An audio version of each devotion will be posted on our church podcast “Life Together at CRPC,” which is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.
(Josiah Hall)
Matthew 2:13-18 Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” 14 And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt 15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”
16 Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. 17 Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah:
18 “A voice was heard in Ramah,
weeping and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.”
19 But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, 20 saying, “Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s life are dead.” 21 And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee. 23 And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene.
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Matthew narrates the profound tragedies of the flight of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus as refugees to Egypt and the brutal murder of babies in Bethlehem by Herod. God uses Egypt to protect his Son, just as he used Egypt to protect Joseph and then save Jacob’s family from famine (see Genesis 40–50). Matthew relates these events in a way that highlights two central motifs of Israel’s story in the Old Testament: God brings his people out of Egypt, and God delivers his people from oppression.
Matthew guides our interpretation of each tragedy through a citation from an Old Testament prophet. First, he uses Hosea 11:1 to help us interpret the flight to Egypt (Matt 2:15). In Hosea, this verse recalls the beginning of Israel’s story, one which ended in unfaithfulness and exile:
When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.
The more they were called,
the more they went away;
they kept sacrificing to the Baals
and burning offerings to idols. (Hosea 11:1–2)
Yet Hosea continues to promise that Israel will be regathered and restored, that exile will not be the end of her story:
“his children shall come trembling from the west;
they shall come trembling like birds from Egypt,
and like doves from the land of Assyria,
and I will return them to their homes, declares the LORD” (Hosea 11:10b–11).
Similarly, the citation from Jeremiah 31:15, which Matthew uses to help us understand Herod’s slaughter of the innocents, comes from a similar context. In Jeremiah, Rachel* weeps for the destruction of the people of Israel by the Babylonians, which was a consequence for their breaking their covenant with God. Yet the very next lines in Jeremiah are a promise that God will regather and restore:
“Keep your voice from weeping,
and your eyes from tears,
for there is a reward for your work,
declares the LORD,
and they shall come back from the land of the enemy.”
Matthew does not merely cite these passages to show that Jesus “fulfills prophecies” or “re-enacts Israel’s story.” Rather, the combination of these verses hint at what will be a feature of Matthew’s story: Jesus comes to restore Israel and deliver her from the covenant curses and the oppression she has experienced and even continues to experience under Herod.
Even when Herod brutally slaughters the innocent, God is at work to save his people. God’s work of redemption fits the pattern of how he has always worked on his people’s behalf, and yet now God exceeds what he has done before. For, the “son” whom he now brings out of Egypt is his Son, who will reverse the story of betrayal that Hosea narrated and fulfill the work of restoration that Jeremiah anticipated.
* As Genesis recounts, Rachel was one of the wives of Jacob and was the mother of Joseph and Benjamin. In Jeremiah’s context, Rachel symbolizes the people of Israel.