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NASB | John 1:46 Nathanael said to him, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" Philip *said to him, "Come and see." |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | John 1:46 Nathanael answered him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip replied, "Come and see." |
Bible Question: Why was Nazareth spoken of in this way by Nathaneal? |
Bible Answer: Greetings Gray! Nazareth, a little town about 70 miles north of Jerusalem, was the location of the Roman garrison in northern Galilee. Those who lived there were suspected of compromise with the enemy. Nazareth was an obscure town, nowhere mentioned in the Old Testament. It was Jesus' hometown, and the reputation of this little town fits the description of the Messiah, since He would be despised and rejected (Psalm 22:6; Isaiah 49:7; 53:3). Nazareth was probably a synonym for "contemptible" or "despised". Nathanael knew that the Old Testament prophets had predicted that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. Furthermore, Nazareth was an obscure village. Nathanael simply could not fathom that such a significant person as the Messiah could come from such an insignificant place as Nazareth. Nathanael was from Cana (21:2), another town in Galilee. While Galileans were despised by Judeans, Galileans themselves despised people from Nazareth. And later, some would contemptuously refer to Christians as the "sect of the Nazarenes" (Acts 24:5). In John 7:52, the Pharisees said, "Search, and see that no prophet arises out of Galilee." But they were angry- and wrong. The prophets Jonah, Hosea, Nahum, and perhaps Elijah, Elisha, and Amos were from Galilee or close to it. Moreover, the Pharisees overlooked the right of God to raise up prophets from wherever He chooses. The real ignorance lay with the arrogant Pharisees who did not carefully search out the facts as to where Jesus was actually born. While they accused the crowds of ignorance, they too were really as ignorant (v. 42). - Nolan |
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Questions and/or Subjects for John 1:46 | Author | ||
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Gray | ||
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Searcher56 | ||
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Makarios | ||
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tobi6334 | ||
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Mary Ann D |