Luke 4:22-30 meaning

In Luke 4:22-30, Jesus confronts the unbelief of the people in His hometown of Nazareth by recalling how prophets were often rejected by their own people, which enrages the synagogue crowd and drives them to attempt to kill Him by throwing Him off a cliff, but He passes through their midst and goes His way.

Luke 4:22-30 has no obvious parallel gospel accounts. It is possible that Matthew 13:54b-58 and Mark 6:2b-6 describe the same event as Luke 4:22-30.

In the previous section (Luke 4:16-22), Jesus returned to His hometown of Nazareth and entered the synagogue on the Sabbath where He had been invited to teach as a rabbi (Luke 4:16). He stood up to read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah (Luke 4:17) and, breaking rabbinic tradition, read less than the requisite three full verses. Jesus read only a portion of two verses (Isaiah 61:1-2a). He read:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor.
He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives,
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set free those who are oppressed,
To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”
(Luke 4:18-19)

This prophetic scripture is overtly Messianic.

After reading a portion of two verses, Jesus abruptly stopped and sat down to teach, and all eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on Him wondering what He would say or do next (Luke 4:20).

Jesus then boldly declared, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). In saying this, Jesus was claiming that He is the fulfillment of the Messianic prophecy in front of His hometown, in the synagogue where He was trained as a young Jewish boy, to neighbors and friends who knew Him as He grew into a man.

NAZARETH’S RESPONSE TO JESUS’S CLAIM

Jesus certainly gave the people of Nazareth a lot to consider. Initially, the people of Nazareth responded positively to Jesus’s words and teaching. Luke continues:

And all were speaking well of Him, and wondering at the gracious words which were falling from His lips; and they were saying, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” (v 22a).

At first, Jesus’s words were met with admiration and respect, as all the people in the synagogue were deeply impressed by the way He spoke. His manner of speaking was impressively authoritative in tone and style as well as bold in His claim. It captured the attention of everyone present.

Luke specifically says all were speaking well of Him.

The expression speaking well of Him indicates that they were saying good things about Jesus. Luke does not necessarily indicate what those good things were while they were speaking well of Him. Their speaking well of Him might have been nervous niceties about Jesus as they processed the challenging things He said. Or it may have been genuine compliments about the remarkable young rabbi who spoke with great authority.

If Matthew 13:53-58 and Mark 6:1-6 are parallel accounts of the events of Luke 4:16-30, then some of the things Jesus’s listeners were saying when all were speaking well of Him were:

“Where did this man get these things, and what is this wisdom given to Him, and such miracles as these performed by His hands?”
(Mark 6:2b-See also Matthew 13:54b, 56b)

Luke also writes how the people of the synagogue were wondering at the gracious words which were falling from His lips.

The expression gracious words suggests that Jesus’s message was full of divine favor, kindness, and hope which uplifted and stirred the hearts of His listeners. For a moment, the people of Nazareth seemed captivated by the wisdom and presence of Jesus, whom they had known since childhood. They were wondering at the amazing things He was saying and trying to grasp their meaning.

This could indicate they were trying to reconcile the Messianic claims Jesus made about Himself and the boy they saw grow into a carpenter (Matthew 13:53), who had recently left town to become a rabbi.

Matthew and Mark also record how the people of Nazareth’s synagogue were “astonished” at His teaching (Matthew 13:54, Mark 6:2).

Luke then records (along with Matthew and Mark) how they began to comment with apparent incredulity about Jesus’s humble roots.

They began to ask themselves: “Is this not Joseph’s son?”

This was a rhetorical question. They knew Jesus was raised by Joseph, the husband of Mary (Matthew 1:18-25, 2:13-14, 2:19-23, Luke 1:26, 2:4-6).

However, Joseph was not Jesus’s biological father, but rather was His step-father.

Jesus’s mother, Mary, was a virgin when the Holy Spirit came upon her, causing her to conceive Jesus. Joseph was engaged to be married to Mary when this happened, but he married her anyway when an angel told him how Mary became pregnant and who the child she was carrying would be (Matthew 1:18-25). It is unclear how many of the people of Nazareth knew this fact (or believed it).

But what is apparent from their rhetorical question is that they had observed how Joseph raised Jesus as though He were his own son.

After Jesus’s visit to the Jerusalem temple when He was about twelve-years-old (Luke 2:41-52), Joseph is only occasionally mentioned, but he is never depicted in the Gospel accounts. Joseph’s absence likely indicates that Joseph had passed away sometime before Jesus began His public ministry as the Messiah.

In Matthew and Mark’s account, the synagogue attendants ask similar rhetorical questions about Jesus’s background and family,

“Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us?”
(Matthew 13:55-56a)

“Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? Are not His sisters here with us?”
(Mark 6:3)

From a biographical perspective, it is worth pointing out, that these rhetorical questions as recorded by Matthew and Mark are how we know Joseph was a carpenter (Mark 6:3) and that Jesus was a carpenter (Matthew 13:55) before He began His Messianic ministry.

The Greek word translated carpenter is τέκτων (G5045-pronounced: tek-ton). Within its first-century context, a “tekton” could be more descriptively thought of as a construction worker.

Given the locale, it is likely that Joseph and Jesus were skilled at masonry or mosaic construction. They might have had considerable work building the nearby city of Sepphoris, whose ruins still exist today (2025). A “tekton” would have been expected to know about construction work, not rabbinic wisdom.

Matthew and Mark both observe how the people of His hometown synagogue “took offense at Him” (Matthew 13:57, Mark 6:3) after/as they asked these rhetorical questions about Jesus’s family and where He acquired such wisdom. They had seen Jesus grow up from His childhood. They had known Him when He was a small child and teenager. Although they had a favorable opinion of Him, they had always seen Jesus as one of them-a peasant from Nazareth, not the Messiah (Luke 2:52).

JESUS RESPONDS WITH A PROVERB

Luke records Jesus’s response:

And He said to them, “No doubt you will quote this proverb to Me, ‘Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we heard was done at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well’” (v 23).

Jesus responded by revealing the lack of faith in their hearts.

In saying to the people of Nazareth No doubt you will quote this proverb to Me Jesus was summarizing the people of Nazareth’s heart toward Him through a proverb.

A proverb is a pithy and sometimes well-known saying that expresses a general truth, principle, or piece of practical wisdom. The most famous proverbs in the Bible are found in the Book of Proverbs which were largely composed by King Solomon. The proverb which Jesus said captured Nazareth’s lack of faith about Him was not from the Book of Proverbs. It therefore must have been a common expression familiar to the Jews of His time.

The proverb Jesus responded to them with was Physician, heal yourself!

A physician is someone who helps heal those who are sick. (Luke, the author of this Gospel was a physician-Colossians 4:4).

This particular proverb functions as a challenge to prove one’s power or credibility by first applying it to oneself.

In literal terms, this proverb demands that a Physician prove his abilities to heal by using them on himself, before he tries to heal other patients. In abstract terms, this proverb reflects the human tendency to demand personal evidence before accepting someone’s authority or claims.

When applied to Jesus in this context, this proverb exposes the skepticism beneath the surface of His hometown’s initial admiration.

Jesus had just read and claimed to be the present fulfillment of a prophecy from Isaiah about bringing good news to the poor, releasing the captives, recovering the sight to the blind, and setting free the oppressed (Luke 4:18). The people of Nazareth had heard reports of His miracles in other towns like Capernaum, and now they expected Him to demonstrate the same power in His own village as proof of His identity.

Thus, this proverb reveals their deeper attitude: they were not satisfied with His words alone, however gracious His words might be. They wanted signs and wonders as validation.

Perhaps beneath their lack of faith was the wrong assumption that the Lord’s anointed (the Messiah) would be great in earthly terms. Perhaps they wanted particular favors for themselves, as citizens of His hometown, similar to the people in John 6:30-31 who basically asked Jesus “What are you going to do for us so we will follow You?”

The Messiah was to be a king with great powers to bring peace and prosperity to Israel. But when the people of Nazareth saw Jesus, they saw a man who had lived a life of personal tragedy, incredible hardship, and most likely poverty. They might have now been saying “What benefit will you give us so that we follow You?”

As mentioned earlier in this commentary, the head of Jesus’s household, Joseph, had likely died at some point in the last fifteen years. If Joseph’s untimely death occurred when Jesus was still a teenager, it would have put Mary, a mother of at least six younger children (Mark 6:3), in a difficult financial position. The people of Nazareth would have witnessed this difficulty up close and likely helped Jesus’s family bear this tragedy and its hardships. This perspective may have played a role in Jesus’s brothers’ lack of faith in Him (John 7:5).

According to Nazareth’s wrong perspective, if Jesus were the Messiah with the ability to bring about the restoration of Israel which He claimed He could, then He should first prove it by using His great Messianic powers to heal His family and enrich His hometown.

If this was something like Nazareth’s perspective, then it was a version of the temptation Jesus had recently overcome in the wilderness, when the devil tempted Him to prove Himself by throwing Himself off the temple so that angels would protect Him (Luke 4:9-10). Jesus responded to the devil: “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test’” (Luke 4:12).

Similarly, Jesus did not give in to the people of Nazareth’s temptation for Him to prove Himself to them with a sign. Throughout Jesus’s ministry, this would be a recurring temptation. Later in Jesus’ ministry, religious leaders asked Jesus for a sign from heaven (Luke 11:16), despite having already seen His works.

Similar temptations can be found in Matthew 12:38-39, 16:1-4, Mark 8:11-12, Luke 11:16, 23:8, John 2:18, 6:30. These temptations were also present in the ridicules He received on the cross (Matthew 27:39-43, Mark 15:29-32, Luke 23:35-37, 39). Jesus overcame them all.

This kind of attitude is not commended by Jesus. He laments elsewhere, “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign” (Matthew 12:39).

The people’s desire for miracles in Nazareth was less about receiving truth and more about testing whether Jesus could perform on command and prove His greatness in their eyes. The likely next step would then be “Now do for us what we demand in order that we might follow you.”

Jesus was great. But He lived according to God’s true standard of greatness and not the world’s false standards of greatness (Luke 22:25-27),

“Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
(Matthew 20:28)

The world says greatness is exercising your authority and using your powers to extract from others. The Bible says greatness is serving others and that the path to greatness and exaltation is through humbly serving others in love (Philippians 2:5-11).

The Pharisees, Pilate, Herod, Caiaphas, even Jesus’s own disciples did not understand the meaning of greatness. And apparently the people of Nazareth did not understand it either.

After Jesus summed up Nazareth’s lack of faith with the proverb-Physician, heal yourself!-Jesus explained this proverb’s application in more explicit terms by anticipating their demands of Him:

“Whatever we heard was done at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well” (v 23b).

Following Jesus’s fasting and temptation in the wilderness, “Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about Him spread through all the surrounding district” (Luke 4:14). Matthew records that Jesus specifically went to Capernaum when He returned to Galilee (Matthew 4:13). Jesus’s hometown of Nazareth was part of “the surrounding district” of Galilee (Luke 4:14).

The people of Nazareth had no doubt heard of His miraculous works that were done at Capernaum and were expecting Jesus to perform similar works in his home village.

The people of Nazareth’s faith was conditional. Their willingness to believe was dependent on spectacle. It required patronage. Again, their request was not an expression of faith, but a demanding proof.

The people’s desire for miracles in Nazareth was less about receiving truth and more about testing whether Jesus could perform on command. They were, in essence, asking Jesus to become their idol whom they could command to do their bidding.

What makes their demand especially poignant is that Jesus had the power to do the signs they asked for, but He chose not to do them. Jesus followed the will of His Father (Luke 4:42-43, John 5:19, 6:38), and not the demands of the people, because their intents were evil (John 2:24-25). Jesus came to serve; their desire was to feed their own appetites.

People’s rejection of Jesus (both in the synagogue of Nazareth and today) is not due to a lack of evidence, but rather to the condition of their hearts, which demands to control how and when God should reveal Himself.

JESUS’S PROPHET-PRINCIPLE

Jesus continued to rebuke His friends and neighbors’ lack of faith:

And He said, “Truly I say to you, no prophet is welcome in his hometown” (v 24).

Jesus further lamented Nazareth’s lack of faith by stating a principle: A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown.

In Mark’s account Jesus elaborates on this principle to also include: “his own relatives and…his own household” (Mark 6:4b-see also Matthew 13:57b).

The principle speaks to the tragic irony that those most familiar with a prophet often fail to recognize his true significance. Rather than honoring him for the wisdom and authority a prophet possesses, his own community dismisses the prophet because they cannot see past their assumptions and familiarity.

The prophet’s extraordinary calling is obscured by ordinary memories, and his divine mission is reduced in their eyes to commonality. The unwillingness of the people of the prophet’s hometown to believe or even welcome him as a prophet shows that honor often comes more readily from those who encounter a messenger fresh, without preconceived biases.

By stating this principle as He was being rejected by His hometown, Jesus was commenting how it played a role in their rejection of Him and His Messianic claims.

As the Messiah, Jesus, of course, was and is the great prophet like Moses, who was promised long ago through Moses. The LORD promised He would send to Israel this prophet like Moses to speak directly to His people (Deuteronomy 18:15, 18-19). But His hometown rejected Him as the Lord’s anointed. Sadly, they would not be the last Jewish village or city to reject Jesus (John 1:11).

To further illustrate His point about how no prophet is welcome in his hometown, Jesus gave two examples about two of Israel’s greatest prophets-Elijah and Elisha-and how they too were largely unwelcomed by their own people during their ministries.

The first example Jesus gave to illustrate His point was about the prophet Elijah:

But I say to you in truth, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut up for three years and six months, when a great famine came over all the land; and yet Elijah was sent to none of them, but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow (vv 26-27).

The account of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath is found in 1 Kings 17:1-16.

During the reign of wicked King Ahab, the faithful prophet Elijah declared that there would be no rain in Israel except by his word (1 Kings 17:1). This initiated a severe drought that would last for three and a half years (James 5:17). As famine spread through the land, God first sustained Elijah by sending him to the brook Cherith, where ravens fed him (1 Kings 17:2-6).

But when the brook dried up, God commanded Elijah to go outside of Israel, to a Gentile city called Zarephath in the land of Sidon, where He had appointed a widow to provide for him (1 Kings 17:7-9). This was an extraordinary command, as Sidon was the homeland of Jezebel and a center of Baal worship-a surprising place for God's prophet to find help.

When Elijah arrived at Zarephath, he found the widow gathering sticks to cook what she thought would be her last meal for herself and her son. Elijah asked her to bring him some water and a piece of bread (1 Kings 17:10-11), and when she explained her desperate situation, he told her not to fear but to make a small cake for him first, promising that the flour and oil would not run out until the LORD sent rain (1 Kings 17:12-14).

The widow believed the Israeli prophet and obeyed. And just as Elijah promised, the flour and oil miraculously sustained them throughout the famine (1 Kings 17:15-16). This Gentile woman, who had no covenant ties to Israel, responded with faith to the word of God through Elijah, and as a result, she received divine provision and life.

Jesus used this story to support the principle He just stated in verse 24: No prophet is welcome in his hometown. Though many widows in Israel were suffering during Elijah’s time, none apparently had faith in the LORD. So, God sent His prophet to a foreign woman, outside the boundaries of Israel, who would responded with faith. A woman of Sidon received God’s prophet unlike God’s own people who rejected His prophet.

A similar rejection was now taking place in Nazareth, as Jesus’s hometown was rejecting Him. This sharp rebuke exposed the unbelief of His own townspeople and how their lack of faith was preventing them from participating in the Messianic kingdom and its blessings that were presently available and being fulfilled in their hearing that very day (Luke 4:21).

Jesus reiterated this point with a second example from the life of Elijah’s pupil and successor-Elisha:

And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian (v 27).

The account of Elisha and Naaman is found in 2 Kings 5:1-14. Naaman the Syrian was a Gentile military commander (2 Kings 5:1). Most Israelites would have regarded him as an enemy of Israel (2 Kings 6:8-23). Naaman, though a powerful man, suffered from leprosy and heard through a captive Israelite girl that there was a prophet in Israel who could heal him (2 Kings 5:2-3).

Naaman went to Israel with gifts and a letter from the king of Aram, expecting to be treated with ceremony (2 Kings 5:5-6). But Elisha did not even meet him personally. Instead, he sent word for Naaman to wash seven times in the Jordan River to be cleansed (2 Kings 5:10). At first Naaman was insulted, but eventually obeyed after his servants persuaded him, and he was miraculously healed (2 Kings 5:11-14).

Meanwhile, many lepers in Israel during Elisha’s time were not healed.

Just as Elisha’s healing power was not received by Israelites but by an outsider regarded as an enemy, Jesus’s Prophetic identity was being rejected by His own hometown of Nazareth.

But there is an extra layer to Jesus’s example of Naaman for Jesus’s unbelieving audience in Nazareth. Naaman, like the people of Nazareth, initially reject God’s message. But Naaman soon repents, heeds the prophet’s words, and is cleansed once he responded in obedient faith. Naaman’s repentance demonstrates the possibility that it was not too late for the people of Nazareth to likewise repent and experience the Gospel blessings Jesus was sent to proclaim (Luke 4:18) even though they too were initially rejecting Him as the Lord’s Messianic Prophet.

Naaman’s story, like the widow of Zarephath’s, perfectly illustrates Jesus’s principle: No prophet is welcome in his hometown (v 24). Jesus’s illustrations of these Gentiles (the widow of Sidon and the Syrian commander) receiving the Lord’s prophets while Israel rejected them also foreshadows the broader mission of the Gospel to the Gentiles-see Romans 11:11-25. Just as the Gentile Naaman was healed, so would the Gospel spread to the Gentiles and bring them great blessing, thus fulfilling God’s promise to Abraham (Genesis 12:3).

NAZARETH’S REACTION TO JESUS’S REBUKE

And all the people in the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things (v 28).

Rage is a highly emotional state of anger that is rash and violent. People who are filled with rage tend to act swiftly in anger without considering the consequences.

This marks a dramatic and dark shift in the crowd who were earlier speaking well of Jesus and wondering at His gracious words. After Jesus’s rebuke, Luke writes how all these same people in the synagogue become filled with rage upon hearing these things.

These things they heard Jesus say included:

• The proverb which summarized their wrong perspective: Physician, heal yourself! (v 23)

• The principle that no prophet is welcome in his hometown (v 24)

• Jesus’s comparison of Nazareth’s unbelief of Him to Israel’s rejection of the prophets Elijah (v 25) and Elisha (v 27a)

• Jesus’s contrast of Nazareth’s unbelief to the faith of two Gentiles, the widow of Zarephath (v 26) and Naaman the Syrian commander (v 27b)

The people of Nazareth’s wondering had turned into offense (Matthew 13:57a, Mark 6:3b) which turned into rage, which was about to turn into violence.

And they got up and drove Him out of the city, and led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built, in order to throw Him down the cliff (v 29).

The people’s rage boiled over into violent action against Jesus. They got up from their seats in the synagogue and removed Him from the building and drove Him out of their city.

But in their fury and rage, the people of Nazareth were not content with banishment or exile from their village. They wished to execute Jesus.

They led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built, in order to throw Him down the cliff.

The city of Nazareth had been built near the top of the ridgeline overlooking the Jezreel Valley to its south. It is most likely this ridge Luke is referring to by the expression: the brow of the hill.

Jesus’s former neighbors brought Him to the cliff in order to throw Him down from it and kill Him. But they did not kill Him.

Luke writes: But passing through their midst, He went His way (v 30).

The sentence describes how Jesus escaped the violent mob which sought to throw Him off a cliff. Despite the crowd’s rage and escalating momentum, they were unable to carry out their deadly intentions.

Luke does not detail how Jesus managed to avoid being killed. He simply wrote that Jesus passed through the midst of the enraged crowd and He went on His way.

Luke’s wording indicates an unexpected calm or control in the midst of chaos. And it suggests that Jesus was not overtaken by the crowd, but that He left on His own terms, untouched and unbound. It is possible that there could have been some miraculous or supernatural restraining that restricted the crowd or caused a momentary confusion to halt their actions. It is also possible that Jesus could have dictated His own release. But again, Luke does not say how Jesus managed to pass through their midst unharmed-only that He did.

What is evident is that this moment reflects divine authority and God’s sovereignty. Jesus was not seized or harmed because “His hour had not yet come” (John 7:30, 8:20).

Luke 4:28-30 marks the first recorded attempt on Jesus’s life.

Aside from the growing conspiracy that will eventually lead to His crucifixion, the Bible records two other distinct attempts to execute Jesus:

• The Jews try to stone Jesus for claiming eternal existence.
  (John 8:58-59)

• The Jews try to stone Jesus for claiming to be one with the Father.
  (John 10:31-33)

Nazareth’s rejection of Jesus fulfills His own declaration that no prophet is welcome in his hometown. But perhaps more significantly, Jesus’s disowning in Nazareth was the first fulfillment of multiple prophecies predicting how the Messiah would be ignored, despised, and rejected by His own people (Psalm 69:8, 118:22, Isaiah 49:7, 52:2-3).

Nazareth’s scorn of Jesus foreshadowed the broader national rejection He would endure at the end of His life. And it began the pattern of painful dismissals He would endure between then and the cross. As John wrote of Jesus:

“He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.”
(John 1:11)