Collect. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish in the way; Blessed are all they that put their trust in him! O Almighty God, who out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast ordained strength, and madest infants to glorify thee by their deaths; Mortify and kill all vices in us, and so strengthen us by thy grace that, by the innocency of our lives, and constancy of our faith, even unto death, we may glorify thy holy name; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. THE SETTLEMENT AT NAZARETH. MATTHEW ii, 19-23; LUKE ii, 39. There shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, And a branch [netzer] out of his roots shall bear fruit. Isaiah xi, 1. XVII. THE SETTLEMENT AT NAZARETH. MATTHEW ii, 19–23; LUKE ii, 39. Matt. ii, 19-21. How long the Holy Family sojourned in Egypt The Return from Egypt. we can not tell, for we do not know the precise year of our Lord's birth. What we do know is this: When Herod was dead, an angel of the Lord, doubtless the same angel who had already Matt. i, 23; ii, 13. twice appeared to Joseph in a dream, again appears to him in a dream while in Egypt. "Arise," he exclaims to the sleeping Joseph, "and take the young Child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel for they are dead who sought the young Child's life." No wonder Joseph immediately arose, and, taking the Holy Babe and his blessed mother, hastened back to the land of his fathers. Settlement at Naz areth. But where shall the Holy Family take up their The abode? Their first impulse, it would seem, was to settle in Bethlehem of Judea. And no wonder. Matt. ii, 22, 23. For that spot had become doubly dear to them: it was the birthplace of their royal ancestor David; more thrilling still, it was the birthplace of that Holy Thing which had been conceived of the Luke i, 35. Jesus the Naz arene. Matt. ii, 23. Isaiah xi, 1. Holy Ghost, even the Divine Man. But their early, sacred impulse was rudely checked. They had heard indeed that Herod was dead; but now they hear that Archelaus, his son, inheritor of his father's wickedness, is reigning in his stead; and so they hesitate to execute their purpose of settling in Bethlehem of Judea. Moreover, they are again divinely warned in a dream to beware of Judea. And so, perhaps much against their choice, they take up their abode in their old home-the obscure, despised, Galilean Nazareth. And so was brought to pass, as Matthew proceeds to tell us, an ancient prophecy: "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophets, that he should be called a Nazarene.” And yet this specific prophecy is nowhere to be found in the Old Testament. The nearest approach to it is a clause in the first verse of the eleventh chapter of Isaiah, where the Hebrew word translated "branch" is "netzer": There shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of And a branch [netzer] out of his roots shall bear fruit. Supposing, now, that Matthew has in mind this memorable saying of Isaiah, it is evident that in declaring it to be fulfilled in the settlement of the Holy Family at Nazareth, he makes, so to speak, a play on the words he quotes: "A branch [netzer] out of Jesse's roots shall bear fruit"; "He shall be called a branch, a netzer, a Nazarene." Nor is this inconsistent with any just view of inspiration. Matthew was inspired; but this did not |