Now when they had gone, behold, and Angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Get up! Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you for Herod is going to search for the Child to destroy Him."
Now that the Magi had left, God again sent His Angel to Joseph, a dreamer, to warn him to leave before Herod would realize that he had been tricked.
So Joseph got up and took the Child and His mother while it was still night, and left for Egypt.
So Joseph got up, right then, in the middle of the night, and quickly packed a few things, and took off immediately to take Mary and the Child out of town.
He remained there until the death of Herod.
The year of the death of Herod has been researched and debated extensively, but no proof of either 4 B.C. or 1 A.D. has been settled. (You may want to read the discussion in BAR here.)
In any case, Herod did not live long after this, so the year of his death has been determined to be the year of Christ's birth.
This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the Prophet:
"Out of Egypt I called My Son" (Hosea 11: 1).Joseph did not have to stay long in Egypt. Only long enough to fulfill the prophesy.
Then when Herod saw that he had been tricked by the Magi, he became very enraged, and sent and slew all the male children who were in Bethlehem and all its vicinity, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the Magi.
Then what had been spoken through Jeremiah the Prophet was fulfilled:
"A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; and she refused to be comforted, because they were no more" (Jeremiah 31: 15).As we saw before, Bethlehem was just a small village of about 300 residents, so there would not have been more than about 6 or 7 babies there, all together, and some of them were girls; so this massacre is not as massive as I previously thought.
But whenever any child is murdered, it is a great wrenching of the hearts of the parents, and this great mourning happened just as predicted.
But when Herod died, behold, an Angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, and said,
"Get up, take the Child and His mother, and go into the land of Israel: for those who sought the Child's life are dead."
Again the Angel came in another dream to let Joseph know that it was now safe to return to Israel again. It seems that Joseph is much like the long-ago Joseph who also was called "the dreamer."
So Joseph got up, took the child and His mother, and came into the land of Israel.
Joseph didn't have to leave in the middle of the night this time, there was no urgency like last time.
But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Then after being warned by God in a dream, he left for the regions of Galilee,
and came and lived in a city called Nazareth. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the Prophets: "He shall be called a Nazarene."
Joseph didn't trust the son of the murderer Herod, and had another dream, to go back home to Nazareth, from where he and Mary had started out.
But this prophesy here is a problem. We find that no such prophesy is found in the Old Testament, or any other extant source.
However, Matthew is apparently not quoting a particular prophet, but uses the plural of the term, prophets, possibly taking up the idea that this One would be from Nazareth, an obscure city, causing the term "Nazarene" to be understood as an insulting epithet (see John 1:46), an unflattering reference to Jesus' humble and obscure origins that was used by anti-Christians at the time. The word is used in just such a way at Matthew 26:71.
Also the wordplay with the Hebrew, netzer, in Isaiah 11:1, from which the name Nazareth may have come, conveys the same message by depicting the Messiah as a shoot from a cut-down stump to be a symbol of lowly origin, as so understood by the Jewish people at that time.
Thus the meaning of the verse could be that Jesus fulfilled multiple prophecies that the Messiah will be abused and neglected (see Psalm 22, Isaiah 53, Zechariah 11:4-14). (Read about this at Wikipedia.)
Every time Joseph dreams of an Angel of God, he has never doubted that the dream was real, and immediately obeyed every time.
Do you know when you are dreaming? Or does every dream seem real at the time? Joseph must have been able to distinguish when a dream was real and when it was just a dream.
And I admire his faith in instant obedience to what God tells him. I still need to work on that "instant obedience" in my own life, as I tend to be a procrastinator.
Both Mary and Joseph had unswerving confidence in their trust in God. They are good examples for all of us of how trustworthy God is, even when we don't understand. When we know the path we are to walk, and we have clear direction from the Lord to take each step, then may we not hesitate to do whatever it is He is telling us to do.
Mary risked her whole reputation, her pending marriage, and even her life itself, when she consented to be impregnated by God's Spirit.
And Joseph risked marrying what appeared to be an unfaithful woman, and he got up in the middle of the night to take a long, uncomfortable journey to a foreign country, without hesitation.
May all of God's children trust Him with such unwavering faith! May we listen to His direction and follow through, even when confronted with difficulties and unfavorable prospects.
O my Father, strengthen me, help me to be certain when You speak to me, that it really is Your leading; and to persevere to follow through and not give up under the problems and possible unfavorable consequences.
Teach me to continue to carry on, even when I grow weary. Support me with Your hand in mine, to draw me along Your way, to not give up before payday.
Use me, Father, in Your great Plan of the Ages, that I might perform my little part that You have prepared me for, to further Your Kingdom each day. Help me to not hesitate to do what You have set before me to do, and to distinguish between Your leading and my own fleshly desires.
Help me to not give up when my momentum has waned, to keep on keeping on anyway. O Father, I know how weak I am in my flesh, and that everything I do that will enhance Your ways in this world is You working through me. Continue to work through me, Father, to not succumb to my humanity, but to live each day in the strength of Your Spirit in me.
Father, You have led me so far, and nourished me so abundantly with Your Word. Continue to hold me up, Daddy, so I can stand, clad in Your Armor of God (Ephesians 6: 11-17), and producing Your fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5: 22-23). Let Christ shine through me, and draw others to Your wonderful gracious Love!
Even so, come soon, Lord Jesus!
