Lk. 4:16 So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day.
Nazareth is a microcosm of what will happen to the nation. What happened locally in Nazareth will ultimately happen on a national level. There is going to be two rejections in Nazareth. The initial rejection will happen in this segment. A final rejection will happen later.
There was a public minister in the synagogue who prayed and preached from behind a wooden pulpit, and took care of the general oversight if the reading of the Law and other congregational duties. He is called the Hazan, a term which originated from Assyro-Babylonia in which it denoted “overseer.” In the Armana Tablets, it signifies a governor stationed in Palestine by the Egyptians. In ancient Israel, the hazan’s duties included that of a sexton, taking care of the synagogue and its contents, as well as that of an elementary school teacher. From the roof of the synagogue the hazan announced the beginning and the end of the Sabbath and the festivals by sounding the shofar three times. In modern usage, the hazan is primarily the Sheliah Tsibbur, the congregational reader of prayers, referred to as the cantor or precentor. He did not read the Law, but stood to correct or oversee that it was done properly. He selected seven readers each week, consisting of a priest, one Levite, and fie regular Israelites who were well educated in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Lk. 4:17 And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it is written:
Yeshua returns to Nazareth, and being the Sabbath, He enters the synagogue. Notice it says, “as was His custom.” Yeshua grew up here and attended this synagogue regularly. Many people still find it hard to believe that Yeshua was an Orthodox Jew. This is one of the many proofs in the Gospels that He was.
In the synagogue service, the Mosaic Law is divided into some fifty units, and the Nevi’im (Prophets) the same way. Every Sabbath a section of the Law and a section of the Prophets is read. By the end of the year the entire Law and Prophets have been read. With the New Year, the cycle begins again.
Lk. 4:18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed.”
Lk. 4:19 “To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”
Sources: Isaiah 61:1, 3; Lev. 25:6-17; Ezek. 34:16, 17
What Yeshua is actually reading from is a scroll, not a book. Books had not been invented yet. Each Sabbath Day has its own required reading from the Law and the Prophets. Yeshua did not just walk up to the desk and pick out a verse that He wanted to read. I do not believe though that this was merely a coincidence that it was time for this verse to b read when Yeshua was in the synagogue.
Lk. 4:20 Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him.
Lk. 4:21 And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
When Yeshua read from Isaiah 61, He doesn’t read the whole passage which would have been the normal pattern. Rather, He reads all of verse number one and half of verse number two. He then announces that He is fulfilling prophecy. The reason He stops in the middle of the second verse and does not read verses three and four is that they have to do with future events that He will fulfill at His second coming. But, He clearly tells them that He claims to be the fulfillment of this Messianic prophecy, and in doing so, announces to His home town just who He is. After Yeshua had closed the scroll of Isaiah and handed it back to the minister, He sat down and began to teach. It was the custom of the Rabbis to teach from a sitting position.
Lk. 4:22 So all bore witness to Him, and marveled at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth. And they said, “Is this not Joseph’s son?”
However, those who had seen Him grow up in Nazareth can hardly believe that this little boy that they knew, and from the family that they knew, could really be the Messiah. There is no hostile reaction at this point, only wonderment and disbelief.
Jn. 4:23 And He said to them, “You will surely say this proverb to Me, ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ Whatever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in Your country.”
“Physician, heal yourself!” is a petition that the physician heal his own lameness. Yeshua is chiding that they would now want to see the same miracles in His home town that He performed in Capernaum. The following verses shows us what He knows their response would be if He did.
Lk. 4:24 Then He said, “Assuredly, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country.”
Lk. 4:25 “But I tell you truly many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when Heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a great famine throughout all of Israel.”
Source: I Kings 17:1, 8, 9
Lk. 4:26 “But to none of them was Elijah sent except to Zarepath, in the region of Sidon, to a woman who was a widower.”
Source: I Kings 18:1, 2
Yeshua, in His rebuttal to the obvious rejection in Nazareth, refers to two instances in the Old Testament. The first is that out of myriads of Jewish widows, Elijah was sent to a Gentile one in Zarepath. In both of these instances, Israel was in the midst of one of her rebellious periods, rejecting the word of God sent through His prophets. When He claims to be the fulfillment of the Scriptures in Isaiah and claims to be the Messiah, the people react only in amazement. But, when He talks about their rejecting Him, their reaction is fierce.
Lk. 4:27 “And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them were cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”
Sources: I Kings 17:1, 8, 9; 18:1,2
The other is where out of all the myriads of Jewish lepers, not one is cleansed, except the Syrian Gentile, Naaman. It is here that Yeshua gives the first hint that the Gospel will be given to the Gentiles following His rejection by the leadership of Israel.
Lk. 4:28 Then all those in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath.
The situation is further compounded by the fact that the rabbis taught that one of the four Messianic Miracles that could be performed only by the Messiah when He came was the cleansing of a leper. Yeshua tells them that no Israelite has been cleansed of leprosy until now, but He leaves open the door to the possibility that He will perform this miracle shortly, proving what He says is true.
Lk. 4:29 And rose up and thrust Him out of the city and they led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw Him down over the cliff.
Lk. 4:30 Then passing through the midst of them, He went His way.
In this verse Yeshua displays His power. Even though they want to thrown Him off the cliff, they are unable to do so. Instead, Yeshua walks back down the hill right through the midst of them and they are powerless to stop Him. His time has not yet come. When it does, He will let it happen. But, it will happen in Jerusalem, not Nazareth.
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