This _nomen_ given to the place on account of its small beginnings, resembling, in this respect, the name of Zoar, _i.e._, a small town, was, at the same time, an _omen_ of its future condition. The weak twig never grew up into a tree. Nowhere in the Old Testament is Nazareth mentioned, probably because it was built only after the return from the captivity. Neither is it mentioned in _Josephus_. It was not, like most of the other towns in Palestine, ennobled by any recollection from the olden times. Yea, as it would appear, a special contempt was resting upon it, besides the general contempt in which all Galilee was held; just as every land has some place to which a disgrace attaches, which has often been called forth by causes altogether trifling. This appears not only from the question of Nathanael, in John i. 47: "Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?" but also from the fact, that from the most ancient times the Jews thought to inflict upon Christ the greatest disgrace, by calling Him the Nazarene, whilst, in later times, the disgrace which rested on all Galilee [Pg 110] was removed by the circumstance that the most celebrated Jewish academy, that of Tiberias, belonged to it. Let us now examine in how far Christ's abode at Nazareth served the purpose of fulfilling the Old Testament prophecy. It is, throughout, the doctrine of the prophets, that the Messiah, descending from the family of David, sunk into utter lowliness, would at first appear without any outward rank and dignity. The fundamental type for all other passages here concerned is contained in that passage of Is. xi. 1, now under consideration: "And there cometh forth a twig from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit," which is strikingly illustrated in the following words of _Quenstedt_, in his _Dissertatio de Germine Jehovae_, in the _Thesaurus theol. philol._ I. p. 1015: "The stem of Jesse which, from low beginnings, was, in David, raised to the glory of royal majesty, shall then not only be deprived of all royal dignity, and all outward splendour which it received in David, but shall again have been reduced to the private condition in which it was before David; so that it shall present the appearance of a stem deprived of all boughs and foliage, and having nothing left but the roots; nevertheless out of that stem thus reduced and cut off, and, as it appeared, almost dry, shall come forth a royal rod, and out of its roots shall grow the twig upon whom shall rest the Spirit of the Lord," &c. Quite in harmony with this, it is said in chap. liii. 2: "He grew up before the Lord as a tender twig, and as a root out of a dry ground." To נצר, in chap. xi., corresponds יונק in chap. liii.; to חטר the שרש; to the cut-off stem the dry land, with this difference, however, that by the latter designation, the low condition of the Servant of God, generally, is indicated; but His descent from the