“Hello Alamo-Girl! Well, sleep eludes me, i think because of this thread running around in my head - So I will write this bit, fleshing out in the process, my position for vlad:”
Nothing you said in your post in any way changes the truth and accuracy of anything I have posted in this thread. All you’re doing is proving that Matthew used an extrapolation. That was my point. You keep proving me right. Unless you can find an Old Testament verse used by Matthew that says “Nazarene”, you’re done. It’s over. I was right all along. I was the one who brought up Matthew 2:23 in the first place precisely because it proved my point and that point was indisputable. It still is. It always will be. You can keep posting to prove me right again, and again, and again, as you already have, but I don’t see the point. I have been right all along in this thread anyway.
He relied upon the understood meaning of prophetic language in the Old Testament, as your very own St. Jerome so eloquently attested. He did not invent anything from whole cloth, as in the instance of the RC Church referring to Mary as the Second Eve based upon Paul referring to Jesus Christ as the Second Adam in I Corinthians, when no such concept exists under any reading of words contained within scripture.
Well, perhaps you would believe Jerome, who seems to see what I see:
Once more it is written in the pages of the same evangelist, “And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.” Let these word fanciers and nice critics of all composition tell us where they have read the words; and if they cannot, let me tell them that they are in Isaiah. For in the place where we read and translate, “There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots,” in the Hebrew idiom it is written thus, “There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse and a Nazarene shall grow from his root.” How can the Septuagint leave out the word ‘Nazarene,’ if it is unlawful to substitute one word for another? It is sacrilege either to conceal or to set at naught a mystery. See NPNF2: Vol. 6, Epistle 57, To Pammachius.
Your entire premise demands that Matthew's pen wrote the word 'Nazarene', rather than the Hebrew (or Aramaic) counterpart that would make this linkage clear.
However, I do not want to dwell too thoroughly upon Isaiah alone (albeit that this verse is a keystone) - This verse in Matthew is one of only three (to my knowledge) wherein 'the Prophets' are credited corporately (in the NT) - it is far more common for a prophecy to be described with great precision, attributed to a single source (prophet, not prophets). Since the quote is attributed generically, rather than with precise attribution, how exactly are we to take the quote? Is it a 'go find it for yourself' statement? Or perhaps a generic 'all the prophets said stuff like this about me' kind of thing? or perhaps a 'This is a BIG matrix in the prophets that bears further scrutiny'... I much prefer the latter.
The 'Branch' prophecies simply blossom under this scrutiny, far more than without this light. And the Branch ties one to the branches, and how both will be despised ('notzri and notzrim' also mean something like heretic) - and the linkage is very clean... All one needs to tie it all together is 'Nazarene'. And without it, one misses magnificent brush strokes of prophecy.
The other two generic prophecies are these:
Mat 26:55 In that same hour said Jesus to the multitudes, Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on me.
Mat 26:56 But all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled.
Joh 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
Joh 6:45 It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.
(e-Sword:KJV)
Perhaps one can find a 'BIG matrix' in the prophets from these too.