Nathanael could not fit the promised Messiah together with a town like Nazareth. Philip had made a huge claim: this was the One "of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write" (John 1:45). But the last word, Nazareth, stopped Nathanael. Barnes says the character of Nazareth "was proverbially bad," and Gill says Nazareth "was so mean a place, that it seems it was even despised by its neighbours." The question is less a request for information than an objection: surely nothing that good could come from there.

Philip did not argue. He simply said, "Come and see" (John 1:46). Barnes notes that Philip "did not sit down to reason with him" but asked him to go and examine for himself. Nathanael came, and Jesus met him with words of welcome: "Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!" (John 1:47). Before the conversation ended, the doubter was confessing, "Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel" (John 1:49).

Nazareth was a small town in Galilee, and Galilee itself was looked down on by the leaders in Jerusalem. Later in John, the Pharisees mock Nicodemus with the words, "Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet" (John 7:52), a verse Barnes points to here. Gill writes that the whole country of Galilee was held in contempt by the Jews, and Nazareth was despised even by its neighbours.

Nathanael himself was from Cana in Galilee (John 21:2), so this was not a city man sneering at the country. It was a Galilean who still could not picture the Messiah coming from Nazareth.

Nathanael's question shows how easily we decide ahead of time where God can and cannot work. Jesus was indeed "of Nazareth" (John 1:45), and that humble address became one of the first stumbling blocks to faith in Him (John 7:41, 52). God did not send His Son with the credentials people expected.

The answer to the objection was not a debate but a meeting. "Come and see" were the same words Jesus had used to the first two disciples the day before (John 1:39). Matthew Henry observes that "the best way to remove false notions of religion, is to make trial of it." Nathanael's prejudice did not survive his first conversation with Jesus.