the multitude said, "This is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee." (Matt. xxi. 11.) When an inscription was put over His head on the cross, in the letters of the three languages, it was, "Jesus of Nazareth the king of the Jews." ( John xix. 19. See also Matt. xiii. 55 ; Mark vi. 3 ; Luke iv. 22.) Yet we know all this time that the Jews were mistaken, and that our Lord was in reality born at Bethlehem, according to prophecy. (Micah v. 2.) We can hardly doubt that the Jews might have found out this, if they had taken the pains to inquire narrowly into the early history of our Lord's life. In a nation so strict about pedigrees and birthplaces, such a thing could not be hid. But it seems as if they would not take the pains to inquire, and satisfied themselves with the common story of His origin, as it gave them an additional excuse for not receiving Him as the Messiah.
The entire ignorance which appears to have prevailed among the Jews, about all the circumstances of our Lord's miraculous conception, and His birth at Bethlehem, is certainly rather re- markable. Yet it should be remembered that thirty years had passed away between our Lord's birth and His public ministry, — that His mother and Joseph were evidently in a very humble position and might easily be overlooked, as well as all that hap- pened to them, — and that living quietly at Nazareth, their jour- ney to Bethlehem at the time of " the taxing" would soon be forgotten by others.
After all we must not forget that it is part of God's dealings with man, not to force conviction and belief on any one. The obscurity purposely left over our Lord's birthplace was a part of the moral probation of the Jewish nation. If, in their pride and indolence and self-righteousness, they would not receive the abundant evidence which our Lord gave of His Messiah- ship, it could not be expected that God would make unbelief impossible, by placing His birth of a virgin at Bethlehem be- yond the reach of doubt. In this, as in everything else, if the Jews had honestly desired to find out the truth, they might have found it.
[WJien Christ cometh, no man knoiceth, etc.~] It is rather diffi- cult to see what the Jews meant by these words. Most writers think that they referred to the mysterious language of Isaiah about Messiah, — "Who shall declare his generation; " (Isa. liii. 8;) or to Micah's words, — " Whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting; " (Micah v. 2;) and that they had in view the Divine and heavenly origin of Messiah, which all Jews allowed would be a mystery. Yet it is hard to understand why they did not say, "when Christ cometh, He shall be born in Bethlehem," and why they should be supposed to speak of our Lord's earthly origin in the beginning of the verse, and of Messiah's Divine origin in the end. There seems no explana- tion except to suppose that these speakers were singularly ignorant Jews, who did not know that Messiah was to be born