Yeshua Explored
9th October 2023
CLICK HERE for the corresponding devotional in Yeshua Adored
Childhood
MATTHEW 2:19-23, LUKE 2:38-40
The tyrant Herod was dying … horribly and his sufferings were at times agonizing. He knew that his time was almost up and had himself installed back in his palace under the palm trees of Jericho. Yet he was still capable of evil deeds and had two popular and honoured Rabbis burnt alive, simply for attempting to pull down the immense golden eagle which hung over the great gate of the Temple.
Feeling his death approaching, Herod summoned the noblest of Israel and shut them up in the Hippodrome, with orders to his sister to have them slain immediately upon his death, in the grim hope that the joy of the people would thus be changed into mourning. Soon he was dead. He had reigned thirty-seven years. The rule for which he had so long plotted, striven and stained himself with untold crimes, passed from his descendants. A century more, and the whole dynasty of Herod had been swept away.
It was time for Joseph and Mary to return. The first intention of Joseph seems to have been to settle in Bethlehem, but he changed his mind when he found out that Herod’s son, Archelaus was now in charge. He was truly his father’s son and had stated his intentions by silencing a rebellion (caused by the execution of those two Rabbis) by the slaughtering of more than three thousand, within the precincts of the Temple no less! It was time to keep a low profile, so the Holy Family settled in Nazareth.
Of the following years, during which Jesus passed from infancy to childhood, from childhood to youth and from youth to manhood, the Gospels are quite silent. Remember, the intention was to present a history of the Saviour, not a biography of Jesus of Nazareth. We are only furnished with the facts necessary for our salvation. Also, we are aware that one of his names was Notsri (of Nazareth).
This is in line with the whole language of the prophets. The Jews had no fewer than eight Names by which the Messiah was to be called. The most prominent among them was that of Tsemach, or ‘Branch’. This is also conveyed by the term Netser, (also Branch) in such passages as Isaiah 11:1, which was likewise applied to the Messiah. Jesus would, as Notsri, be therefore identified with the office of Messiah purely by the ‘accident’ of his residence and the linguistic connection between the two terms.
But we can go further. We can see Christ as this Divinely placed ‘Branch’, small and despised, from the root of Jesse but destined to grow. The Nazarene from lowly Nazareth was to fulfil the prophecies from old. A greater contrast could scarcely be imagined than between the scholastic studies of the Judeans and the active pursuits of the Galileans. It was a common saying: ‘If a person wishes to be rich, let him go north; if he wants to be wise, let him come south’. The very neighbourhood of the Gentile world, the contact with the great commercial centres close by and the constant intercourse with foreigners who passed through Galilee along one of the world’s great highways would highlight these contrasts.
Galilee was to Judaism ‘the Court of the Gentiles’, a place outside the acceptable religious establishment, whereas the Rabbinic Schools of Judea were the ‘Holy of Holies’ by comparison. Unlike the Judeans, Galileans weren’t too keen on Rabbinic study. Their lives were very different. As Edersheim remarks,
‘The smiling landscapes were gloriously grand, free, fresh, and bracing, A more beautiful country could scarcely be imagined. Corn grew in abundance; the wine, though not so plentiful as the oil, was rich and generous. Proverbially, all fruit grew in perfection and altogether the cost of living was about one-fifth that in Judea. Assuredly, Galilee was not the home of Rabbinism, but instead a place of generous spirits, of warm, impulsive hearts, of intense nationalism, of simple manners, and of earnest piety.’
Jesus spent by far the longest part of his life upon Earth with such people, as he grew up among them as one of them. ‘And the Child grew and waxed strong in spirit, being filled with wisdom and the grace of God was upon him.’ Having entered life as the Divine infant, he began it as the human child, subject to all the stresses and strains of growing up, through the eight designated stages; the new-born babe (Yeled), the suckling (Yoneq), the hungry suckling (Olel), the weaned child (Gamul), the child clinging to its mother (Taph), the child shaking himself free (Elem) and the ripened one (Bachur)!
Education begins in the home and homes in Israel were places of nurture, influence and example, as well as teaching. What really marked out Jewish fathers was what they felt towards their children and with what reverence, affection, and care the latter repaid what they had received. The relationship of father to son mirrored that of God towards Israel. The tender care of a mother is that of the watchfulness and pity of the Lord over his people.
From the first days of their existence, a religious atmosphere surrounded the child of Jewish parents. Admitted to the number of God’s chosen people by the deeply significant rite of circumcision, they were then separated unto God, whether or not they accepted the privileges and obligations implied in this dedication. They were bound to the Torah (Law), to the Chuppah (the marriage canopy) and to good works; in other words, that they might live ‘godly, soberly, and righteously in this present world’. The mother’s role was significant; the preparation and execution of the Sabbath meal, as well as the observances, including the placing of the Mezuzah on the door-post, with God’s Name on the outside of the little folded parchment, which was reverently touched by each who came or went and then the fingers kissed that had come in contact with the Holy Name.
Long before he could go to school, or even synagogue, the Jewish boy would be brought up in an atmosphere of private and united prayers, the weekly Sabbath celebrations and the festival seasons. In mid-winter, there was Chanukah, the festival of lights in each home. In most houses, the first night only one candle was lit, the next two, and so on to the eighth day; and the child would learn that this was symbolic and commemorative of the dedication of the Temple, its cleansing and the restoration of its services by the lion-hearted Judas the Maccabee.
Next came, in early spring, the joyful time of Purim, the Feast of Esther and of Israel’s deliverance through her, with its bonhomie and boisterous enjoyments. The Passover might call the rest of the family to Jerusalem, then, after the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot), came bright summer. But its golden harvest and its rich fruits would remind of the early dedication of the first and best to the Lord and of those solemn processions in which it was carried up to Jerusalem.
As autumn seared the leaves, the Feast of the New Year (Rosh Hashanah) spoke of the casting up of man’s accounts in the great Book of Judgment and the fixing of destiny for good or for evil. Then followed the Fast of the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), the most solemn time of all; and, last of all, in the week of the Feast of Tabernacles (Succot), there were the strange leafy booths in which they lived and enjoyed, keeping their harvest-thanksgiving and praying and longing for the better harvest of a renewed world.
It was no idle boast that the Jews were trained to recognise God as their Father and as the Maker of the world from earliest youth and that they learned the laws, to have them engraved upon the soul. But while the earliest religious teaching would, of necessity, come from the lips of the mother, it was the father who was responsible for teaching the Torah. This was a solemn, spiritual duty, carried out as if they had personally received the Law on Mount Sinai. Directly the child learned to speak, his religious instruction was to begin, including passages from the Bible, short prayers, and select sayings of the Sages.
Special attention was given to the cultivation of the memory since forgetfulness might prove as fatal in its consequences as ignorance or neglect of the Law. A young child would have been taught what might be called his birthday text – some verse of Scripture beginning, or ending with, or at least containing, the same letters as his Hebrew name.
The earliest hymns taught would be the Psalms for the days of the week, or festive Psalms, such as the Hallel (Psalm 136), or those connected with the festive pilgrimages to Jerusalem. Regular lessons started in the fifth or sixth year when every child was sent to school. The teachers would teach them the Law, according to their capacity, with great patience and strictness tempered by kindness, but, above all, with the object to keep them from vice and show sin in its repulsiveness and to train them in gentleness, truthfulness and to do this without showing partiality, or undue severity or loosening of discipline. Even at an early age, teaching had a moral purpose for these Jewish schoolboys.
Up to ten years of age, the Hebrew Bible exclusively was the textbook; from ten to fifteen, the Mishnah, or traditional law; after that age, the student should enter on those theological discussions which occupied time and attention in the higher Academies of the Rabbis. The study of the Bible commenced with that of the Book of Leviticus, followed by the rest of the Torah, then the Prophets, followed by the Writings.
This was how Jesus’ early days were filled. From his intimate familiarity with Holy Scripture in its every detail, we may assume that his humble home possessed a copy of the Bible as it was. In this way, ‘And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him.’
This is an extract from the book, Jesus : Life and Times, available for £14.99 at https://www.sppublishing.com/jesus-life-and-times-a-clash-of-kingdomsand-the-triumph-of-mercy-376-p.asp (Finalist for Academic Book of the year at 2023 CRT awards)
