Nazareth is usually represented as a secluded and an obscure village. Many writers on the life of our Lord have emphasised this, holding it proved by the silence of the Gospels concerning His childhood and youth. But the value of a vision of the Holy Land is that it fills the silences of the Holy Book, and from it we receive a very different idea of the early life of our Lord from the one generally current among us.
The position of Nazareth is familiar to all. The village lies on the most southern of the ranges of Lower Galilee, and on the edge of this just above the Plain of Esdraelon. You cannot see from Nazareth the surrounding country, for Nazareth rests in a basin among hills; but the moment you climb to the edge of this basin, which is everywhere within the limit of the village boys' playground, what a view you have! Esdraelon lies before you, with its twenty battle-fields—the scenes of Barak's and of Gideon's victories, the scenes of Saul's and Josiah's defeats, the scenes of the struggles for freedom in the glorious days of the Maccabees. There is Naboth's vineyard and the place of Jehu's revenge upon Jezebel; there Shunem and the house of Elisha; there Carmel and the place of Elijah's sacrifice. To the east the Valley of Jordan, with the long range of Gilead; to the west the radiance of the Great Sea, with the ships of Tarshish and the promise of the Isles. You see thirty miles in three directions. It is a map of Old Testament history.
But equally full and rich was the present life on which the eyes of the boy Jesus looked out. Across Esdraelon, opposite to Nazareth, there emerged from the Samarian hills the road from Jerusalem, thronged annually with pilgrims, and the road from Egypt with its merchants going up and down. The Midianite caravans could be watched for miles coming up from the fords of Jordan; and, as we have seen, the caravans from Damascus wound round the foot of the hill on which Nazareth stands. Or if the village boys climbed the northern edge of their hollow home, there was another road within sight, where the companies were stilt more brilliant—the highway between Acre and the Decapolis, along which legions marched, and princes swept with their retinues, and all sorts of travellers from all countries went to and fro. The Roman ranks, the Roman eagles, the wealth of noblemen's litters and equipages cannot have been strange to the eyes of the boys of Nazareth, especially arter their twelfth year, when they went up to Jerusalem, or visited wvith their fathers famous Rabbis, who came down from Jerusalem, peripatetic among the provinces. Nor can it have been the eye only which was stirred. For all the rumour of the Empire entered Palestine close to Nazareth—the news from Rome, about the Emperor's health, about the changing influence of the great statesmen, about the prospects at court of Herod, or of the Jews; about Ceasar's last order concerning the tribute, or whether the policy of the Procurator would be sustained. Many Galilean families must have had relatives in Rome; Jews would comc back to this countryside to tell of the life of the world's capital. Moreover, the scandals of the Hcrods buzzed up and down these roads; pedlars carried them, and the peripatetic Rabbis would mora lise upon them. The customs, too, of the neighbouring Gentiles—their loose living, their sensuous worship, their absorption in business, the hopelessness of the inscriptions on their tombs, multitudes of which were readable (as some are still) on the roads round Galilee—all this would furnish endless talk in Nazareth, both among men and boys.
Here, then, He grew up and suffered temptation, Who was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. The perfection of His purity and patience was achieved not easily as behind a wide fence which shut the world out, but amid rumour and scandal with every provocation to unlawful curiosity and premature ambition. The pressure and problems of the world outside God's people must have been felt by the youth of Nazareth as by few others; yet the scenes of prophetic missions to it—Elijah's and Elisha's—were also within sight. A vision of all the kingdoms of the world was as possible from this village as from the mount of temptation. But the chief lesson which Nazareth teaches to us is the possibility of a pure home and a spotless youth in the very face of the evil world.
This reading is taken from G. A. Smith, The Historical Geography of the Holy Land. Reprinted, Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1972; pp.281-3.
©ALBERITH
Prepared by Low C. H.