Fulfillment of Prophecy - Reflections on Matthew 2:13-23, Christmas 1, Year A
by John C. Holbert on Thursday, October 23, 2025
It is agreed among nearly all scholars of the New Testament that Matthew directed his Gospel toward Jews. His constant use of Old Testament passages to demonstrate just how Jesus’s life and ministry were prefigured in the ancient pages of that scripture show that he regularly had Jews in mind as he composed his work. That is, of course, hardly surprising since Jews must have constituted the vast majority of those early followers of the message of Jesus. Yet, Matthew was intent on showing beyond a shadow of doubt that Jesus was indeed the Messiah of Judaism’s long hope; their own scriptures made that identification plain.
Mt.2:13-23 is a parade example of the way Matthew went about the construction of his book. Nearly every part of the scenario he develops here is rooted in the ancient scriptures. And when he finds no exact biblical referent for his story, he apparently simply makes one up, as Mt.2:23 appears to suggest!
Matthew has already connected the old tale of the dreamer Joseph from the book of Genesis 37-50 to the titular father of Jesus, first-century Joseph, who is moved to act as he does primarily through divine dreams. After the Magi leave, “Look! An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. For Herod is going to seek out the child to destroy him’” (Mt.2:13). Egypt, having fallen under Roman control in 30BCE, was not under the jurisdiction of Herod, and was thus a perfect place to hide the new-born. In addition, Egypt had long been the traditional place of refuge for Jews in biblical times (e.g. 1 Kings 11:40; Jer.26:21). But, this historical reality is hardly the reason Matthew chooses to tell the story as he does. His tale squares with that of the most famous story in the Hebrew Bible, the appearance of Israel in Egypt, their escape from there, and their entrance and life in the land of promise.
In the book of Exodus 2:15 the pharaoh of the time of Israel’s slavery also seeks the killing of Moses, whom he sees as a threat to his reign, just as Herod wants to eliminate the “king of the Jews” as predicted by the Magi, so as to ensure his ongoing power. The irony may be that while Israel sought escape from Egypt as a way to thumb their noses at the pharaoh, here the child and family head to Egypt as a way to escape the murderous intent of Herod. “(They) were there until Herod’s death in order that what was said by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled: ‘Out of Egypt I called my son’” (Mt.2:15). The quotation is from Hosea 11:1, and is rather closer to the way the quotation is found in Hebrew than in the Greek version, that reads “Out of Egypt I have summoned my children.” Of course, since one of Matthew’s main focuses is to insist that Jesus is God’s son, the Hebrew text is most helpful in that regard. Thus does Matthew connect Jesus and Israel, as Jesus repeats the experience of Israel in the days of the Exodus.
Herod is furious that he has been tricked by the Magi concerning the exact location of the child, so in a rage he seeks to murder all male children in Bethlehem and its region “from two years of age and younger,” using the time-frame the Magi provided. The model for this action is again found in Exodus, where pharaoh determines to kill all male children (Ex . 1:15-22) in an attempt to stop the infernal “multiplication” of the Israelites. In fact, a close reading of the Hebrew text says that pharaoh sought to kill “all male children,” not only the Israelite babies, in a wild attempt to stop the exponential growth of the Israelites. (Only the Greek version adds the phrase “to the Hebrews” to make pharaoh’s cruel act directed only to Israelite children.)
Following that monstrous action of vast child murder, Matthew again reaches into the scriptures for a quotation to indicate the intense pain Herod’s terror caused. “Then what was said through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: ‘A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and much lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children, and she was not willing to be consoled, because they were no more’” (Mt.2:17-18). The quote is from Jer.31:15, and sits there in the midst of a long passage of rejoicing and hope for the return of the exiles to Jerusalem (Jer.31:1-14, 16-26). Matthew apparently uses this text to connect Rachel’s weeping in Ramah over dead children, a village half-way between Bethel and Jerusalem, where according to Gen.35:19 Rachel had died, with the slaughter of the innocents by Herod. It is something of a stretch to make such a connection, but for Matthew it serves to heighten the pain of the children’s death along with the danger of the early life of Jesus.
An angel of the Lord appears once again to Joseph, after the death of Herod (4BCE), and commands him to “take the child and his mother to the land of Israel, for those seeking the child’s life have died” (Mt.2:20). And once again the Exodus story of Moses is recalled, where we read, “Go back to Egypt; (Moses has fled to Midian) for all who were seeking your life have died” (Ex.4:19). And once more Joseph has a dream that warns him not to go back to Judea, where Herod’s son, Archelaus now rules, who may be altogether too much like his father, so Joseph takes his family north to Galilee, and went to live in Nazareth, perhaps a rather safer place. Matthew says nothing about Joseph and Mary being from Nazareth originally, as Luke does.
Matthew concludes his tale with a made-up quotation! They went to Nazareth “so that what was said by the prophets might be fulfilled: ‘He will be called a Nazorean’”(Mt.2:23). No prophet is named, and no Hebrew Bible quotation like this either adapted or known has been found. Still, Nazorean is filled with possibilities as a signifier for Jesus. It does remind one of Nazareth, for Matthew Jesus’s home town. It also echoes “nazir,” Hebrew for one especially devoted to God; see the designation of the judge Samson at Judges 13:5,7. And Hebrew netser means “branch,” used conspicuously to refer to the Messiah at Is.11:1. So, it may not have been a direct quotation, but it might qualify as at least an echo of one. In any case, Matthew goes about building his case that Jesus is Messiah by bombarding his Jewish audience with texts they would know and cherish. Jesus is Messiah, shouts Matthew; Jewish texts make that identification clear.