CRITICAL NOTES
Matthew 2:13. Egypt.—At all times the readiest place of refuge for the Israelites, whether from famine or from political oppression. In Alexandria the Jews numbered a fifth of the population. Wherever, therefore, the infant Saviour’s home was in Egypt, it would be in the midst of His brethren according to the flesh (Carr).
Matthew 2:15. Fulfilled.—The real key to the Evangelist’s quotation (Hosea 11:1), seems to be found in the principle that the whole Old Testament is but the bud of the New. And not only so, but Israel was Israel, and God’s national son, just because it included in itself Him in whom is included the true Israel, and who is the only begotten Son of God. They were called out of Egypt chiefly that they might bring up with them the Seed of seeds—the Christ. Hence, when Hosea wrote the words which the Evangelist quotes, the kernel of Divine idea that was within their rind or outer shell could not possibly have been fully realised, or fulfilled, if the Christ had remained in Egypt (Morison).
Matthew 2:16. Children.—All the male children, as is indicated by the gender of the article in the original (πάντας τοὺς παῖδας). Not mentioned by Josephus. If we consider how small a town Bethlehem was, it is not likely there would be many male children in it from two years old and under; and when we think of the number of fouler atrocities which Josephus has recorded of Herod, it is unreasonable to make anything of his silence on this (D. Brown).
Matthew 2:18. Rama … Eachel.—See Jeremiah 31:15. The passage primarily refers to the deportation of the Jews to Babylon. Rachel, the ancestress of Benjamin, who was buried near Bethlehem, is introduced as issuing from her grave to bewail the captivity of her children. The sound of her lamentation is carried northward beyond Jerusalem, and heard at Rama, a fortress of Israel on the frontier toward Judah, where the captives were collected. The meaning probably is, that the grief caused by this deportation, and the consequent lamentations of the female captives, was such as to reach even the heart of the ancestress of Benjamin (which here includes also Judah). As used by Jeremiah it was, therefore, a figurative expression for the deep sorrow of the exiled mothers of Judah. But in the massacre of the infants of Bethlehem, this earlier calamity was not only renewed, but its description verified in the fullest and most tragic manner. Rachel’s children are not merely led into exile: they are destroyed, and that by one who called himself king of Israel. Accordingly, Rachel is introduced as the representative of the mothers of Bethlehem lamenting over their children (Lange).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Matthew 2:12-18
Apparent reversal.—The first impression produced by this passage is that of contrast with the last. The exceeding brightness of the previous verses appears exchanged for corresponding darkness in these. How far this is true, therefore, may well be our first point of inquiry. How far we find anything of a different kind may equally well be our next.
I. How far the story is dark.—It is so, in the first place, in what it tells us of the flight of the heralds. For such in fact, and such eminently also, these “wise men” had been; heralds sent by, heralds guided by, heralds loyal to God. It is surprising, therefore, to see such men in danger at all; more so to see the nature of the only counsel which is given them in their danger. They are warned of God (Matthew 2:12) to avoid Herod, and take “another way” home. Is this all He is pleased to do for such exceptional servants as these? Not less surprising is what we read here of the flight of their King. “Arise, and take the young child, and his mother, and flee” (Matthew 2:13). How unexpected is such counsel from such a quarter, and about such persons as these! That the “child” should be in danger from the blind madness of Herod, Herod being such as he was, might have been looked for. What we should not have looked for is such a method of dealing therewith. Is this the sequel of that depth of homage of which we were told just now? Is this all that He who sent that “dream” is pleased to do for that King? Bid those who had charge of Him merely take Him away? Bid Him, in fact, become a fugitive and exile because of the enmity of about the vilest of kings? Very surprising also, in the last place, is the consequent slaughter of the infants of Bethlehem and its “coasts.” This surprise seems to throw the other two into still stronger “relief.” What we expect from a king is to preserve life, and not to destroy it. Especially do we expect this in the case of those who are both guiltless and weak. How, otherwise, can it be said of him with truth as in Romans 13:3-4? Yet what do we find brought about here in the case of this Ruler in chief? What is the first result of His being proclaimed and acknowledged as such by the “disposition” of God? The indiscriminate slaughter of many who were both offenceless and weak; and not improbably (it has been thought), from the place of their birth, near kinsfolk of Himself (Matthew 2:16). Anyway, it is certain that they were very near Him, both in place and in age; also not wholly unlike Him in innocence too. How strange, therefore, that His proclamation as King should have caused destruction to them!
II. How far it is possible to trace light in this darkness.—Do we not, for example, see something of this in what is told us here about men? What is so surprising to us now does not appear to have been equally surprising to some of them at the time. Being nearer to it they appear to have seen more in it than we do so far off. In the case of the Magi, for instance, when commanded to flee, they appear to have obeyed the dream as unhesitatingly as they had previously followed the star. Joseph, also, in regard to his dream, appears to have been at least as swift to obey; rising up “by night” (Matthew 2:14, cf. Genesis 22:3) to do as God bid, and being evidently as satisfied here with God’s appointments or “judgments” as the Psalmist of old (Psalms 119:62). Perceptibly therefore, he is not walking here like a man quite in the dark. Also, we find some light here in what is told us of God. In judging this we must bear in mind how God is represented here as speaking to His people—viz., as in long previous days, by “visions and dreams” (see chap. Matthew 1:20; Matthew 2:12-13; Matthew 2:22; Genesis 15:1; Genesis 46:2; Isaiah 1:1; Dan. passim, etc.). We must also remember how it often is with our “visions and dreams,” how the usual sequences and distinctions of waking life are not always observed in such things, and how the dreamer himself may sometimes almost appear to be two persons in one. Viewed in this way we can see a correspondence between the experience of Israel as described in Hosea 11:1, and the experience of the Hope of Israel as narrated here, in the land of Egypt. In a similar way we can understand a wide massacre of infants in the neighbourhood of Rachel’s sepulchre (Genesis 35:19), being mystically viewed as though it were a bereavement of Rachel herself, especially, perhaps, when we bear in mind some of the particulars of her sad history as a mother (Genesis 35:18). Anyway this is how the inspiration of the Evangelist bids us look on these prophecies. We are to see in them tokens that the things spoken of were not unexpected by God; that they were parts rather of some mighty plan which He had in view from the first; and that they are not to be judged, therefore, by merely observing their appearance at the time. If these considerations do not remove the darkness they should at least reconcile us to its existence, and show that it carries with it the seeds of that which will fully dispel it in time (cf. Psalms 97:11).
See, therefore, in conclusion:—
1. The exceeding watchfulness of God’s care.—Over the Magi. How He reads the feelings of Herod about them! How He warns them in consequence! How “precious” their lives are in His “sight” (Psalms 116:15). Over that holy Babe. Noting Its peril. Giving time for escape by sending the wise men away, and not back. Telling Joseph of it by night. Providing in Joseph himself so faithful a guardian, so obedient, so prompt. Providing a place of refuge at once so safe and so near, being out of Herod’s jurisdiction and yet not out of reach. Probably also (if we may judge from the “two years old” of Matthew 2:16), postponing all this till the Babe and its mother should be equal to the journey required. If that holy One has to fly, it shall not be in vain.
2. The assured depth of God’s plans.—When soldiers are under the lead of a commander in whom they have fully learned to confide, and find him issuing a series of orders which they did not expect and do not understand, what do they say? Not that he is in error, but that they are in ignorance. Not that he does not know, but that he only knows, what it is he is doing. We may rightly argue in the same way of the perplexities of this case. They are like “sounding a retreat” when we should have expected a “command to advance.” It is the part of faith not to believe less, but to believe more, on this ground. Nothing is more likely than that the commands of an all-wise Commander should at times be perplexing to us. Never is this more likely than when His plans are most remarkable for their depth.
HOMILIES ON THE VERSES
Matthew 2:13-23. The King in exile.—Without supposing that the Evangelist moulded his Gospel on the plan of the Pentateuch (as Dr. Delitzsch in his New Investigations into the Origin and Plan of the Canonical Gospels tries to show), we cannot but see that there is a real parallel between the beginnings of the national life of Israel and the commencement of the life of Christ. Matthew 2:13-23 bring this parallel into great prominence. There are three sections, each of which has for its centre an Old Testament prophecy.
I. The flight into Egypt, and the prophecy fulfilled therein.—In their original place Hosea’s words are not a prophecy at all, but simply a part of a tender historical résumé of God’s dealings with Israel, by which the prophet would touch his contemporaries’ hearts into penitence and trust. How, then, is the Evangelist justified in regarding them as prophetic, and in looking on Christ’s flight as their fulfilment? The answer is to be found in that analogy between the national and the personal Israel which runs through all the Old Testament, and reaches its highest clearness in the second part of Isaiah’s prophecies. Jesus Christ was what Israel was destined and failed to be, the true Servant of God, His Anointed, His Son, the medium of conveying His name to the world. The ideal of the nation was realised in Him. His brief stay in Egypt served the very same purpose in His life which their four hundred years there did in theirs—it sheltered Him from His enemies, and gave Him room to grow. Just as the infant nation was unawares fostered in the very lap of the country which was the symbol of the world hostile to God, so the infant Christ was guarded and grew there. The prophecy is a prophecy just because it is history; for the history was all a shadow of the future, and He is the true Israel and the Son of God.
II. The slaughter of the innocents, and the prophecy fulfilled therein.— Jeremiah 31:15 is still less a prophecy than was the passage in Hosea. Seeing that the prophet’s words do not describe a fact, but are a poetical personification to convey simply the idea of calamity, which might make the dead mother weep, the word “fulfilled” can obviously be applied to them only in a modified and somewhat elastic sense, and is sufficiently defended if we recognise in the slaughter of these children a woe which, though small in itself, yet, when considered in reference to its inflicter, a usurping king of the Jews, and in reference to its occasion, the desire to slay the God-sent King, and in reference to its place as first of the tragic series of martyrdoms for Messiah, was heavy with a sorer burden of national disaster, when seen by eyes made wise by death, than even the captivity, which seemed to falsify the promises of God and the hopes of a thousand years.
III. The return to Nazareth, and the prophecy fulfilled therein.—Such prophecy was fulfilled in the very fact that He was all His life known as “of Nazareth,” and the verbal assonance between that name, “the shoot,” and the word “Nazarene” is a finger-post pointing to the meaning of the place of abode chosen for Him.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Matthew 2:13. The Divine Infant sent away.—
1. Our Lord was persecuted so soon as He was known in the world. He is sought to be slain who came to save men.
2. He who is the Ancient of days, the everlasting Father, is called a young child (Isaiah 9:6).
3. The Lord will have ordinary means used when they may be had. He will save Christ by flight, and will do no miracle needlessly.
4. It is safe to wait for the Lord in all things, and to attend His providence. “Be thou there until I bring thee word.”—David Dickson.
Matthew 2:14. Joseph’s speedy obedience.—
1. When our direction is clear, our obedience should be speedy.
2. When Christ is known He will be more dear than anything else. As the Child is first in Joseph’s commission to take care of Him, so in his obedience. “The young Child and His mother.”
3. Any place, if God send us there and if Christ be in our company, is good. Even Egypt.—Ibid.
Matthew 2:15. The church’s calling.—These words, spoken by the prophet Hosea, were not accommodated to Christ, but were most truly fulfilled in Him. They are evermore finding a spiritual fulfilment also in the church of the redeemed. If we have been called out of Egypt by the voice of God to be His children, what are some of the duties which flow out from our high vocation?
I. To leave Egypt altogether behind us.—To have no going back to it, even in thought, much less drawing back to it in deed.
II. Not to expect to enter the promised land at once.—There is a time and span between, in which our God will prove us and humble us, and show us what is in our hearts. This is also a sifting time; a separating of the true members of the church from the false.—R. C. Trench, D.D.
Matthew 2:16-18. Goodness v. Selfishness.—
1. The power of goodness is moral; the power of selfishness is physical.
2. The spirit of goodness is preservative; the spirit of selfishness is destructive.
3. The result of goodness is “goodwill towards men”; the result of selfishness is “lamentation and mourning and great weeping.”
4. See what the world would come to under a selfish rulership! Passion flies to the sword! Disappointment thirsts for blood! Say, who shall be king—Christ or Herod? The apparent blessings connected with the reign of Herod are connected with danger. It is always dangerous to be seeking flowers on the slopes of a volcano.—Joseph Parker, D.D.
Matthew 2:16. The cruelty of the disappointed king.—
1. God turneth the wisdom of His enemies to folly. Herod found himself “mocked.”
2. Wicked heads do take it hardly if every instrument whom they employ and abuse do not serve their base designs.
3. Enemies of Christ, when fraud doth fail them, do fall to open rage.
4. Satan and his instruments do labour to overthrow such as are likest unto Christ, if they cannot overtake Himself.
5. Wicked men do not reverence God’s providence, but are incensed the more to do mischief.—David Dickson.