Luke 2:39
And when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth. And when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth.
After they had performed all things required by the law of the Lord, Jesus and His family returned into Galilee to Nazareth. It was there that His childhood and youth were spent. There He made His home for thirty years.
Nazareth was a little mountain village and small town in Galilee, obscure and despised. There Jesus lived in a humble home among the poor. He was brought up in obscurity in keeping with His humble parentage, in poverty and without worldly rank, unhonored and unknown.
Nazareth was proverbial for wickedness and had a bad reputation as a place from which no good was thought possible. Its people were regarded as the worst in Palestine. It was a place of moral darkness and misery.
He made His home there rather than in palaces, wealthy homes, royal courts, famous seats of learning, or other places of renown. He deliberately began His great work of uplifting and regenerating humanity there by becoming its citizen. He walked the paths the poor and neglected must tread, having left heaven to live a pure human life among those low in popularity and morality.
The verse belongs to the record of His early life in Nazareth, whose growth was gradual and in keeping with the laws of childhood. He grew strong in spirit, was filled with wisdom, and had God's grace upon Him. Mind and body developed together, and character showed patience, truthfulness, unselfish courtesy, and readiness to serve.
His upbringing in the humble home at Nazareth is an example of godly home training that joined knowledge of God with the events of daily life and with God's revelation and the natural world. It prepared the child to receive Scripture. It prepared the young mind for what is good, beautiful, and eternal.
His choice condemns human pride of place, station, honor, and fame. It leaves His followers who must live in lowly places with no excuse for sin or for a rough, hard, discourteous character. It proves that any hard and lowly place, when it is the post of duty, can be made honorable by fidelity.