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I. Our LORD'S VISIT TO NAZARETH. This chapter commences with our Lord's removal from the house of Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue, where he had performed the miracle recorded at the close of the last chapter; or rather from Capernaum, where the synagogue appears to have been situated. In either case he proceeded to visit his fatherland - not in the wide sense of that term, but in the narrower meaning of the township where his parents' home had been, and where his own childhood, youth, and early manhood had been spent. It is scarcely necessary to remind our readers that, while Bethlehem was the place of our Lord's nativity, and while Capernaum is called his own city, as the place of his frequent resort and the scene of so many of his mighty works, Nazareth was the place where he had been brought up. In a beautiful, basin-like valley, enclosed by some fifteen hills, was situated this place of world-wide renown. The town or village of Nazareth seems to sleep among the hills. The hills around this happy valley, as it has been called, have been compared to the petals of a rose, or the edge of a shell, with the little town on the lower slope of the western hill which rises high above, and which, from its elevation of nearly six hundred feet, commands one of the finest prospects in Palestine, with the Great Sea and Carmel on the west, the great plain of Esdraelon two miles to the south, Tabor six miles to the south-east, and Hermon's snowy summit away to the northward.

II. CAUSE OF HIS REJECTION. A previous rejection, if we mistake not, had taken place at Nazareth, and with greater violence than at this time, according to the record of St. Luke. On the previous occasion passion had impelled them; now prejudice blinds them. He had begun to address the congregation; his eloquence and oratory amazed them. He had not gone far, however, without interruption. They admit his superiority; they acknowledge his wisdom; but, in a sinister manner, they question its source and character, asking, "Whence is it? From above or below? What is it? Is it supernal or infernal? And then such mighty works are wrought by his hands! He is the instrument of some superior power - not the originating cause or author of them." Such seems to be the insinuation. Envy and jealousy were at the root of this prejudice. They canvassed the humble position of his family, and the lowly occupation of its members. "Is he not," they said, "a carpenter - a common carpenter, and the son of a carpenter - the village carpenter? Is he not a carpenter himself?" They were ignorant of the dignity of labour, and the nobility of honest toil. They overlooked the fact that Jews were wont to learn a trade, and that, according to Jewish ideas, a parent who did not have his son taught a trade was regarded as guilty of training him to dishonesty. Justin Martyr preserves the tradition of our Lord having made ploughs and yokes and other agricultural implements. But they knew his family and friends - knew them so well that familiarity begat contempt. They knew who Mary was, Joseph having in all probability died before this time. They knew his brethren: sons of Joseph and Mary; or possibly his half-brothers - sons of Joseph by a previous marriage; if not his cousins, children of Clopas and Mary. They knew his sisters. They could not brook his great and manifest superiority. Verily envy is a green-eyed monster; and so "they were offended in him." Our Lord, no doubt, felt all this acutely, but accounted for it by the principle embodied in the proverb, that a prophet is without honor in three circles - his neighbors, relatives, and members of his household. No wonder he could not do mighty works there; not that there was any physical inability in the Saviour himself, but the forth-putting of his power was conditioned by the faithful disposition or otherwise of his hearers. Thus Theophylact makes this want of ability relative and owing to the want of faith in the recipients. "Not," he says, "because he was weak, but because they were faithless." Here there was a want of receptivity to such an extent that he marvelled - not at their unbelief, but on account of it. It was not the object, but the cause (διὰ), of his astonishment. He wondered, as we read, at the faith of some no less than at the unbelief of others. - J.J.G.

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KJV: And he went out from thence, and came into his own country; and his disciples follow him.

WEB: He went out from there. He came into his own country, and his disciples followed him.