Now after the Magi left, an angel of God appeared to Joseph in a dream and told
him, “Rise, and take the young child and his mother and flee to Egypt, and stay
there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy
him.” So Joseph got up and took the young child and his mother by night and left
for Egypt. They stayed there until the death of Herod; that the words might be
fulfilled that were spoken by God through the prophet, saying, “out of Egypt I
have called my Son.”
(Matt. 2:13-15)
Again, we have angelic intervention to save Jesus. The unnamed angel informs Joseph that Jesus’ life is in jeopardy, and directs him to take him, along with his mother, to Egypt, and remain there until further instructions.
The gospel of Matthew seems to have been written primarily to and for Jewish people to demonstrate that Jesus is the promised Messiah. Repeatedly Matthew makes reference to the Hebrew Testament to prove his thesis. The quotation is from Hosea 11:1: “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” Now, a case can be made that this verse was not a prophesy of Messiah at all, but merely a statement of God expressing God’s love for the nation, Israel. But what we shall soon see is that what Matthew does is to begin to lay the groundwork to establish Jesus as the second Moses.
When Herod realized that he had been deceived by the Magi he became furious. He
gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two
years old and under, according to the time frame he had learned from the Magi.
This fulfilled the prophecy spoken by the prophet, Jeremiah, who said, “In Ramah
a voice was heard, wailing and great grieving, Rachel weeping for her children.
She refused to be comforted, because they were no more.”
(Matt. 2:16-18)
Moses had been born in the land of Egypt during a time when Pharaoh had ordered all the Jewish boys to be killed. (Exodus 1:22). Likewise, Herod now orders all the Jewish boys in and around Bethlehem to be killed, so Jesus will be taken to Egypt for refuge. Escape to Egypt actually was not that unusual. It was a common Jewish practice that when persecutions made life difficult, they could escape to Egypt. Many cities had Jewish neighborhoods–Alexandria was said to have over one million Jews living there at the time.
This time Matthew quotes from the prophet, Jeremiah, 31:15. Rachel was often considered the mother of all the Jewish people, though Leah actually had given birth to more tribes than did Rachel. The quoted scripture is about a situation that really has no connection with Herod’s slaughter of the children. It appears that Matthew used it in his zeal to connect Hebrew Scripture to the events he was recording. It is an all-too-common example of taking scripture out of context to make a point. The verse in Jeremiah refers to a time when the people of Jerusalem were being taken into exile. On their way there they passed by the town of Ramah, where Rachel was buried. Jeremiah is picturing Rachel, even though she is dead, weeping at what was happening to her descendants (children).
There has been a lot of controversy over whether or not the killing of the boys really happened, or whether Matthew was writing a metaphor for something else. Matthew is the only gospel writer to include the story, and it does not appear in any other extra-biblical writing. The Jewish historian, Josephus, either didn’t know about it, or didn’t think the story significant enough to write about.
On the other hand, the incident would have been consistent with Herod’s reputation for brutality and cruelty during these years. A man who would kill his wife, with whom it was reported he was very much in love, as well as two of his own children, would not hesitate to order the massacre of innocents in order to eliminate a potential threat to his throne. Further, these were very violent times. Bethlehem was a small town of perhaps only a thousand souls. The murder of a few children most likely would not have been considered important enough to record.
After the death of Herod, in a dream, an angel of God appeared to Joseph in
Egypt and said, “Rise, take the young child and his mother and return to the
land of Israel, for those who were trying to kill the child are dead.” So he got
up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he
heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father, Herod, he was
afraid to go there. Having been warned by God in a dream he went instead to the
region of Galilee.
(Matthew 2:19-22)
As promised, upon the death of Herod, perhaps only a couple of years later, the angel returns and lets Joseph know, again in a dream, that it is safe to return to Israel. Well, it was safe, but not too safe. Herod was gone, and with him, any orders to kill Jesus, so he wasn’t being hunted any more.
However, Joseph apparently had intended to settle in Judea, perhaps even in Bethlehem, but it was being ruled over by another fearsome tyrant. Before Herod died, he had divided his kingdom into three parts for each of his three remaining sons: Judea to Archelaus, Galilee to Herod Antipas, and the northern region beyond the Jordan to Philip. Like his father before him, Archelaus soon went on a slaughtering rampage, murdering three thousand of the country’s most influential people. Joseph realized that Judea was still not a safe place in which to be. Again, God provides direction through a dream, sending the family to Galilee, which was under the rule of the less vicious Herod Antipas.
So he went and lived in Nazareth, so that what was spoken through the prophets
might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene.
(Matthew 2:23)
According to biblical scholar, D.A.Carson, Nazareth was a despised place, even to other Galileans. The name was spoken with scorn and a sneer. He states that “…(Matthew) is not saying that a particular O.T. prophet foretold that the Messiah would live in Nazareth; he is saying that the O.T. prophets foretold that the Messiah would be despised…”
And the young child grew and became strong, and filled with wisdom, and the
grace of God was with Him.
(Luke 2:40)
This verse of Luke’s provides the sum total of the rest of what the bible says of Jesus’ youth until he reaches the age of twelve.
This ends today’s study.
Points to Ponder