Why did they want to throw Jesus off the cliff for recounting an OT lesson?

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GospelLK 4:24-30​

Jesus said to the people in the synagogue at Nazareth:
“Amen, I say to you,
no prophet is accepted in his own native place.
Indeed, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel
in the days of Elijah
when the sky was closed for three and a half years
and a severe famine spread over the entire land.
It was to none of these that Elijah was sent,
but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon.
Again, there were many lepers in Israel
during the time of Elisha the prophet;
yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”
When the people in the synagogue heard this,
they were all filled with fury.
They rose up, drove him out of the town,
and led him to the brow of the hill
on which their town had been built,
to hurl him down headlong.
But he passed through the midst of them and went away.
 
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Sorry I posted this on Tuesday but couldn’t find it again. I know some of you replies I’m sorry for the repeat question.
 
I think it was because he was saying it wouldn’t come to the self righteous who expected they’d be blessed.
 
Here’s your topic from Tuesday:
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Readings from March 16th Sacred Scripture
Why did the people rise up and try to throw Jesus off the cliff when he said these things? I assume there was something offensive about it? Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place. Indeed, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was closed for three and a half years and a severe famine spread over the entire land. It was to none of these that Elijah was sent, but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon. Again,…
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Weird that you have two accounts.
 
They wanted to throw him off the cliff because they were insulted. Their anger toward him must have been growing over time because if someone insults you, you might tell them off or walk away, but murder?

I find it interesting that Jesus is recorded as walking away a few times. Likely divine intervention so he would be around long enough for his passion. Even the night they came to arrest him, some kind of divine intervention is recorded, that they all fell down. What the heck happened there? and it’s very easy to miss that detail.
 
This is definitely an interesting passage. We have to look at two things: what Jesus said and why the people wanted to throw Jesus off of a cliff.

What Jesus said: Jesus claimed that the Messianic prophecies were now being fulfilled. We must remember that the Jews expected the Messiah to be a royal power who would conquer Israel’s enemies. Jesus was a humble carpenter from a small “back-woods” town. Definitely not what the people had in mind! But Jesus went further. He elevated Himself to the place of a prophet. He compared His ministry to that of Elijah and Elisha.

The reaction: In the Greek culture, hubris was a capital sin. It was essentially a kind of blasphemy where one spoke negatively and doubted the gods. In the Jewish world, heavily influenced by the Greco-Roman world in which it lived under, blasphemy and defamation of the prophets was a capital sin. My take would be that the listeners thought Jesus was elevating Himself above the prophets which would have been a capital offense against God, worthy of death. This fact-of-the-matter makes sense when considering how angry they were.
 
What happened was that Christ invoked the Name of God, as the High Priest would on the Day of Atonement. The mob fell prostrate at the Name of God, just as the congregation would on the Day of Atonement. Why the Day of Atonement was not the Eve of Passover, I do not know, but Christ’s arrest, trial before the Sanhedrin, and the choice between Jesus and Barabbas fulfill Day of Atonement imagery, not Passover imagery.
 
There are several reasons why the mob got mad at Jesus.

First of all, Jesus was holding himself out as a major prophet on the order of Elijah.
The local residents of Nazareth weren’t buying it; in the verses immediately prior to this passage, they were saying, “Isn’t this Joseph the carpenter’s son?”

Second, Jesus goes on to indicate that due to their lack of acceptance of him, they would suffer while gentiles were rewarded (as with the widow and the Syrian).

Both of these statements would have been considered highly offensive and blasphemous. Blasphemy would get you killed by a mob because not only did they vehemently disagree with and find offensive what you were saying, but they’d worry about being punished themselves by God if they didn’t immediately rise up and kill you.
 
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PennyinCanada said:
I find it interesting that Jesus is recorded as walking away a few times. Likely divine intervention so he would be around long enough for his passion.
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This passage has been taught by priests in the homilies I’ve heard on it, not as Jesus walked away, but that he just disappeared, beamed himself away. In other words, God supernaturally saved him from the mob, or Jesus used his own divine nature to get away.
 
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