2:13-15 Egypt had been a house of bondage to Israel, and particularly cruel to the infants of Israel; yet it is to be a place of refuge to the holy Child Jesus. God, when he pleases, can make the worst of places serve the best of purposes. This was a trial of the faith of Joseph and Mary. But their faith, being tried, was found firm. If we and our infants are at any time in trouble, let us remember the straits in which Christ was when an infant. 16-18 Herod killed all the male children, not only in Bethlehem, but in all the villages of that city. Unbridled wrath, armed with an unlawful power, often carries men to absurd cruelties. It was no unrighteous thing with God to permit this; every life is forfeited to his justice as soon as it begins. The diseases and deaths of little children are proofs of original sin. But the murder of these infants was their martyrdom. How early did persecution against Christ and his kingdom begin! Herod now thought that he had baffled the Old Testament prophecies, and the efforts of the wise men in finding Christ; but whatever crafty, cruel devices are in men's hearts, the counsel of the Lord shall stand.

Verse 15. - And was there until the death of Herod. The Revised Version rightly joins this with the preceding, not with the following, clause. That it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying (Matthew 1:22, notes), Out of Egypt have I called (Revised Version, did I call) my Son (Hosea 11:1, "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt"). Observe here:

(1) The quotation is not from the LXX. ("Out of Egypt I summoned his children"), but from the Hebrew, which Aquila also follows.

(2) The expression in Hosea is based on Exodus 4:22, "Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, my firstborn;" cf. also Wisd. 18:13. "They acknowledged this people to be the son of God (ὡμολόγησαν Θεοῦ υἱὸν λαὸνεϊναι)."

(3) The quotation is, by the context, evidently adduced, not to prove the sonship of Jesus, but to enlarge upon the treatment that he received. The fundamental thought is that the experience of Messiah was parallel to the experience of the nation.

(4) The application of the term "my Son" to Messiah is justified by Jewish thought. In Exodus 4:22 the nation was so called; in Psalm 2:7 the head of the nation, the theocratic king, received the same title; much more could the great theocratic King, the Messiah, be so spoken cf. That, indeed, the name, "the Son of God," was used as a title of Messiahship by the Jews lacks direct evidence (cf. Stanton, 'The Jewish and the Christian Messiah,' 1886, p. 288), but is surely to be deduced from Matthew 26:63 (16:16); cf. also the application of Psalm 2:7 to Messiah in Talm. Bab.,' Succah,' 52 a, in the late Midrash 'Tillim,' in loc., which traces" the decree" there spoken of through the Law (Exodus 4:22), the prophets (e.g.. Isaiah 52:13), and the Hagiographa (e.g. Psalm 2:7; Psalm 110:1; for a paraphrase, cf. Edersheim, 'Life,' etc., App. 9.). It is hardly too much to say that no Jew could consistently, either in the early days of the Church or now, find any difficulty in St. Matthew's reference of the term "my Son" to Christ.

(5) Seeing that St. Matthew's reference of the term "my Son" is justified by Jewish thought, and that the passage in Hosea is adduced to show that the experience of Messiah was parallel to that of the nation, there seems no real need to look for further reasons for the application. St. Matthew may hays held that Messiah was the Flower of Israel, so that what was predicated of Israel could be essentially explained of Messiah; he may have considered that Messiah was so organically connected with Israel that even when the nation was in Egypt Messiah was there also (cf. Hebrews 7:10; Hebrews 11:26); he may have thought that the pro-incarnate Son of God was always with his Church, and therefore with it even in Egypt; but of none of these theories have we any hint. The application of Hosea 11:1 to the early life of Christ belongs, we do not doubt, to the very earliest stage of Jewish Christian thought, and to defend it by modern subtleties of interpretation (sound though they may be in other connexions) seems quite out of place. Messiah was in some sense, as all Jews granted, the Son of God; Messiah, like the nation, went down into Egypt; what was predicated of the one was, clearly in this case, true of the other, and the prophet's words received a "fulfilment." The fulfilment was, indeed, what we should call a coincidence (cf. ver. 23, note), but to the pious mind, and especially to the pious mind of a Jew, coincidences are not chances, they are signs of the Divine Governor (cf. Bishop Westcott, 'Hebr.,' p. 481: 1889).

And was there until the death of Herod,.... Which was in a very short time; for Eusebius (i) says, that immediately, in a very little time after the slaughter of the children at Bethlehem, the divine vengeance inflicted diseases on him, which quickly brought him to his end; so that, according to the learned Dr. Lightfoot (k), Jesus was not above three or four months in Egypt. Now all this was brought about,

that it might be fulfilled; not by way of accommodation of phrases to a like event; or by way of type, which has a fresh completion in the antitype; or as a proverbial sentence which might be adapted to any remarkable deliverance out of hardship, misery and destruction; but literally, properly, and in the obvious sense thereof;

which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, not Balaam, in Numbers 23:22 or Numbers 24:8 but in Hosea 11:1 "when Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt": the meaning of which passage is, either in connection with the last clause of the foregoing chapter thus; "in a morning shall the king of Israel be cut off", "because Israel is a child", a rebellious and disobedient one, acting a very weak and wicked part; "yet I have loved him, or do love him", and "have called", or "will call", (the past tense for the future, frequent in the Hebrew language, especially in the prophetic writings,) "my son out of Egypt"; who will be obliged to retire there for some time; I will make him king, set him upon the throne, who shall execute justice, and reign for ever and ever; or thus, "because Israel is a child", helpless and imprudent, and "I love him", though he is so, "therefore l will call", or I have determined to call

my son out of Egypt: who through a tyrant's rage and malice will be obliged to abide there a while; yet I will bring him from thence into the land of Judea, where he shall live and "help" my "servant", (l), "child Israel"; shall instruct him in his duty, teach him the doctrines of the Gospel, and at last, by his sufferings and death, procure for him the pardon of all his transgressions; of which there is a particular enumeration in Matthew 2:3. This is the natural and unconstrained sense of these words, which justifies the Evangelist in his citation and application of them to Christ's going to Egypt, and his return from thence, as I have elsewhere (m) shown.

(i) Hist. Eccl. l. 1. c. 8. p. 25, 26. (k) Harmony of the New Testament, p. 6. (l) Luke i. 54. (m) Prophecies of the Messiah, &c. p. 123, &c.

15. And was there until the death of Herod—which took place not very long after this of a horrible disease; the details of which will be found in Josephus [Antiquities, 17.6.1,5,7,8].

that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying—(Ho 11:1).

Out of Egypt have I called my son—Our Evangelist here quotes directly from the Hebrew, warily departing from the Septuagint, which renders the words, "From Egypt have I recalled his children," meaning Israel's children. The prophet is reminding his people how dear Israel was to God in the days of his youth; how Moses was bidden to say to Pharaoh, "Thus saith the Lord, Israel is My son, My first-born; and I say unto thee, Let My son go, that he may serve Me; and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy first-born" (Ex 4:22, 23); how, when Pharaoh refused, God having slain all his first-born, "called His own son out of Egypt," by a stroke of high-handed power and love. Viewing the words in this light, even if our Evangelist had not applied them to the recall from Egypt of God's own beloved, Only-begotten Son, the application would have been irresistibly made by all who have learnt to pierce beneath the surface to the deeper relations which Christ bears to His people, and both to God; and who are accustomed to trace the analogy of God's treatment of each respectively.

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