, in the silence of sadness,
allowed Himself almost mechanically to be pressed onwards by the surrounding
crowd, now turned, and by that look of commanding majesty, the forthbreaking of
His Divine Being, which ever and again wrought on those around miracles of
subjection, constrained them to halt and give way before Him, while unharmed He
passed through their midst.26
So did Israel of old pass through the cleft waves of the sea, which the
wonder-working rod of Moses had converted into a wall of safety. Yet, although
He parted from it in judgment, not thus could the Christ have finally and for
ever left His own Nazareth.27
22. See Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, p. 363. But surely it could not have been the south-western corner (Conder, Tent-Work, i. p. 140, and all later writers).
23. The provision, which awarded instant death without formal trial in case of open blasphemy or profanation (Sanh. 81 b), would not apply in this instance. Probably the purpose was, that the crowd around should, as it were accidentally, push Him over the cliff.
24. The spot is just above the Maronite Church.
25. See the plan of Nazareth in Bädeker's (Socin's) Palæstina, p. 255. The road to the left goes westward, that through the northern part of the town, towards Capernaum. Our localisation gains in probability, if the ancient Synagogue stood where tradition places it. At present it is in the hands of the Maronites.
26. The circumstance that the Nazarenes did not avow the purpose of casting Him over the cliff, but intended accidentally to crowd Him over, explains how, when He turned sharply round to the right, and passed through the crowd, they did not follow Him.
27. Many, even orthodox commentators, hold that this history is the same as that related in St. Matt. xiii. 54-58, and St. Mark vi. 1-6. But, for the reasons about to be stated, I have come, although somewhat hesitatingly, to the conclusion, that the narrative of St. Luke and those of St. Matthew and St. Mark refer to different events. 1. The narrative in St. Luke (which we shall call A) refers to the commencement of Christ's Ministry, while those of St. Matthew and St. Mark (which we shall call B) are placed at a later period. Nor does it seem likely, that our Lord would have entirely abandoned Nazareth after one rejection. 2. In narrative A, Christ is without disciples; in narrative B He is accompanied by them. 3. In narrative A no miracles are recorded - in fact, His words about Elijah and Elisha preclude any idea of them; while in narrative B there are a few, though not many. 4. In narrative A He is thrust out of the
city immediately after His sermon, while narrative B implies, that He continued for some time in Nazareth, only wondering at their unbelief.
If it be objected, that Jesus could scarcely have returned
to Nazareth after the attempt on His life, we must bear in mind that this
purpose had not been avowed, and that His growing frame during the intervening
period may have rendered such a return not only possible, but even advisable.
The coincidences as regards our Lord's statement about the
Prophet, and their objection as to His being the carpenter's son, are only
natural in the circumstances.
Cast out of His own city, Jesus pursued His solitary way
towards Capernaum.28
There, at least, devoted friends and believing disciples would welcome Him.
There, also, a large draught of souls would fill the Gospel-net. Capernaum
would be His Galilean home.29
Here He would, on the Sabbath-days, preach in that Synagogue, of which the good
centurion was the builder,30
and Jairus the chief ruler.31
These names, and the memories connected with them, are a sufficient comment on
the effect of His preaching: that 'His word was with power.' In Capernaum,
also, was the now believing and devoted household of the court-officer, whose
only son the Word of Christ, spoken at a distance, had restored to life. Here
also, or in the immediate neighbourhood, was the home of His earliest and
closest disciples, the brothers Simon and Andrew, and of James and John, the
sons of Zebedee.
28. Probably resting in the immediate neighbourhood of Nazareth, and pursuing His journey next day, when the Sabbath was past.
29. St. Matt. ix. 1.
30. St. Luke vii. 5.
31. St. Mark v. 22.
From the character of the narrative, and still more from the
later call of these four,32
it would seem that, after the return of Jesus from Judæa into Galilee, His
disciples had left Him, probably in Cana, and returned to their homes and
ordinary avocations. They were not yet called to forsake all and follow Him -
not merely to discipleship, but to fellowship and Apostolate. When He went from
Cana to Nazareth, they returned to Capernaum. They knew He was near them.
Presently He came; and now His Ministry was in their own Capernaum, or in its
immediate neighbourhood.
32. St. Matt. iv. 18, 22, and parallels.
For Capernaum was not the only place where He taught. Rather
was it the center for itinerancy through all that district, to preach in its
Synagogues.33
Amidst such ministry of quiet 'power,' chiefly alone and unattended by His
disciples, the summer passed. Truly, it was summer in the ancient land of
Zebulun and Naphtali, in the Galilee of the Gentiles, when the glorious Light
that had risen chased away the long winter's darkness, and those who had been
the first exiles in Assyrian bondage were the first brought back to Israel's
true liberty, and by Israel's Messiah-King. To the writer of the first Gospel,
as, long years afterwards, he looked back on this, the happy time when he had
first seen the Light, till it had sprung up even to him 'in the region and
shadow of death,' it must have been a time of peculiarly bright memories. How
often, as he sat at the receipt of custom, must he have seen Jesus passing by;
how often must he have heard His Words, some, perhaps, spoken to himself, but
all falling like good seed into the field of his heart, and preparing him at
once and joyously to obey the summons when it came: Follow Me! And not
to him only, but to many more, would it be a glowing, growing time of heaven's
own summer.
33. St. Matt. iv. 13-17.
There was a dim tradition in the Synagogue, that this
prediction,34
'The people that walk in the darkness see a great light,' referred to the new
light, with which God would enlighten the eyes of those who had penetrated into
the mysteries of Rabbinic lore, enabling them to perceive concerning 'loosing
and binding, concerning what was clean and what was unclean.'35
Others36 regarded
it as a promise to the early exiles, fulfilled when the great liberty came to
them. To Levi-Matthew it seemed as if both interpretations had come true in
those days of Christ's first Galilean ministry. Nay, he saw them combined in a
higher unity when to their eyes, enlightened by the great Light, came the new
knowledge of what was bound and what loosed, what unclean and clean, though
quite differently from what Judaism had declared it to them; and when, in that
orient Sun, the promise of liberty to long-banished Israel was at last seen
fulfilled. It was, indeed, the highest and only true fulfilment of that
prediction of Isaiah,37
in a history where all was prophetic, every partial fulfilment only an
unfolding and opening of the bud, and each symbolic of further unfolding till,
in the fulness of time, the great Reality came, to which all that was prophetic
in Israel's history and predictions pointed. And so as, in the evening of his
days, Levi-Matthew looked back to distant Galilee, the glow of the setting sun
seemed once more to rest on that lake, as it lay bathed in its sheen of gold.
It lit up that city, those shores, that custom-house; it spread far off, over
those hills, and across the Jordan. Truly, and in the only true sense, had then
the promise been fulfilled:38
'To them which sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up.'
34. Is. ix. 2.
35. Tanch. on Gen. vi. 9; ed. Warsh. p. 11 b.
36. See Mikraoth Gedoloth on the passage.
37. The words, 'That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias,' do not bear the meaning, that this was their primary and literal purpose. They represent a frequent mode of citation among Jewish writers, indicating a real fulfillment of the spirit, though not always of the letter, of a prophecy. On this subject see also Surenhusius, u. s., p. 218, and his admirable exposition of the Jewish formula rm)n# hm Myyql ('that it might be fulfilled which was spoken'), u. s., pp. 2-4.
38. St. Matt. ix. 16.
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