RISING / DAWN — and, in the Greek Old Testament, the messianic BRANCH. Zechariah's song says 'the ANATOLE from on high will visit us' (1:78). The word means the rising of the sun (light dawning on those in darkness, Isaiah 9:2) AND the 'Branch/shoot' promised to spring from David (Jeremiah 23:5; Zechariah 3:8; 6:12, where the Greek Bible uses this very word). Zechariah's ears would catch both at once: a sunrise and a sprouting Branch. ⚠️ No single English word holds both, so the versions split — 'dayspring' (KJV), 'sunrise' (ESV), 'daybreak' (NWT). ⚠ Matthew 2 turns on the plainest sense: the magi saw the star en tē anatolē (2:2, 9) — 'in the east', or, since the phrase is singular with the article and is technical in Greek astronomical writing, 'at its RISING', a star's first reappearance in the dawn sky. The versions split three ways there (KJV 'in the east'; ASV 'in the east' with a margin 'at its rising'; NIV 'when it rose'; NWT 'when we were in the east'). And there is a quiet resonance: the Greek Bible's word for the messianic BRANCH is the same word — which is the very image, Hebrew netser, that the oldest reading of Matthew's closing 'he shall be called a Nazarene' (2:23) depends on. → first discussed at Luke 1:78