 And upon arriving he settled in a city called Natsareth Branch-town,, but since Hebrew is read from right to left, for us the order is reversed n, ts, r. This word root means branch. Greek has the equivalent for ps and ks, but not for ts, so the transliteration used a ζ dz, which is the voiced counterpart of ts. But when the Greek was transliterated into English it came out as z! But Hebrew has a z, ז , so in transliterating back into Hebrew people assumed the consonants נזר, replacing the correct with . This technical information is necessary as background for the next footnote. so that what was spoken through the prophets should be fulfilled, that He would be called a Natsorean Branch-man., is to be found in the Old Testament, but there is a prophetic reference to Messiah as the Branch, Isaiah 11:1and several to the related word, Isaiah 4:2; Jeremiah 23:5; 33:15; Zechariah 3:8; 6:12. So Matthew is quite rightthe prophets plural, being at least three referred to Christ as the Branch. Since Jesus was a man, He would be the Branch-man, from Branch-town. Which brings us to the word Natsorean. The familiar Nazarene Ναζαρηνος Natsarene occurs in Mark 1:24; 14:67; 16:6 and Luke 4:34, but here in Matthew 2:23 and in fourteen other places, including Acts 22:8 where the glorified Jesus calls Himself that, the word is Natsorean Ναζωραιος, which is quite different. Actually, in Acts 22:8 Jesus introduced Himself to Saul as the Natsorean, which Saul would understand as a reference to the Messiah. To my surprise, Pilate put the Natsorean in the accusation above the crossJohn 19:19. I have been given to understand that the Nazareth of Jesus day had been founded some 100 years before by a Branch family who called it Branch town; they were very much aware of the prophecies about the Branch and fully expected the Messiah to be born from among themthey called themselves Branch-people Natsoreans. Of course everyone else thought it was a big joke and tended to look down on them. Can anything good...? 