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Isaiah

About this book
Chapter 11

1 A shoot will grow out of Jesse’s root stock, a bud will sprout from his roots.⁠ 2 The Lord’s Spirit will rest on him—a⁠ Spirit that gives extraordinary wisdom, a Spirit that provides the ability to execute plans,⁠ a Spirit that produces absolute loyalty to the Lord.⁠ 3 His smelling is in the fear of the Lord7.⁠ He will not judge by mere appearances or make decisions on the basis of hearsay. 4 He will treat the poor fairly and make right decisions for the downtrodden of the earth.⁠ He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and order the wicked to be executed.⁠ 5 Justice will be like a belt around his waist, integrity will be like a belt around his hips. 6 A wolf will reside with a lamb, and a leopard will lie down with a young goat; an ox and a young lion will graze together, as a small child leads them along.⁠ 7 A cow and a bear will graze together, their young will lie down together. A lion, like an ox, will eat straw. 8 A baby will play over the hole of a snake; over the nest of a serpent an infant will put his hand.⁠ 9 They will no longer injure or destroy on my entire royal mountain. For there will be universal submission to the Lord’s sovereignty, just as the waters completely cover the sea.⁠ 10 At that time a root from Jesse will stand like a signal flag for the nations.⁠ Nations will look to him for guidance, and his residence will be majestic. 11 At that time the Lord will again lift his hand to reclaim the remnant of his people from Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, and the seacoasts.⁠ 12 He will lift a signal flag for the nations; he will gather Israel’s dispersed people and assemble Judah’s scattered people from the four corners of the earth. 13 Ephraim’s jealousy will end, and Judah’s hostility will be eliminated. Ephraim will no longer be jealous of Judah, and Judah will no longer be hostile toward Ephraim. 14 They will swoop down on the Philistine hills to the west; together they will loot the people of the east. They will take over Edom and Moab, and the Ammonites will be their subjects. 15 The Lord will divide the gulf of the Egyptian Sea; he will wave his hand over the Euphrates River and send a strong wind; he will turn it into seven dried-up streams and enable them to walk across in their sandals.⁠ 16 There will be a highway leading out of Assyria for the remnant of his people,⁠ just as there was for Israel, when they went up from the land of Egypt.

Texts in conversation

Compare Isaiah 11:1 and Matthew 2:23

Hebrew Bible · New Testament

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Summary

In Matthew, Jesus' connection to Nazareth is presented as fulfilling scripture, although Nazareth is not in the Hebrew Bible. He may follow a reading of Isaiah about a branch from Jesse using the word “netzer”, which he connects to “Nazareth.”

Passages

Isaiah 11:1

Hebrew Bible
1 A shoot will grow out of Jesse’s root stock, a bud will sprout from his roots. 2 The Lord’s Spirit will rest on him—a Spirit that gives extraordinary wisdom, a Spirit that provides the ability to execute plans, a Spirit that produces absolute loyalty to the Lord. 3 His smelling is in the fear of the Lord7. He will not judge by mere appearances or make decisions on the basis of hearsay. 4 He will treat the poor fairly and make right decisions for the downtrodden of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and order the wicked to be executed.
740–450 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Isaiah

Matthew 2:23

New Testament
19 After Herod had died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20 saying, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.” 21 So he got up and took the child and his mother and returned to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. After being warned in a dream, he went to the regions of Galilee. 23 He came to a town called Nazareth and lived there. Then what had been spoken by the prophets was fulfilled, that Jesus would be called a Nazarene.
70–90 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Matthew

References

"... Exegetes are used to find intertexts which are not explicitly tagged. Matthew 2:23 is the opposite case: the quotation is tagged but the quoted text cannot be found in a known tradition. It is, as France has put it, an 'elusive quotation'. The great amount of work that has gone into finding a plausible pre-text has produced many, and somewhat complicated, suggestions ranging from a reference to Samson's Nazirite vow (Judges 13:5,7; 16:17) to an interconnection with Isaiah 11:19 or a rather general witness to Jesus' modest provenance. The arguments on all sides seem to neutralize each other. Interestingly enough, the meaning of the whole section 2:19-23 is pretty clear: the family's settlement in Nazareth 'fulfills' a scriptural utterance that witnesses to a person coming from that town. We may conclude that either the pre-text was known from sources not available to us or that the narrator is so reliable that he can make such a connection without having a definitive text in mind. After all, Nazareth is never mentioned in the Scriptures ..."
Moisés Mayordomo, "Matthew 1-2 and the Problem of Intertextuality" in Claire Clivaz, et al. (eds.), Infancy Gospels. Stories and Identities (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 277–278.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Isaiah 11:1 and Matthew 2:23

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