4:14-30 Christ taught in their synagogues, their places of public worship, where they met to read, expound, and apply the word, to pray and praise. All the gifts and graces of the Spirit were upon him and on him, without measure. By Christ, sinners may be loosed from the bonds of guilt, and by his Spirit and grace from the bondage of corruption. He came by the word of his gospel, to bring light to those that sat in the dark, and by the power of his grace, to give sight to those that were blind. And he preached the acceptable year of the Lord. Let sinners attend to the Saviour's invitation when liberty is thus proclaimed. Christ's name was Wonderful; in nothing was he more so than in the word of his grace, and the power that went along with it. We may well wonder that he should speak such words of grace to such graceless wretches as mankind. Some prejudice often furnishes an objection against the humbling doctrine of the cross; and while it is the word of God that stirs up men's enmity, they will blame the conduct or manner of the speaker. The doctrine of God's sovereignty, his right to do his will, provokes proud men. They will not seek his favour in his own way; and are angry when others have the favours they neglect. Still is Jesus rejected by multitudes who hear the same message from his words. While they crucify him afresh by their sins, may we honour him as the Son of God, the Saviour of men, and seek to show we do so by our obedience.

Verse 29. - And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. The place now shown as the scene of the act of violence of the fanatics of Nazareth, known as the Mount of Precipitation, is some two miles from the town. It must be remembered that this happened on a sabbath day; this would therefore be beyond the limits of a sabbath day's journey. There is, however, close to Nazareth a cliff about forty feet high.

And rose up,.... In great wrath, and, in a noisy and tumultuous manner, before the service was well over, and without being regularly dismissed:

and thrust him out of the city; first out of the synagogue, and then out of their city, as unworthy to be in it, though an inhabitant of it; and as if he had done something deserving of death; and therefore to be punished as a malefactor without the city:

and led him unto the brow of the hill; the edge of it, where it run out, and hung over the precipice:

whereon their city was built; so that it was a city upon an hill, and very visible, to which Christ may allude in Matthew 5:14. That they might cast him down headlong; and break him to pieces: in this manner ten thousand Edomites were destroyed by the Jews, in the times of Amaziah, 2 Chronicles 25:12 though this was not an usual way with the Jews of putting persons to death, as with some other nations (u); their four capital punishments were stoning, strangling, burning, and killing with the sword (w): nor did the inhabitants of Nazareth proceed in any judicial manner with Christ, but hurried him away, in order to destroy him, without any formal process, in the manner the zealots did; though to put any man to death, or to inflict any punishment on a person on the sabbath day, as this was, was contrary to their own canon, which runs thus (x);

"they do not inflict punishment on the sabbath day, even though it is the punishment of an affirmative precept; they do not beat one that is guilty, nor put to death, as it is said, Exodus 35:3 "ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the sabbath day": this is a caution to the sanhedrim, that they do not burn on the sabbath day he that is condemned to burning; and this is the law with respect to any one that is liable to the other punishments.''

But these men, without any regard to the place where they were, and the worship they were concerned in, and the day of the sabbath which then was, rise up in great wrath and fury, and without any show of justice, and in the most brutish and barbarous manner attempt to take away the life of Christ.

(u) Vid. Rycquium de Capitol. Born. c. 4. (w) Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 7. sect. 1.((x) Moses Kotseneis Mitzvot Tora, pr. neg. 67.

29. rose up—broke up the service irreverently and rushed forth.

thrust him—with violence, as a prisoner in their hands.

brow, &c.—Nazareth, though not built on the ridge of a hill, is in part surrounded by one to the west, having several such precipices. (See 2Ch 25:12; 2Ki 9:33.) It was a mode of capital punishment not unusual among the Romans and others. This was the first insult which the Son of God received, and it came from "them of His own household!" (Mt 10:36).

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