Isaiah promised that from the felled stump of David's line new life would shoot: 'And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root. And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him' (Isaiah 11:1–2). The Hebrew word for that shoot is NETZER — 'branch' — and 'the Branch' became a standing messianic title in the prophets (Jeremiah 23:5; Zechariah 3:8; 6:12).
Matthew concludes the infancy narrative: 'And coming he dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was said by the prophets: That he shall be called a Nazarene' (Matthew 2:23). No single Old Testament verse contains that sentence — which is why Matthew, uniquely here, says 'the prophets' in the plural. The oldest and most common reading is a wordplay he expected his Hebrew-literate readers to catch: the man of Nazareth (Natzrat) is the NETZER, the Branch of Jesse the prophets promised.
There is a fittingness the Fathers relished: the royal shoot grew in a village so obscure it is never once named in the Old Testament — 'Can any thing of good come from Nazareth?' (John 1:46). The stump looked dead, and the Branch came up where no one was watching.