{Is not this the carpenter?} (Ouch houtos estin ho
tekt(936e);).  Mt 13:55  calls him "the carpenter's son" (ho tou
tektonos huios). He was both. Evidently since Joseph's death he
had carried on the business and was "the carpenter" of Nazareth.
The word 	ekt(936e) comes from 	ekein, tikt(935c), to beget, create,
like 	echn(885c) (craft, art). It is a very old word, from Homer
down. It was originally applied to the worker in wood or builder
with wood like our carpenter. Then it was used of any artisan or
craftsman in metal, or in stone as well as in wood and even of
sculpture. It is certain that Jesus worked in wood. Justin Martyr
speaks of ploughs, yokes, et cetera, made by Jesus. He may also
have worked in stone and may even have helped build some of the
stone synagogues in Galilee like that in Capernaum. But in
Nazareth the people knew him, his family (no mention of Joseph),
and his trade and discounted all that they now saw with their own
eyes and heard with their own ears. This word carpenter "throws
the only flash which falls on the continuous tenor of the first
thirty years from infancy to manhood, of the life of Christ"
(Farrar). That is an exaggeration for we have  Lu 2:41-50  and
"as his custom was" ( Lu 4:16 ), to go no further. But we are
grateful for Mark's realistic use of 	ekt(936e) here. {And they
were offended in him} (kai eskandalizonto en aut(9369)). So exactly
 Mt 13:56 , {were made to stumble in him}, trapped like game by
the skandalon because they could not explain him, having been
so recently one of them. "The Nazarenes found their stumbling
block in the person or circumstances of Jesus. He became--petra
skandalou ( 1Pe 2:7,8  Ro 9:33 ) to those who disbelieved"
(Swete). Both Mark and  Mt 13:57 , which see, preserve the retort
of Jesus with the quotation of the current proverb about a
prophet's lack of honour in his own country.  Joh 4:44  quoted it
from Jesus on his return to Galilee long before this. It is to be
noted that Jesus here makes a definite claim to being a prophet
(proph(8874)(8873), forspeaker for God), a seer. He was much more than
this as he had already claimed to be Messiah ( Joh 4:26  Lu
4:21 ), the Son of man with power of God ( Mr 1:10  Mt 9:6  Lu
5:24 ), the Son of God ( Joh 5:22 ). They stumble at Jesus today
as the townspeople of Nazareth did. {In his own house} (en t(8869)
oiki(8369) autou). Also in  Mt 13:57 . This was the saddest part of
it all, that his own brothers in his own home disbelieved his
Messianic claims ( Joh 7:5 ). This puzzle was the greatest of
all.