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It appeareth by Luk_2:4, that Joseph dwelt in Nazareth before our Saviour was born; and, Luk_2:39, after Mary’s purification it is said, they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth; and, Luk_4:16, he was there brought up. Hence, Joh_1:45, he is called by Philip, Jesus of Nazareth. But the following words of this verse afford as great difficulties as any other in holy writ.
1. How Christ could be called a Nazarene, who apparently was born at Bethlehem.
2. How the evangelist saith that was fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet,
He shall be called a Nazarene; whereas there is no such saying in all the prophets.
There is a strange variety of opinions as to these questions. Spanhemius acquiesceth in that which seemeth least liable to exception, viz. That Christ was to put a period to that order of Nazarites amongst the Jews, whose rules we have Num_6:2,3; of which order Samson was, as appears by Jud_13:7, and Joseph was called ryzn Gen_49:26, the very same word which is used Jud_13:7. Both Joseph and Samson were eminent types of Christ. And it was spoken of Christ by the prophets, (the holy men of God who wrote the Scriptures), that Christ should be called ryzn Nezir, as it is in the Hebrew, in that it was spoken of those that were his types; who are both expressly so called. The word signifieth a holy person, one separated to God, and from ordinary converse with men. Christ was to be such a Nazarite, separated to God, for the accomplishment of our redemption, and, like Joseph, separated from his brethren: Isa_53:3, he was rejected of men:—we hid as it were our faces from him, and we esteemed him not. God by his singular providence so ordered it, that he who was the antitype to all the Nazarites, and the true Nezir, or person separated, should be educated at Nazareth, a poor contemptible town: Joh_1:46, Nathanael said, Can there any good come out of Nazareth? That while his education there gave the Jews an occasion to reproach him, as a Nazarene, because born at Nazareth, believers amongst the Jews might understand him to be the true Nazarite, understood in Joseph and Samson called by this name, as types and figures of him who was to come, separated by God to a more excellent end, and from men in a more eminent manner. So that what the prophets spake of this nature concerning Christ, they spake of those who were the true types of Christ. Those who will read Spanhemius, and Poli Critica, will find large discourses about the difficulties of this text, but this seemeth to be Spanhemius’s opinion, improving the notion of Mr. Calvin.