Matthew 2:13–23

God controls everything

God does what he promises. He protects and looks after his children.

There is not much information about Jesus’ early life. Matthew soon completed his account. He did this in three short paragraphs. These are in verses 13–15, 16–18 and 19–23.

Herod realised that the Magi (wise men) were not coming back. He acted immediately. Probably, this happened a few days after the visit of the Magi. Herod wanted to be sure that nobody else could be king. So, he killed all the children who were younger than 2 years of age. Bethlehem was a very small village. But there would still be between 15 and 30 babies.

But, men and women cannot stop God’s plans. Herod himself would die soon. Jesus escaped his evil plan. God told Joseph about the danger before it happened. So, he could take the child and Mary to Egypt. This was the nearest safe place.

Then Herod died. So, Joseph could return with his family. Verses 19–23 describe this. He did not want to go back to Bethlehem. This does not surprise us. The new ruler was Archelaus. He was as bad as his father, Herod. He had already killed 3000 people. So, Joseph was anxious. But God understood this. He told him to return to his former home. This was in Nazareth. (Read Luke 2:4) Archelaus did not rule there. There were many dangers. But God was protecting and caring for Joseph, Mary and the baby. He can do the same for us too.

All of God’s promises in the OT come true in Jesus. Each of the three short paragraphs ended by repeating words from the OT. Matthew tells us that they came true in Jesus (Read the section after ‘Questions’).

There is one more thing to notice here. Joseph obeyed God. But this was not always easy. First, there was the fact that Mary was having a baby. Then there was the birth of Jesus. These events completely changed his life. Sometimes, he was confused and anxious. He did not know what to do. He only knew that God had helped him before.

At other times, he knew part of God’s plan. But he did not know all of it (Compare verses 20 and 22). It was hard for him to marry Mary. She was having a baby. People did not understand. They spoke against him. But, Joseph still learned something important. It was this. To obey God was the best way. God protected him, even in times of great danger.

Questions

1. Think about Joseph’s experience. Use the lessons of his life in your own situation.
2. How does this passage encourage your church group? How does God guide a group of Christians (believers)?
3. Think about the cruel murders in 2:16. There is so much suffering in the world. Is there something that you could do? How could you show that the Christian message has an answer?

More explanation

How Matthew used the Old Testament ( OT)

Matthew says that these OT passages refer to Jesus. But at first, they do not seem to have anything to do with him!

Verse 15 repeats Hosea 11:1. There, the prophet showed how God saved Israel’s people. They were in Egypt. He brought them back to their own land. This had happened many hundreds of years before. So, some people cannot understand how the passage could refer to Jesus. Perhaps Matthew used it in the wrong way. Maybe it was something that was familiar to Jews only at that time.

But the NT writers used the OT. They saw similar things between the OT story and Jesus’ life and work. Careful study will show this. They felt that Jesus matched with the whole history of the Jews (Israel). He even lived it all again.

God brought the Jews out of Egypt. He wanted them to bring God’s salvation to the world. They failed to do this. But Jesus would succeed. So, he too went to Egypt and returned from there. This was to show that he had come to save the world. He had come to bring the knowledge of God to all people. Of course, Hosea was not actually speaking about this. But it was quite fair for Matthew to use his words.

Read verse 18. Matthew was doing something similar there. He repeated Jeremiah 31:15. It told about a sad time in Bethlehem. The young people of the village would go away into exile. So, the words could not be about Herod’s murder of the babies. But Jeremiah’s words were a message of hope. The enemy would destroy the land. But there was still hope. God would save his people. He had not forgotten his people. He would not remove his promises from them.

Again, Matthew saw that those days and his own days were similar. Once, God had brought hope to a sad people. He saved them. Now, in Jesus, God had done it again. Jesus still brings hope to desperate people. He saves them from the results and the power of their sin. This was the hope for which the world was looking.

Verse 23 is more difficult. Matthew did not tell us where the words came from. Some people suggest that he was thinking about Isaiah 11:1. The word ‘branch’ is there. In Hebrew, the word sounds like ‘Nazareth’. Other people think that he was using Numbers 6. This is because it mentions the ‘Nazirite’. Both of these passages came true in Jesus. But, these words only sound similar to the name Nazareth. They have no real connection with it.

Matthew repeated some words of ‘the prophets’. (These are the books that the prophets wrote. They are in our OT.) So, he was probably thinking about several passages. In fact, Nazareth was a very small village. People ‘despised’ it. This means that it was very unimportant to them. People thought that it had nothing of value (Read John 1:45–46). Many times, the OT said that people would ‘despise’ the Messiah (Christ) (Read Psalm 22:6–8, 13; 69:8, 20–21; Isaiah 49:7; 53:2–3, 8; and Daniel 9:26). These verses describe good people. They also describe the Messiah. People despise them both.

Matthew realised something. So did other writers of the NT. It was about the language of these verses. They referred especially to Jesus (Compare Matthew 12:24; 27:21–23, 63; Luke 23:11; John 1:11; 5:18; 6:66; 9:22, 34).