Luke 4:16

‘And he entered, as his custom was, into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up to read.’

Arriving in Nazareth Jesus went on the Sabbath to the synagogue ‘as His custom was’. This may signify that it had regularly been His custom to go to the Nazareth synagogue, which we would anyway have assumed, or it may be referring to His custom on the Sabbath day to go to the nearest Synagogue as in Luke 4:15.

In the Synagogue He stood up to read. This would be at the invitation of the ruler of the Synagogue and was probably part way through the ‘service’. This is the first description that we have of a Synagogue service, but if we assume that it followed the pattern of later services it would commence with prayer, the Shema and the Blessings, followed by a reading of the Law. It is only then that someone would be called on to read from the Prophets. The Scriptures would be read in Hebrew and possibly translated into Aramaic.