Matthew 2.13-15 - 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.” And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt 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.”
Now reading with a perceptive eye, one should see these sentences are almost contrary. At first it says that an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him to ‘…flee to Egypt, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him’. Seemingly, the reason for going to Egypt was to flee Herod, because he was set on killing the child. So if you have a simple reading of this passage, it would indicate that Jesus, with his father and mother, left Israel and went to Egypt to avoid death from Herod.
However, in verse 15, Matthew states that this was to fulfill the words of the prophet Hosea, ‘Out of Egypt I called my son’.
First, let us realize that their is no contrary. The reason for the getting up and going that night was to avoid state-sponsored infanticide, but the ultimate reason was for Jesus to fulfill the words of the prophet Hosea by coming from Egypt. Many times in scriptural references, it is made clear that the seemingly heinous acts of people on the surface level are for the plan of God to come to reality (e.g. Joseph’s slavery, Moses’s murder, Judah’s exile in Babylon, Jesus’ wrongful execution). Time and again, the high purposes of God are done at the hands of tyrants, sinners, and god-haters.
Now that that issue is explained, look at the piece from Hosea. It is strange that Hosea would have said something about the future king Herod, future child in Bethlehem, Roman empire, etc. In Hosea’s day it would have been realized as a remembrance of God delivering ‘his son’ from Egypt. In Hosea’s day, this would have been easy recognized as the nation of Israel being brought from slavery by the Lord through Moses. Now Matthew is co-opting it for Jesus – does he have that interpretative right?
It can be said, and has been trumpeted that texts are best understood in the proper context. If Hosea was only pointing to a forthcoming messiah 700 years hence, would not his contemporary audience be confused? Would this messianic prophecy have made any sense to them when it was written? This is where the concept of sensus plenoir comes in. Not that you need to know Latin to get this point.
For certain, in Hosea’s time this phrase would have easily been interpreted as Israel coming out of slavery from Egypt by the hand of the Lord with the agent of Moses. However, Matthew rightfully adapts it to Christ, because he is now trying to show in writing the Gospel, that Jesus is re-constituting God’s people around himself. Let me say again, Jesus comes to revise what it means to be Israel, namely, that to be a true Jew is to be in Jesus.
He comes as the true Israelite leading the second and greater exodus from the slavery of sin and death. He reallocates the law in his Sermon on the Mount to demonstrate what the true people of God look like in light of his kingdom coming. He reveals the ethics of the kingdom in his call to discipleship, parables, and most vividly in his death. He is the final prophet, priest, and king of the people, and in him Israel has life. So what Matthew is trying to do is redirect his audience from the shadow and point them to the real. Jesus has come to fulfill what Israel could not do, be who Israel was not, and finally install God’s rule among them with the Christ as king. It is the re-constitution of God’s people, centered around messiah.
