Matthew continued to stress God's predictions about and His protection of His Messiah to help his readers recognize Jesus as the promised King.
2:13 For the second time in two chapters we read that an angel from the Lord appeared with a message for Joseph (cf. 1:20). This indicates that the message had unusual importance.
The order of the words "the child and His mother"is unusual. Normally the parent would receive mention before the child. This order draws attention again to the centrality of Jesus in the narrative.
Egypt was a natural place of refuge at this time. Its border was just 75 miles from Bethlehem, and it provided escape from Herod's hatred. Herod had no authority there.
Joseph learned that he was to remain in Egypt until God directed him elsewhere, not until Herod died. Again the sovereignty of God stands out.
"In obeying at once this command from God and the other commands that follow, Joseph's righteousness (1:19) casts Herod's wickedness in ever sharper relief."93
In many respects Jesus recapitulated Moses' life and experiences. Moses had also been the target of the ruler of his day who sought to destroy him and all the other male Hebrew babies by ordering them slain (Exod. 1:15-22).
2:14-15 Herod died in 4 B.C.94Josephus recorded that he died a horrible death, his body rotting away and consumed by worms.95His grandson, Herod Agrippa, later suffered a similar fate (Acts 12:23).
As I have already noted, Matthew frequently used the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies to show that Jesus was the Christ. Verse 15 contains another fulfillment. This one is difficult to understand, however, because in Hosea 11:1 the prophet did not predict anything.96He simply described the Israelites' Exodus from Egypt as the departure of God's son (cf. Exod. 4:22). Old Testament writers frequently used the term "son"to describe Israel in its relationship to God. What did Matthew mean when he wrote that Jesus' departure from Egypt fulfilled Hosea's words (Hos. 11:1)?
Note first that Matthew did not say that Jesus was fulfilling a prophecy. Another significant factor is the meaning of the word "fulfill"(Gr. pleroo). It has a broader meaning than simply "to make complete."It essentially means "to establish completely."97In the case of predictive prophecy, the complete establishment of what the prophet predicted occurred when what he predicted happened. In the case of prophetic utterances that dealt with the past or present, the complete establishment of what the prophet said took place when another event that was similar happened. This is the sense in which Jesus' departure from Egypt fulfilled Hosea's prophecy (cf. James 2:23). Jesus was theSon of God (2:15; 3:17; 4:3, 6; 8:29; 11:27; 14:33; 16:16; 17:5; 26:63; 27:40, 43, 54). The history of Israel, the son of God in a different sense, anticipated the life of Messiah.98To state the same thing another way, Jesus was the "typological recapitulation of Israel "99
"There were similarities between the nation and the Son. Israel was God's chosen son' by adoption (Ex. 2:22), and Jesus is the Messiah, God's Son. In both cases the descent into Egypt was to escape danger, and the return was important to the nation's providential history."100
". . . Matthew looked back and carefully drew analogies between the events of the nation's history and the historical incidents in the life of Jesus."101
2:16-18 Some critical scholars discounted Matthew's account of Herod's slaughter of the Bethlehem children because there is no extra-biblical confirmation of it. However, Bethlehem was small, and many other biblically significant events have no secular confirmation, including Jesus' crucifixion. Compared to some of Herod's other atrocities this one was minor.
"Emperor Augustus reportedly said it was better to be Herod's sow than his son, for his sow had a better chance of surviving in a Jewish community. In the Greek language, as in English, there is only one letter difference between the words sow' (hyos) and son' (hyios)."102
"The selfsame character traits Herod exhibits in chapter 2, the [religious] leaders will exhibit later in the story. To enumerate the most obvious of these, Herod shows himself to be spiritually blind' (2:3), fearful' (2:3), conspiratorial' (2:7), guileful' and mendacious' (2:8), murderous' (2:13, 16), wrathful' (2:16; cf. 21:15), and apprehensive of the future' (2:16)."103
Matthew again claimed that another event surrounding Jesus' birth fulfilled prophecy (v. 17). Matthew is the only New Testament writer who quoted Jeremiah (cf. 16:14; 27:9).104
"Matthew is not simply meditating on Old Testament texts, but claiming that in what has happened they find fulfillment. If the events are legendary [rather than historical], the argument is futile."105
It is not clear whether Jeremiah was referring to the deportation of the northern tribes in 722 B.C. or to the Babylonian Captivity in 586 B.C. Since he dealt primarily with the second of these events in his ministry, he probably did so here too. Poetically he presented Rachel as the idealized mother of the Jews mourning from her grave because her children were going into captivity. Since Rachel's grave was near Bethlehem mention of her ties in nicely with the events of Jesus' early childhood near Bethlehem.
"In the original context, Jeremiah is speaking of an event soon to come as the Babylonian Captivity begins. As the Jewish young men were being taken into captivity, they went by the town of Ramah. Not too far from Ramah is where Rachel was buried and she was the symbol of Jewish motherhood. As the young men were marched toward Babylon, the Jewish mothers of Ramah came out weeping for sons they will never see again. Jeremiah pictured the scene as Rachel weeping for her children. This is the literalmeaning of Jeremiah 31:15. The New Testament cannot change or reinterpret what this verse means in that context, nor does it try to do so. In this category [of fulfilled prophecy], there is a New Testament event that has one point of similarity with the Old Testament event. The verse is quoted as an application. The one point of similarity between Ramah and Bethlehem is that once again Jewish mothers are weeping for sons they will never see again and so the Old Testament passage is applied to the New Testament event. Otherwise, everything else is different."106
Matthew evidently used Jeremiah 31:15 because it presented hope to the Israelites that Israel would return to the land even though they wept at the nation's departure. The context of Jeremiah's words is hope. Matthew used the Jeremiah passage to give his readers hope that despite the tears of the Bethlehem mothers Messiah had escaped from Herod and would return to reign ultimately.107
"Here Jesus does not, as in v. 15, recapitulate an event from Israel's history. The Exile sent Israel into captivity and thereby called forth tears. But here the tears are not for him who goes into exile' but because of the children who stay behind and are slaughtered. Why, then, refer to the Exile at all? Help comes from observing the broader context of both Jeremiah and Matthew. Jeremiah 31:9, 20 refers to Israel = Ephraim as God's dear son and also introduces the new covenant (31:31-34) the Lord will make with his people. Therefore the tears associated with Exile (31:15) will end. Matthew has already made the Exile a turning point in his thought (1:11-12), for at that time the Davidic line was dethroned. The tears of the Exile are now being fulfilled'--i.e., the tears begun in Jeremiah's day are climaxed and ended by the tears of the mothers of Bethlehem. The heir to David's throne has come, the Exile is over, the true Son of God has arrived, and he will introduce the new covenant (26:28) promised by Jeremiah."108
