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Section 025 · The Galilean Ministry Begins

Rejection at Nazareth

In his hometown synagogue, Jesus reads Isaiah’s “acceptable year of the Lord” and declares it fulfilled that day. Met with unbelief, he presses the point with Elijah and Elisha — precedents where God’s power passed by Israel to reach a gentile widow and a gentile leper — and the congregation’s wonder turns to wrath.

Luke 4:16–301 of 5 accountsReading: CCE
Study — reading text with parallel accounts; changes available.
? How to read this edition

The reading is the Covenant Christian Edition — the Joseph Smith Translation reading — carried beside each Gospel and set against the King James baseline. Headers give both numbering systems: the CCE chapter and verse, and the traditional KJV reference.

JST
Green — Joseph Smith Translation. Where the Covenant Christian Edition departs in substance from the King James text and the change is in the JST (confirmed against the parallel-column edition). Modernized English (“has” for “hath,” “you” for “thou”) is not marked.
CCE
Burgundy — Covenant Christian Edition. Where the CCE’s reading departs from the King James but the change is not in the Joseph Smith Translation — the CCE’s own editorial reading (e.g. “this day I have begotten you” at the baptism).
DS
Plum — Testimony of St. John. The TSJ (a separate scripture text) and Denver Snuffer’s later commentary share the plum mark.
◇Single witness. This passage is essentially unrevised by the Joseph Smith Translation — the JST and KJV agree throughout; only the CCE’s modernized spelling (Elijah for Elias, Elisha for Eliseus) sets the reading apart from the KJV below.
LukeKJVLuke 4:16–30CCELuke 4:2–4NT 2

16And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. 17And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah, and when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written: 18The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and the recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them who are bruised,

19to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. 20And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and he sat down. And the eyes of all those who were in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. 22And all bore him witness and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph’s son? 23And he said unto them, You will surely say unto me this proverb: Physician, heal yourself. Whatever we have heard was done in Capernaum, do also here in your country. 24And he said, Truly I say unto you, no prophet is accepted in his own country, 25but I tell you the truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah when the heaven was shut up three years and six months and great famine was throughout all the land, 26but unto none of them was Elijah sent, save unto Zarephath of Sidon, unto a woman who was a widow. 27And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them were cleansed save Naaman the Syrian.

28And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, 29and rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. 30But he, passing through the midst of them, went his way

Cross-references · other works
Isaiah 61:1–2 — the acceptable year of the Lord↗Leviticus 25:10 — proclaim liberty throughout all the land↗1 Kings 17:8–16 — Elijah and the widow of Zarephath↗2 Kings 5:1–14 — Elisha and Naaman the Syrian↗Mark 6:1–6 — a prophet is not without honor, save in his own country↗Acts 10:34–35 — God is no respecter of persons↗
Margaret Barker · the Jubilee of Melchizedek

Nazareth — declaring the tenth Jubilee

Barker reads Isaiah 61 as one of the key Qumran-era Melchizedek prophecies — the promised return of the great high priest to proclaim the final Jubilee. On this reading, Jesus’s claim at Nazareth is not only that scripture is fulfilled, but that he is Melchizedek, and the wrath that follows is the congregation grasping exactly that.

Jesus and the Jubilee1999 paper ↗
The Qumran Melchizedek text (11QMelch), written in the middle of the first century BCE but not necessarily composed at that time, describes the events of the tenth Jubilee… 11QMelch alludes many times to the Jubilee oracle in Isaiah 61: “…the Lord God has anointed me… to proclaim liberty to the captives” (Isa. 61.1, “proclaim liberty,” deror, being a quotation from Lev. 25.10). The coming Melchizedek is to rescue his own people… from the power of Belial… This gives the context for the opening scenes of the gospels. In the first week of the tenth Jubilee Jesus was baptised with the Spirit, which was interpreted as his anointing (Acts 10.38). After his time in the desert he returned to Galilee announcing “the time is fulfilled,” i.e. the tenth Jubilee is inaugurated and “Melchizedek” is here… Luke’s account of Jesus in the synagogue at Nazareth shows that he claimed to have inaugurated the final Jubilee; no other interpretation can be put on the claim to have fulfilled that day (Luke 4.21) the Jubilee prophecy in Isaiah 61 which was central to the Melchizedek expectations of the time… The first miracle was an exorcism (Mark 1.21–26), setting one of his own people free from the power of Belial… This was the great ingathering of the Jubilee.
Jesus and the Jubilee1999 paper — on the Jubilee’s year of favour ↗
The Jubilee also brought the Day of Judgement, vividly described in 11QMelch… This was to be the year of Melchizedek’s favour, a very significant alteration to Isaiah 61.2, which proclaims the Jubilee as the year of the Lord’s favour… The only possible conclusion is that Melchizedek, the heavenly high priest, was the Lord, the God of Israel.
Our Great High Priest: The Church as the New TempleFr. Alexander Schmemann Memorial Lecture, 28 Jan. 2012 ↗
Jesus began his public ministry at exactly the time Melchizedek was expected to return, and when he spoke in the synagogue at Nazareth, he chose to read Isaiah 61, one of the Melchizedek prophecies. Jesus said it was being fulfilled. He was Melchizedek, the great high priest.

The wrath that follows — “all in the synagogue were filled with wrath” (Luke 4:28) — reads differently once the claim underneath “this day is this scripture fulfilled” is Melchizedek himself standing in the room.

Points to Ponder
  • Jesus reads the same scripture the congregation has heard all their lives, then says only, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.” What does it take to hear a familiar text as suddenly, presently true?
  • The crowd’s wonder curdles into wrath the moment Jesus names Elijah and Elisha reaching past Israel to a widow and a leper. Why does the suggestion that grace is not exclusively theirs provoke violence rather than curiosity?
  • “No prophet is accepted in his own country” — those who knew Jesus as a boy are the ones who cannot receive him as a man. What familiarity in your own life might be quietly foreclosing a truth you’d recognize instantly from a stranger?