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Mat 2:13-23

J	oseph & Mary Flee to Egypt

Matt 2:13-23

13 Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, "Arise, take the young Child and His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word; for Herod will seek the young Child to destroy Him."

14 When he arose, he took the young Child and His mother by night and departed for Egypt,

15 and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, "Out of Egypt I called My Son."

16 Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry; and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men.

17 Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying:

18 "A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted, because they are no more."

19 But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt,

20 saying, "Arise, take the young Child and His mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the young Child's life are dead."

21 Then he arose, took the young Child and His mother, and came into the land of Israel.

22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea instead of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And being warned by God in a dream, he turned aside into the region of Galilee.

23 And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, "He shall be called a Nazarene."

(NKJ)

Notes

- The flight into Egypt is found in Matthew, not in Luke.

- Herod was 70 years old and had been reigning for 37 years.

- The border of Egypt was 75 miles away.

- According to tradition they went to the village of Motorea near Leviantapolis (100 miles within) where there existed a great Jewish temple' which had been built in 150 BC. There were more than a million Jews in Egypt at this time. They supposedly stayed for a year in the Jewish colony.

- The prophecy in Hos. 11:1 "Out of Egypt I have called my Son" primarily referred to the children of Israel in their deliverance from Egypt, but the secondary and greater fulfillment was in the deliverance of the Child Jesus.

- Tradition, as well as the apocryphal gospels written many years later speak about these events in Egypt that are purely absurd such as flowers springing up before them as they walked and palm trees bowing down.

- In Herod's slaughter of the infants, tradition says that 14,000 were slain. Alhtough this is very unlikely in the light of history which would allow less than 50. If there was a huge slaughter, Josephus would have undoubtedly written about it.

- It is intersting to think about how Satan used Herod as an instrument to try to destroy God's plan through jesus

- The quotation from the Septuagint (Jer 31:15) that Matthew records as the prophecy, has again a preliminary fulfillment in history and then a fuller fulfillment in the slaughter of the infants. In history the families in Judah were deported to Babylon at Ramah. Rachel, who was buried nearby, was represented as weeping for her children as they are being deported from Ramah (in the land of Benjamin, Rachel's youngest son).

- This time Rachel would be comforted because God's providential hand would guide the family of Jesus out and away from Bethlehem to safety bringing hope again to Israel.

- Nazarene probably comes from the Hebrew "netzer" meaning "branch." He was despised and rejected of men as recorded in Ps 22 and Is 53 which alludes to this Nazarene.