Matthew 2:13 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Matthew 2:13

Comments

(Synoptics: Matthew 2:13-15)The wise men have returned home with hearts full of joy at what they have witnessed. They now understand that this child is the focus of Satan’s attention, and that Herod is Satan’s minister to destroy the child. They have therefore returned home another way, and Herod, who is waiting for their report, is on the point of concluding that they are not coming back to him as he requested. When he acts, he will act quickly and it will be difficult to escape his net, and therefore the danger is growing, but God has the whole matter in hand. He will not allow any harm to come to the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord of heaven and earth has come into the world as a vulnerable child whose life is threatened by an evil king. But heaven is watching over the life of that little child, in whom are met ‘the hopes and fears of all the years’. A further dream is therefore given to Joseph, filling him with a sense of urgency, and assuring him that God has made him responsible for the safety of the family as the child’s legal earthly parent and guardian. The angel of the Lord is also involved in this dream, and this is described as a real appearance of the angel, albeit, in a dream. The angel brings a message to the conscious mind of Joseph. Angels, Hebrews tells us, are ministering spirits, ‘sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation’, and especially to the Son of God, for ‘he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone’ (Psalm 91:11-12).Joseph immediately complies with this command, persuaded that God has spoken to him. He who could not possibly know the machinations of those in high places believes that God has made known to him the evil which is lurking in the mind of Herod. The danger is real and so, without panicking – for the matter is in the hands of God – he acts promptly and departs from Bethlehem at night. He may already be being watched by Herod’s servants and what can a lowly private individual do against the organs of state, so his best course of action is to leave secretly by night. The word he has received from God via the angel instructs him to go into Egypt where the family will be safe. The wording of the message tells him that this will be for a limited time; he is to wait until the Lord sends him a further word via the angel of the Lord, telling him it is safe to return to Israel, and so Joseph is expecting a further divine communication.The family therefore goes down to Egypt, and remains there until the death of Herod, for it is the jealous rage of a single man that is the source of danger to the child, and therefore his death marks the release from that threat. Matthew comments that this was done to fulfil prophecy. In saying this he does not mean to suggest that Joseph knowingly fulfilled this prophecy himself, as if he was aware of its meaning, and saw what was necessary to fulfil it. There is one far higher than Joseph who is watching over the prophecies of Scripture. The Lord himself ensures that no jot or tittle of the word of God fails. Like the disciples who sat Christ on the ass’s colt, it was only afterwards that they realised they had been unconscious actors in God’s drama of redemption (John 12:16).

Application

We do not have to worry about the fulfilment of the word of God, but only to obey the Lord in the things he has revealed to us. It is his business to fulfil his word, and we can have the most perfect peace of mind about this. We desire that the word of God should be fulfilled, and it must be so, even when its fulfilment affects events in our own lifetime. God works with a skill that is far beyond ours, and we have the privilege of watching events unfold in the full confidence that his plan cannot go astray.

Questions

Matthew quotes Hosea 11:1: ‘Out of Egypt have I called my son’, and applies this to Joseph taking the Christ child down into Egypt as the narrative describes. Modern writers are critical and protest that this use of the passage is not what Hosea had in mind, but Matthew’s inspired quotation from Hosea proves that they are wrong. Hosea’s prophecy did have this incident in mind. Hosea 11:1 is certainly a comment on Israel and you could take it in this way: it is about the history of the nation. Fairbairn says, ‘It pointed to God’s faithfulness and Love in delivering Israel from his place of temporary sojourn’ (Typology of Scripture, p 380). Is the New Testament therefore misusing the Old Testament? The critics say that it is, because they are inclined to believe this, but they overlook the fact that there is a conscious difference in Hosea between two different Israels. One is physical, the other is chosen. For example, the physical Israel is addressed in Hosea 1:6: ‘Call her name Loruhamah: for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away’, while the obedient Israel, the spiritual Israel, the remnant, is addressed in Hosea 1:10: ‘Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.’ When we look back we find that there was always an obedient Israel, and that was what was referred to so clearly by the prophet. The obedient Israel was Christ. This is not just hindsight, for the point being made was always there, however enigmatic. It is all there but hard to understand. Modern writers have no comment on the spiritual theology of the situation, but only on the history, and therefore they cannot see this.

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Matthew 2:13 Commentary and Bible Study