The poverty of Joseph and Mary is incidentally seen in the sacrifice they brought in connection with the presentation of Jesus. In Leviticus we read, concerning the law of purifying for a woman who has borne a child: “If she be not able to bring a lamb [for a burnt offering], then she shall bring two turtles, or two young pigeons; the one for the burnt offering, and the other for a sin offering: and the priest shall make an atonement for her, and she shall be clean” (Lev. 12:8). Mary was “not able” to bring a lamb; and the Spirit of God thus calls our attention to the fact that our Lord was born in the circumstances of humble life, that His “mind” was, from the outset, yea, before He came to earth, to humble Himself. What mother would not, if she could, surround her child with every comfort and even luxury? But all was ordered by divine wisdom, and as we consider not only the circumstances of our Lord’s birth, but the pathway of Him who had not where to lay His head, we are only the more impressed with His unspeakable grace.
The rites of the temple, together with Simeon’s prophetic utterances, were ended, and when Joseph and Mary “had performed all things according to the law of the Lord,” they left the temple, went down the steps, and through the temple gates with their precious charge, and “they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth,” where they pursued their daily avocations, possessed of a divine secret which no one in Nazareth knew but themselves.