Matthew 2:23
“and came and lived in a city called Nazareth; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophets: “He will be called a Nazarene.””
What does Matthew 2:23 mean?
After Jesus's family fled to Egypt and then returned home, they settled in the small town of Nazareth rather than Bethlehem, where Jesus was born. Matthew sees this move as fitting an ancient prophecy, though scholars note this particular quote doesn't appear clearly in the Old Testament as we have it, which suggests Matthew may have been drawing on a broader prophetic theme or a version of scripture we no longer have access to. What matters most here is that Matthew was emphasizing Jesus's humble, ordinary roots. Nazareth was an unremarkable town in Galilee, and being called "a Nazarene" meant being associated with the margins and the everyday rather than the grand or prestigious. If you're familiar with the dismissive question later asked in the Gospels ("Can anything good come from Nazareth?"), you'll see Matthew was intentionally highlighting that Jesus came from nowhere special by worldly standards, yet fulfilled God's purposes perfectly. This can be comforting when we worry that our own ordinary circumstances or unglamorous backgrounds disqualify us from God's work.