Places of the Bible

Nazareth

City

What happened here

A dot is a moment; a bar is something that lasted, drawn to its length.

Espousal of Mary · 5 BC
An Angel Speaks to Joseph in a Dream · 4 BC
The Annunciation · 4 BC
Joseph and Mary return to Nazareth · 3 BC
Childhood of Jesus · 3 BC
Jesus Growing Up · 9 AD
Jesus Rejected at Nazareth · 27 AD
2nd Rejection at Nazareth · 29 AD

Where the name appears

Events told in passages that name Nazareth, and how many of their verses do. That is not the same as saying they happened here: a place can be named as a landmark, as somewhere being travelled to, or as the subject of a prophecy.

A dot is a moment; a bar is something that lasted, drawn to its length. The fainter the mark, the fewer verses name the place. The numbers are the lines below.

1 Birth of Jesus · 3 BC · 1 verse
2 John Baptizes Jesus · 26 AD · 1 verse
3 Jesus in Capernaum · 27 AD · 1 verse
4 The Demoniac · 27 AD · 2 verses
5 First Disciples Gathered · 27 AD · 2 verses
6 Healing Blind Bartimaeus · 30 AD · 2 verses
7 Holy Week · 30 AD · 7 verses
8 Triumphal Entry · 30 AD · 1 verse
9 Prayer and Betrayal in Gethsemane · 30 AD · 2 verses
10 Jewish Trials · 30 AD · 1 verse
11 Resurrection and Ascension · 30 AD · 2 verses
12 Crucifixion and Burial · 30 AD · 1 verse
13 Peter preaches at Pentecost · 30 AD · 1 verse
14 Lame man healed · 30 AD · 1 verse
15 Peter and John's Trial · 30 AD · 1 verse
16 Stephen is seized · 30 AD · 1 verse
17 Peter preaches to gentiles in Caesarea · 38 AD · 1 verse
18 Paul gives his testimony · 54 AD · 1 verse
19 Paul goes before Agrippa · 56 AD · 1 verse

Easton’s Bible Dictionary

Separated, generally supposed to be the Greek form of the Hebrew netser, a “shoot” or “sprout.” Some, however, think that the name of the city must be connected with the name of the hill behind it, from which one of the finest prospects in Palestine is obtained, and accordingly they derive it from the Hebrew notserah, i.e., one guarding or watching, thus designating the hill which overlooks and thus guards an extensive region.

This city is not mentioned in the Old Testament. It was the home of Joseph and Mary (Luke 2:39), and here the angel announced to the Virgin the birth of the Messiah (1:26-28). Here Jesus grew up from his infancy to manhood (4:16); and here he began his public ministry in the synagogue (Matt. 13:54), at which the people were so offended that they sought to cast him down from the precipice whereon their city was built (Luke 4:29). Twice they expelled him from their borders (4:16-29; Matt. 13:54-58); and he finally retired from the city, where he did not many mighty works because of their unbelief (Matt. 13:58), and took up his residence in Capernaum.

Nazareth is situated among the southern ridges of Lebanon, on the steep slope of a hill, about 14 miles from the Sea of Galilee and about 6 west from Mount Tabor. It is identified with the modern village en-Nazirah, of six or ten thousand inhabitants. It lies “as in a hollow cup” lower down upon the hill than the ancient city. The main road for traffic between Egypt and the interior of Asia passed by Nazareth near the foot of Tabor, and thence northward to Damascus.

It is supposed from the words of Nathanael in John 1:46 that the city of Nazareth was held in great disrepute, either because, it is said, the people of Galilee were a rude and less cultivated class, and were largely influenced by the Gentiles who mingled with them, or because of their lower type of moral and religious character. But there seems to be no sufficient reason for these suppositions. The Jews believed that, according to Micah 5:2, the birth of the Messiah would take place at Bethlehem, and nowhere else. Nathanael held the same opinion as his countrymen, and believed that the great “good” which they were all expecting could not come from Nazareth. This is probably what Nathanael meant. Moreover, there does not seem to be any evidence that the inhabitants of Galilee were in any respect inferior, or that a Galilean was held in contempt, in the time of our Lord.

The population of this city (now about 10,000) in the time of Christ probably amounted to 15,000 or 20,000 souls.

“The so-called ‘Holy House’ is a cave under the Latin church, which appears to have been originally a tank. The ‘brow of the hill’, site of the attempted precipitation, is probably the northern cliff: the traditional site has been shown since the middle ages at some distance to the south. None of the traditional sites are traceable very early, and they have no authority. The name Nazareth perhaps means ‘a watch tower’ (now en-Nasrah), but is connected in the New Testament with Netzer, ’a branch’ (Isa. 4:2; Jer. 23:5; Zech. 3:8; 6:12; Matt. 2:23), Nazarene being quite a different word from Nazarite.”

From M. G. Easton, Illustrated Bible Dictionary (1893), in the public domain.

Named in 28 verses

Matthew: 2:23, 4:13, 21:11, 26:71
Mark: 1:9, 1:24, 10:47, 16:6
Luke: 1:26, 2:4, 2:39, 2:51, 4:16, 4:34, 18:37, 24:19
John: 1:45, 1:46, 18:5, 18:7, 19:19
Acts: 2:22, 3:6, 4:10, 6:14, 10:38, 22:8, 26:9

The place, its people and its events come from Theographic, a knowledge graph of the Bible by Robert Rouse, used and shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.