When they had departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.” 14 Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt. 15 He stayed there until the death of Herod, that what the Lord had said through the prophet might be fulfilled, “Out of Egypt I called my son.” 16 When Herod realized that he had been deceived by the magi, he became furious. He ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had ascertained from the magi. 17 Then was fulfilled what had been said through Jeremiah the prophet: “18 A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be consoled, since they were no more.”
The angel that guided the Magi to worship the Christ child warned them not to return to Herod. The angel also warned Joseph in a dream to flee to Egypt with his family. It would have taken Joseph and his family five or six days to make the journey to Egypt. In the OT, Egypt was a place of refuge from oppression in Palestine (1 Kgs. 11:40; 2 Kgs. 25:26) as well as a place of bondage (Ex. 1:8-14). When Herod died, God allowed Joseph to return to Nazareth. The evangelist Matthew recalled the words of the prophet Hosea, “Out of Egypt I called my son (Hosea 11:1).” Jesus represented the beginning of the restoration of the whole of Israel. The flight to Egypt represented a new Exodus with a greater Moses. Israel was referred to as God’s Son in the OT (Ex. 4:22) who was called out of Egypt, but Israel was an adopted son. Jesus was also called out of Egypt, but he was the only Son of God conceived by the Holy Spirit.
There is no historical record that confirms or refutes that Herod ordered the massacre of, “All the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under (v. 16)”. The Bethlehem area was small with a population of approximately 1,000 at that time so if the event did occur the number of children that would have been killed was estimated to be no more than 20. The massacre might not have been recorded by historians of that time like Josephus who recorded Jewish history and was born in Jerusalem (c. 37 AD – c. 100 AD). By including the slaughter of innocent children, Matthew drew a parallel between the OT event when Pharoah ordered all the Israelite male infants to be killed at birth (Ex. 1:15- 16) and Herod. The evangelist introduced a quotation from the prophet Jerimiah to show that the massacre of the innocents was foreseen by God (Jer. 3:15). Rachael, the wife of Jacob and the mother of Benjamin and Joseph, is lamenting the fate of her children on their way into exile and weeping so loudly from her tomb that it could be heard 5 miles away in Ramah.
Almighty God, our Creator and Redeemer, you willed that your Word take flesh in an ever-virgin womb, and you protected him, not out of fear for his life, but to preserve the gift of eternal life for all mankind. Look with favor on our prayers, and in your mercy grant us a share in the divinity of Christ so that we may be worthy of eternal life. This we pray through Christ our Lord. Amen!
Chiu, José Enrique Aguilar, et al. The Paulist Biblical Commentary. Paulist Press, 2018.
Brown, Raymond Edward, et al. The New Jerome Biblical Commentary. Upper Saddle River, NJ, United States, Prentice Hall, 1990.
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