The Story of the Bible

King Herod waited for the wise men to come back to him from their visit to Bethlehem; but he soon found that they had gone to their home without bringing to him any word. Then Herod was very angry. He sent out his soldiers to Bethlehem. They came, and by the cruel king's command they seized all the little children in Bethlehem who were three years old, or younger, and killed them all. What a cry went up to God from the mothers of Bethlehem as their children were torn from their arms and slain! But all this time the child Jesus, whom they were seeking, was safe with his mother in the land of Egypt.

Soon after this King Herod died, a very old man, cruel to the last. Then the angel of the Lord came again and spoke to Joseph in a dream, saying:

"You may now take the young child back to his own land, for the king who sought to kill him is dead."

Then Joseph took his wife and the little child Jesus and started to go again to Bethlehem, the city of David and there bring up the child. But he heard that in that part of the land Archelaus was now ruling, who was a son of Herod, and as wicked and cruel as his father. He feared to go under his rule, and instead took his wife and the child to Nazareth, which had been his own home and that of Mary his wife, before the child was born. Nazareth was in the part of the land called Galilee, which at that time was ruled by another son of King Herod, a king named Herod Antipas. He was not a good man, but was not so cruel nor bloody as his wicked father had been.

So again Joseph, the carpenter, and Mary his wife, were living in Nazareth. And there they stayed for may years while Jesus was growing up. Jesus was not the only child in their house, for other sons and daughters were given to them.

The Boy in His Father's House

Luke ii: 40 to 52.

Jesus was brought to Nazareth when he was a little child, not more than three years old; there he grew up as a boy and a Youngman; and there he lived until he was thirty years of age. We should like to know many things about his boyhood, but the Bible tells us very little. As Joseph was a workingman, it is likely that he lived in a house with only one room, with no floor except the earth, no window except a hole in the wall, no pictures upon the walls, and neither bedstead, nor cushions; they slept upon rolls of matting; and their meals were taken from a low table, not much larger than a stool.

Jesus may have learned to read at the village school, which was generally held in the house used for worship, called the "synagogue". The lessons were from rolls on which were written parts of the Old Testament; but Jesus never had a Bible of his own. From the time when he was a child he went with Joseph to the worship in the synagogue twice every week. There they sat on the floor, and herd the Old Testament read and explained; while Mary and the younger sisters of Jesus listened from a gallery behind a lattice-screen. The Jewish boys of that time were taught to know almost the whole of the Old Testament by heart.

It was the custom for the Jews from all parts of the land to go up to Jerusalem to worship at least once every year at the feast of the Passover, which was held in the spring. Some families also stayed to the feast of Pentecost, which was fifty days after Passover; and some went again in the fall to the feast of Tabernacles, when for a week all the families slept out of doors under roofs made of green twigs and bushes. (See Stories Twenty-three and Twenty-eight in Part First.) When Jesus was a boy twelve years old he was taken up to the feast of the Passover, and then for the first time he saw the holy city Jerusalem and the Temple of the Lord on Mount Moriah. Young as he was, his soul was stirred as he walked among the courts of the Temple, and saw the altar with its smoking sacrifice, the priests in their white robes, and the Levites with their silver trumpets. Though a boy, Jesus began to feel that he was the son of Gad and that this was his Father's house.

THE BOY IN THE TEMPLE

His heart was so filled with the worship of the Temple, with the words of the scribes or teachers whom he heard in the courts, and with his own thoughts, that when it was time to go home to Nazareth he stayed behind, held fast by his love for the house of the Lord. The company of people who were traveling together was large, and at first he was not missed. But when night came and the boy Jesus could not be found, his mother was alarmed. The next day Joseph and Mary left their company and hastened back to Jerusalem. They did not at first think to go to the Temple. They sought him among their friends and kindred who were living in the city, but could not find him.