The Revolt at Nazareth
Luke 4:21
21 . . . This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
Elder James E. Talmage said:
“From Samaria our Lord went on to Galilee, and there, in what has been called His home city—though not the place of His birth, yet the town of His youth, Nazareth—He went into the synagogue after He had become thirty years of age, the age at which a Jew was entitled to be heard if He had anything to say, in the synagogue, and He there appeared for the first time so far as we know in what we may call the speaker’s stand, perhaps by invitation. The president of the synagogue handed to Him the roll, the book of Isaiah. Jesus opened to what in our Bible is the sixty-first chapter and read from it as recorded by Luke:
“‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
“‘To preach the acceptable year of the Lord’ [Luke 4:18–19].
“Possibly there were few if any there who had not heard that scripture quoted aforetime. It was a favorite with speakers and commentators of the day, and it aroused some solemn interest in all who listened to Him, but His words that followed struck to the heart of everyone:
“‘This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears’ [Luke 4:21].
“They were startled. Some began to find fault, and the tumult culminated in their seizing Him and dragging Him to the brow of a nearby hill, intending to cast Him down to His death even at the beginning of His ministry. But His hour had not yet come. It was the present, the individual application, that had stirred their anger. And so with many other incidents in the life and earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus.”
(In Conference Report, Apr. 1932, 101–2.)
