is called the Sprout of David, or simply the Sprout;
[Pg 111] compare remarks on Zech. iii. 8, vi. 12. All that is here
required is certainly only to place beside one another, on the one
hand, prophecy, and, on the other, history, in order clearly and
evidently to point out the fulfilment of the former in the latter. It
was not at Jerusalem, where there was the seat of His royal ancestor,
where there were the thrones of His house (comp. Ps. cxxii.), that the
Messiah took up his residence; but it was in the most despised place of
the most despised province that, by divine Providence, He received His
residence, after the predictions of the prophets had been fulfilled by
His having been born at Bethlehem. The name of that place by which His
lowliness was designated was the same as that by which Isaiah had
designated the lowliness of the Messiah at His appearing.

We have hitherto considered prophecy and fulfilment independently of
the quotation by St. Matthew. Let us now add a few remarks upon the
latter.

1. It seems not to have been without reason that the wider formula of
quotation: [Greek: to rhethen dia ton propheton] is here chosen,
although _Jerome_ infers too much from it when he remarks: "If he had
wished to refer to a distinct quotation from Scripture, he would never
have said: 'As was spoken by the prophets,'but simply, 'as was said by
the prophet.'By using prophets in the plural, he shows that it is the
sense, and not the words which he has taken from Scripture." No doubt
St. Matthew has one passage chiefly in view--that in Is. xi. 1, which,
besides the general announcement of the Messiah's lowliness, contains,
in addition, a special designation of it which is found again in the
_nomen_ and _omen_ of his native place. This appears especially from
the circumstance that, if it were otherwise, the quotation: in [Greek:
hoti Nazoraios klethestai], would be inexplicable, since it is very
forced to suppose that "Nazarene" here designates generally one low and
despised.[2] But he chose the general formula of [Pg 112] quotation
(comp. _Gersdorf_, _Beitraege zur Sprachcharacteristik_ 1. S. 136), in
order thereby to intimate that in Christ's residence at Nazareth those
prophecies, too, were at the same time fulfilled, which, in the
essential point--in the announcement of Christ's lowliness--agree with
that of Isaiah. But it is just this additional reference which shows
that, to Matthew, this was indeed the essential poi