Dennis Tuuri

The Lord said unto my Lord, “Sit thou at my right hand.” The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, and the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning. The Lord has sworn and will not repent. The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath. He shall fill the places with the dead bodies. He shall drink of the brook in the way.

Matthew 2:13-23. And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word. For Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night and departed into Egypt, and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and set forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and all the coast thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men.

Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet saying, “And in Ramah was there a voice heard, lamentation and weeping and great mourning. Rachel weeping for her children and would not be comforted because they are not.” But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, “Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel, for they are dead which sought the young child’s life.” And he arose and took the young child and his mother and came into the land of Israel.

But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither. Notwithstanding being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee. And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophets, he shall be called a Nazarene. I think we probably still have some families that have illness in their households from this last flu that seems to be going around the city.

And you know, I just mentioned that so that all of you might when you come on Sunday might notice who isn’t here and particularly the wives and mothers who aren’t here and the ladies who normally have a lot of duties at home to do in their household during the week. You might give them a call during the week, see if they need any help and try to be an encouragement to them in whatever way you can be. It’s good to remind ourselves that we’re part of a larger extended family here.

We have a covenant community we have responsibilities in the midst of. And so just mention that over the coming months to come when there’s sickness or people absent, be sure you give them a call sometime during the week and offer your assistance to them.

Well, this morning we’re going to—this is really the fourth in our series of messages centered around Christmas. It’s a little different kind of a talk though this morning.

In a sense, it really continues what we’ve been talking about for the last couple three weeks with the great reversal. Remember, we talked about Mary’s Magnificat indicating a great reversal to come. And in a sense, that continues this morning with what we’re going to be saying from the book of Matthew. After all, what we see here in this account of the visit of the wise men and the events following that visit to the baby Jesus born in Bethlehem doesn’t exactly indicate a royal birth, nor does it indicate a royal upbringing, a royal youth either—a royal period of youthfulness.

I thought about this while we were coming to church. We went by the frame, one of these big long white stretch limos, license plate said wings. I don’t know, maybe an angel. Maybe Paul McCartney. But anyway, the thing I thought of was it was really bombing down this freeway, too. I figured that they don’t care if they get a traffic ticket. They’ve got lots of money and probably if the chauffeur has too many they just get a new chauffeur.

But anyway, the point was that I thought about this limo and a person of importance here and I thought that what we have here in Matthew’s version of the nativity of Christ and the events following it over the next few years of his life don’t have any marks at all of a stretch limo. You know, there’s no indications here of royalness or great wealth or person of importance. It’s just the reverse. There’s a movie out—well isn’t out yet. I wish it was out. I’ve been waiting for it for a couple of months now called The Last Emperor, which is about the actual last emperor of mainland China and how he became an emperor while he was a child. He had a very royal childhood. And again, there’s a contrast here with the King of Kings who has come to his land. He doesn’t have those sort of marks and accoutrements of a prince or of a king in waiting.

Yet, we know he is king. And so, in a sense, the great reversal continues here with these three little vignettes we’ll be talking on this morning.

Now, Matthew’s gospel is the gospel of Jesus as king very definitively and that is throughout the gospel of Matthew that emphasis on Jesus as the king is seen and in the first chapter the gospel actually begins with the genealogy of Christ tracing it through David back to Abraham and then there’s a couple of little short vignettes there about the birth of Christ and then we have this visit of the magi beginning of chapter 2 and then these three short little statements all ending in a fulfillment of prophecy of these three little vignettes that we just read through now and we’ll be going through a little more detail in a couple of minutes.

After these events, chapter 3 then immediately jumps to the coming of John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness, preparing people saying the kingdom of God is at hand. And so really chapter 2 is kind of like a precursor to chapter 3, which is the preaching that the kingdom has arrived, the king is here. And so chapter 2 shows the king in the land and the implications of that. And as I said, it’s not quite how we would have written the story, but God writes the story for very good reason as we’ll see.

So we’ve got in terms of the outline we’re going to be going through. Then we’re going to do these three little vignettes ending in fulfilled prophecy. Talk about those a little bit and then we’ll talk about some applications for us in terms of the year to come. After all, I guess this is sort of a new year talk. I guess that’s kind of how I planned it. And so I want to look at this stuff and implications for us as we move into this next year 1988 as a church and individually as well.

So we start first of all at the flight into Egypt found in verses 13 through verse 15. And you know this is probably fairly well known in most of your households that the magi come and visit the Christ child. Herod wants to know where the Christ child is. The magi were not to return to Herod. They leave and apparently the same night Joseph is visited by the Lord in a dream and we learn that Herod seeks the life of the child and to take the child to the mother to get up and to go to Egypt and that’s what he does.

He then moves in obedience to that. He goes into Egypt and then Matthew finishes that little part of the story by saying that this fulfilled the prophecy that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” So there’s an Egypt element here that’s talked about that we’ll be talking about more as we go through the other two stories as well.

Now Interesting deal in a work entitled New Investigations into the Origin and Plan of the Canonical Gospels. This commentator said that Matthew he thought was written self-consciously imaging the Pentateuch and the style and the form of the Pentateuch itself. And there are some striking similarities if you think about what we just read in the first few chapters of the book of Matthew to the account of the people of Israel in the Pentateuch. There is after all the story of the beginning of Christ, the genesis of Christ as it were, with the birth of Christ in Matthew 1 from the Genesis. Then it goes on to the Exodus from Egypt and about how Jesus is now taken into Egypt. We’re going to have an Exodus account now like the book of Exodus in these few verses we’re looking at here. And that is also pointed out beginning at verse 15 then in the second chapter that Exodus routine starts to be played out and it goes on then to the murder of the innocents.

Remember in Egypt there was a murder of the innocent children. There’s a time in the wilderness spent here is the people having been brought out of Egypt. There’s a time in the wilderness. And later on, Matthew will talk about Jesus spending 40 days in the wilderness, similar then to the 40 years the nation of Israel spent in the wilderness in the Pentateuch. The giving of the law then follows in Matthew 5. Jesus gives the Sermon on the Mount. So following the Exodus that we looking at in Matthew 2, then you have the wilderness. Then you have the giving of the law by Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount paralleling the second giving of the law by Moses as the people are about to enter into the promised land. And so there’s many parallels here to show that this was somehow connected to the first five books of the scriptures and paralleling as it were the life of the covenant people.

That’s really very obvious if you just go through a cursory reading of some of this material. The parallels are many and striking. And in fact, liberal commentators have looked at these parallels and particularly some of the stuff here in chapter 2 and said that what Matthew did was he actually took the story of Jesus and deliberately falsified it somewhat, rearranged it somewhat to make it look like the nation of Israel coming out of Egypt, that whole Exodus thing and the giving of the law etc.

So the liberal commentators see in this an attempt by Matthew to manipulate his gospel to actually formulate it after the Pentateuch. We don’t believe that of course. Other liberal commentators have said that what we have here particularly in chapter 2 is a midrash or a bit of commentary on the life of Jesus which really parallels the life of Moses. And there’s those sort of parallels, too. What I’m trying to get you to see here is that these parallels are obvious and they’re fixed into the text.

And we can’t really understand what Matthew is trying to tell us here, the implications of it, unless we see those parallels and build upon them and help ourselves interpret the scriptures correctly in that sense.

Now, this first fulfillment of prophecy here in chapter 2:13-15 we’re going to be considering this morning is specifically, of course, refers to this Exodus of Israel out of the land of Egypt. The quotation here that Matthew is reciting from is Hosea 11:1 where God talks about his love for his son. And indeed that love for his son led him to bring his people out of Egypt. “Out of Egypt I have called my son,” God says in Hosea 11:1 referring to the Exodus of the covenant people Israel from Egypt. So we know there’s a definite parallel there that’s drawn.

Exodus 4:22 and 23 we’re told that Israel told by God here Israel is my son, my firstborn. Therefore, let my son go that he may serve me. Again, Israel spoken of in the old covenant as being the son of God. Deuteronomy 32:18 says, “You neglected the rock who begot you and forgot the God that gave you birth.” So God tells the nation of Israel that they are his son, his begotten son, the son that he gave birth to, the son that he brings out of Egypt. And that coming out of Egypt is kind of like a birth then of the people of Israel.

And God says that he begot the nation of Israel. While in Egypt, he cared for them, sustained their life, protected them from enemies, that they’d grow up, and then they come into the promised land, and God delivers them out of Egypt. I’ve called my son. So, the parallels here between Jesus Christ and the nation of Israel are dramatic and straightforward in this portion of the text. Jesus here is identified then as the true Israel of God.

I probably shouldn’t use the word true. Israel, of course, in the Old Testament was also a true Israel, wasn’t it? It’s not like they were a symbol that they weren’t real. There were not ever a covenant people. It’s not like it was just a story pointing to Jesus. They were real as well. So maybe a better way to think about it is that Jesus is the greater Israel. He is the antitype of which the type in the Old Testament, the nation of Israel pointed toward.

Okay? And so there in this little verse, one of the things we see which we’ve been seeing for the last three weeks is that in Jesus, the culmination of all the Old Testament occurs. And in fact, he’s the focal point of all history, his life, his death and his ascension. And certainly in this respect then an identification of Jesus as the antitype as the greater Israel and the old covenant is the story of God’s dealing with the nation of Israel.

That means that all the old covenant now points toward and focuses on Jesus Christ because he is the greater Israel, the greater Israel, the second Israel, the antitype of the Israel, the Old Testament, the greater Israel.

Now it’s important here also to recognizing this and many commentators have Calvin and others that Jesus certainly identifies himself here also with the church with the covenant community as the covenant community of Israel went into Egypt and into to flee in their own place because of famine and then were brought out by God. So Jesus identifies with their stay in Egypt by going to Egypt as a young child as a babe actually and then spending a few years of his life there. And so there’s an indication of identification with Jesus with the church with the covenant people. There’s the indication that Jesus is the true Israel. He is the great Israel rather I want to try to break myself of that habit of the true Israel. He is the greater Israel and he is the focus of all Old Testament history.

And so the flight to Egypt is important to understand and to remember in that context.

The second vignette we’re going to look at is begins in verse 16 and goes to verse 18. And I entitled this a new Egypt. And we’ll understand that in just a minute why I called it that. Says that Herod when he saw he was mocked by the wise men was exceeding wroth, sent forth and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and on all the coasts thereof from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men.

Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “In Ramah was there a voice and lamentation and weeping in great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and would not be comforted because they are not.”

Now, we look at this and this terrible atrocity that Herod committed. Just to put it in perspective though, it wasn’t the first thing Herod ever did. There were estimates of the number of children killed. Bethlehem was a small town. It’s a very remote little village really—not remote but it was a small village—and estimates are between ten and maybe forty children were killed who were two years old and under. So it wasn’t a tremendous number of small children killed. Still it’s a great tragedy. I don’t mean to not take Herod off the hook but remember this is the Herod in case you didn’t know who earlier on had the whole Sanhedrin the judges of Israel executed because he didn’t like the way they were doing their job.

So this was not a good guy. This was a very bad guy and he did a lot of terrible things. And here in his old age, he’s about to die in several years. In his old age, he shows himself to be the fruits of rebellion and sin, rebellion against God. And Herod is seen as a corruptible old man who out of his wrath against the magi. And out of his fear of this little baby born into the land who is going to be a ruler according to prophecy, goes out and slays innocent children two years old and under.

So it’s a terrible thing and certainly one of the things we want to see here is that if Matthew is presenting the gospel of the real king Jesus Christ and he shows us the false king Herod and he shows us in Herod all usurpers to the throne those people that would rule apart from Jesus Christ. And so there’s a contrast here between Herod the king de facto and Jesus the king de jure by law God’s anointed king and the king de facto the usurper to the throne is seen as a king of death, bringing death even to little innocent children.

And so that contrast is certainly good to point out. We have Herod slaughtering children. Later we’ll have Jesus saying, “Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not.” And he blesses little children. And so there’s a tremendous contrast there. We don’t want to take any of that contrast away.

Augustus, there was a rumor, I guess, or a rumor that in this in this killing, apparently for some reason, Herod’s son, one of Herod’s sons, was in that area and he ended up killed, too. I don’t know if that’s true. It probably isn’t true, but when Augustus Caesar was told about that, that Herod had actually killed his own son, he said that it’d be better to be Herod’s sour pig than it was to be his child. Herod was apparently forbidden—was so afraid of the dietary restrictions, he couldn’t kill a pig that he might eat. And so, it was safer to be Herod’s pig than it was to be his own child, is what Augustus Caesar said about Herod. Herod was an embittered old man then and certainly that contrast with the loving Jesus Christ as our loving king is pointed out.

But I think there’s a couple other things we got to look at. First of all, there is one other thing that I might point out there is that another thing being talked about in this verse that commentators have pointed out correctly is that this is kind of a indicator of what will be the sorrow of the people to come as Jesus continues to grow. When the nation of Israel rejects Christ in the form of Herod here. He’s the king after all of the nation. We see then a judgment upon the people and little children being killed. When the nation as a whole rejects Jesus and actually puts him to death, there’ll come the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. And so this is like a little picture of a group of people and what happens to those people when they reject the King of Kings, Jesus Christ.

But after all, Matthew gives us here a specific prophecy that is fulfilled. That prophecy comes from Jeremiah 31:15. We have to look there also for understanding this vignette. And in that prophecy that is specifically quoted here by Matthew. What’s being talked about is the nation of the ten tribes rather of the ten tribes here being taken off by Assyria into captivity. And those tribes then are lost. They’re the ten lost tribes of Israel. They’re never really recovered in a sense. They become blended into the gentile nations around them. And so the identification of Ramah as being the voice of Rachel weeping. Remember Rachel was dead at the time of the writing of the book of Jeremiah. Rachel weeping for her children at Ramah. Ramah was the place where the Assyrians would collect the people and then ship them off or do whatever they were going to do with them.

And so what’s being specifically quoted here from the book of Jeremiah was an incident where the people of Israel because again of their sin and apostasy were being judged by God, taken off a conquering army to be no more. And Rachel says that Rachel cannot be comforted because they are not just like these children are not anymore. They are dead. So that the lost tribes, the lost ten tribes are taken off to be no more to be put into captivity and never to be recovered.

And so that’s the specific reference he’s quoting. And so we have good reason then for this parallel between a rejection of the people, a rejection of God as the king, of Israel in the old covenant and now in the new covenant producing the reaping of Rachel over her children over the nation of Israel being rejected by God and going off into cursing and judgment. So that’s certainly there. Israel’s apostasy was fulfilled was came to its full fruition when God judged them and took them off in the hands of the Assyrians.

And now the apostasy of the nation of Israel in the form of the Edomite king Herod is also being talked about as reinforcing God’s judgment and precursor as a precursor to the full judgment of God upon Jerusalem in AD 70.

Now I want to point out there however that it doesn’t—the wording here in terms of the fulfillment of the prophecy. I don’t want to get into the specifics but the wording is such that there is a greater emphasis put upon Herod’s responsibility for this activity. Okay, I’m not saying that Herod doesn’t bear full responsibility for his actions. He certainly does and the text here specifically brings that out. It’s also good to remember that prophecy in Jeremiah 31:15 of God’s judgment upon the people of going off into bondage and the weeping of Rachel is followed by some great words of encouragement to Rachel as well. Rachel being the symbolic mother of the nation there.

In Jeremiah 31:15 It says that it goes on in verse 16 to say, “Thus saith the Lord, refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears. For thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord, and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope in time in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border.” And so, the prophecy itself in Jeremiah indicating the weeping of Rachel is followed up quickly by a prophecy from God saying in Jeremiah that they will be recovered.

And what he’s talking about is the coming fulfillment of the true Israel. The gentile people are brought into the kingdom of God as well. And so the lost tribes amalgamated into the gentile nation. The Assyrians take them to still are returned in the form of those very gentile nations come to worship God in the latter times which Jesus now is the herald of. And so even though this is a prophecy of great weeping, there is implicit to it those for those people who understood and knew the prophecy of Jeremiah that this weeping would be followed by a great rejoicing that the sorrow to come in the nation of Israel for the next seventy years would then result in great joy to the people as the full as the Gentiles are brought into the gospel kingdom.

So that’s certainly there. So we’ve got a contrast between Jesus and Herod. We’ve got the judgment of God upon a people that have rejected him. Those are two things certainly this verse has talked about. But there’s a third thing that I think is important to bring out here and I mentioned it briefly earlier and that’s this relationship to the Egypt motif again. You remember Moses was delivered out of the hand of Pharaoh.

Pharaoh sought to put all the male children of Israel in the land of Egypt at one time to death. And certainly if we have Egypt being taken to or Israel or Jesus rather as the greater Israel being taken into Egypt and now we have this destruction of the children and Jesus’s protection from that destruction by God supernaturally and yet accomplished through the feet of Joseph his father. Certainly, it should bring to mind also the destruction of the children in Egypt and the deliverance of Moses who would be the deliverer of his people.

And so that’s another parallel here that is would be very wrong to overlook. It is central I think to understanding this series of prophecies. In fact there are eighth century rabbinic writings that are based upon much older traditions, older traditions known to Josephus for instance in his time that indicate that Pharaoh’s astrologers perceive now talking now of the people of Israel in Egypt at the time of prior to the Exodus that Pharaoh’s astrologers back then perceive that the mother of the future redeemer of Israel is with child and was destined to suffer a punishment with water.

Okay? And so Pharaoh in Deuteronomy or in the in the Exodus account prior to the deliverance of God’s people drowns all the children in the river in the Nile River. So now we don’t know if that’s true or not. It may well not be. The point is that contemporaneous rabbinic accounts written at the same time of Matthew identified Pharaoh as a drowner of children in the river Nile at the time of the Exodus because he was afraid that the redeemer of Israel would come forth from one of those children.

Now the point I’m trying to make here is again there’s this analogy drawn then in the text between Jesus as the true Israel. Now we see Jesus as the true Moses protected by God while the wrath of the Pharaoh goes out against the children. Now there’s a little problem with that though, isn’t there? There’s a problem with that because there’s a shift in emphasis then—remember the attempt on Moses’ life that is the redeemer of his people and the killing of the children by Pharaoh occurred in Egypt. Right? But now Jesus is brought out of Israel into Egypt to protect him from the destruction of children in Israel. See the difference?

Well, I think what’s going on here is that we have a new Egypt. We have Herod now acting like Pharaoh. Instead of Pharaoh, the head of an ungodly nation, being the one who seeks to put the covenant children to death, we have Herod, the king of the Jews in Israel attempting to put all those that might possibly result in the redemption of Israel to death.

So we have a new pharaoh in the form of Herod. We have a new Egypt in the sense of Israel. Now Ezekiel, this is not particularly a new motif in the scriptures. Ezekiel in his prophecies talks about the nation of Israel as being worshippers of the idols of Egypt. He said, “You didn’t leave your idols back there in Egypt. You brought them over into Israel.” And therefore, God’s judgment is being foretold in the book of Ezekiel.

When Israel falls, and rejects God, it frequently is pictured in the old covenant as turning back to Egypt. And of course, they wanted to. And in fact, from the first day they were delivered by God throughout the wilderness wanderings, Moses had that same promise, the people. And so, Israel then becomes Egypt in the time of our Lord when the covenant head of the nation in terms of Herod performs murder upon the innocent children.

So, this is the old story of course Satan wishing to destroy the child of the woman. David Chilton talks about this in his commentary in the book of Revelation commenting on chapter 12. When you remember in chapter 12 of the book of Revelation, we have the sign in heaven, the woman giving birth to the child. There’s the dragon who wants to devour the child as soon as the child is born. The woman gives birth and immediately the child is taken up into heaven and the dragon is thwarted.

And of course in Revelation it shows us that the birth of Jesus Christ is connected with the ascension of Jesus Christ. Like we talked about the last couple of weeks, the early church fathers understood the whole life of Christ being emblemized in the incarnation of the nativity. And so in Revelation, we have the child born immediately rescued by God and taken up and ascended to the right hand of the father.

And certainly that’s true theologically. Satan couldn’t thwart the purpose of God, but he still is trying to here. The same way he was trying to destroy the children of Israel through Pharaoh, now he’s trying to destroy the children of Israel and their coming redeemer through Herod. And so really behind Egypt, we have the power of the great adversary of the church, Satan, the great dragon. And that’s what we see here.

Now, Moses, of course, was rescued from the hand of Pharaoh. And Jesus is rescued from the hand of Herod. And Moses was rescued, of course, to be a deliverer. And it’s interesting then as we go into the next little vignette to read that in Exodus 4:19, God appears to Moses in Exodus 4:19 and tells him to go back to Egypt for all those who are seeking your life are dead. Okay, so Moses goes back to Egypt when the people when the Pharaoh who is trying to kill him dies and the people that know about Moses and his attempt on the Egyptian those people are all done away with by God over a course of time and Moses goes back and so Jesus in the next little vignette also is returned back into the land of Israel.

Egypt if you want to look at it that way. Starting at verse 19, we have the third vignette. Then out of Egypt, I’ve titled it for the sake of our outline. Starting at verse 19, when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, “Arise, take the young child and his mother. Go into the land of Israel, for they are dead, which sought the young child’s life.” See, the same sort of thing that was told to Moses. Go back to Egypt because they’re dead who are seeking your life. And he goes back then to deliver his people. And Jesus now is brought back into Israel, Egypt, that he might deliver the people through his life, the ministry of his life, his death on the cross, and his resurrection. So Jesus is taken back into Israel, Egypt, as it were to effect the deliverance of his people once more.

And he arose in verse 21, took the young child, his mother, and came to the land of Israel. When he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither. Notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee. And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophets. He shall be called a Nazarene.

Now Herod as I said before was a terrible king and he died the very terrible death. His death was marked as later his relatives would be also by in a bunch of worms in his body and in various unspeakable parts of his body. His body had a great stench to it in later years of his life. His life was marked by murderous and bloody thoughts. All of this mentioned by Josephus. Herod was the picture of rejection of Christ and death and dying being the result of that. One of Herod’s last acts as a king was to kill two men who had taken down a gold eagle that he had erected over the gate of the temple.

Remember Herod built the beautiful temple and over the gate of that temple he erected this gold eagle and two zealots took that down. One of his last acts as king was to execute those two men. Well, his son Archelaus then took portion—he his reign was divided among several of the sons and Archelaus one of his first acts and even before he became actual ruler. Remember the rule here had to be ratified by Rome and even before his actions were ratified, one of his first actions was at the following Passover the first Passover in which he was sort of temporarily reigning in the seat of his father.

He found several people apparently at the temple mourning the death of those two martyrs who had died at the hand of Herod. And Archelaus then had a horseman surround the temple and he killed three thousand people because there were a few people there mourning the death of these two martyrs who had been killed by his father. Three thousand people at the temple and the people then it said by Josephus retired away from the temple, went back to their homes that nothing worse would ensue.

So if Herod was bad, Archelaus was twice as bad. He was really a bad fellow. And Joseph comes back to Israel being told that Herod had died and he had died of course. Probably one of the first things that greets his ears is the story of Archelaus. And what he’s doing, he’s killing three thousand people in the temple at the Passover feast. And so Joseph was understandably not particularly pleased by all this and a little frightened.

And then the angel tells Joseph specifically to take the child to Nazareth. And of course that was Joseph’s hometown anyway before he had to go to Bethlehem for the census of Augustus. And so he goes to Nazareth then.

Now, this fulfillment of the prophecy, “He shall be called the Nazarene,” is a little obtuse. It’s a little hard to figure out what’s going on here exactly. And whenever you’ll read a lot of commentators on this and they’ll take one of a couple three positions and I’ll tell you what the positions are. Then I’ll tell you what I think the position should be based upon several evidences.

Well, first of all, some people say the problem here is first of all, he says that it’s written of him spoken by the prophets—plural. “He shall be called the Nazarene.” Well, none of the prophets talk about a Nazarene or Nazareth, not mentioned in prophecy anywhere in the Old Testament. So, you got a problem. He says multiple prophets talk about him as a Nazarene. Well, there’s three ways that people have resolved this.

First of all, some people use the term Nazarene. They say that really refers back to a Hebrew word meaning the Hebrew word being which was a shoot. And in Isaiah 11:1, the coming Messiah is referred to as a nezer, as a small shoot. And they to get around the plural prophet idea here that has to be. And that also as a condition of under interpreting this prophecy they say that in Isaiah 4:2, Jeremiah 23:5, and I’ve listed these references on your outline sheets. You don’t have to write them down. Now, in those string of references there, Jeremiah 33:15, and Zechariah 3:8, that Jesus or the Messiah to come is listed as a branch or as a shoot. Not this same Hebrew word nezer, but another word meaning to bud or to shoot up. And the idea he’s saying here is that Jesus will be called a Nazarene in the sense that Israel’s been cut off by God here. Now it’s like a dry stump out of which grows this one little shoot coming up which will become emblematic is emblematically the whole nation and in whom the nation will find its rest then.

And so they see what’s being talked about here is that Jesus will be called a shoot. Well there’s problems with that of course first of all that’s a word play that’s hard to understand why Matthew would have made that word play calling it a Nazarene instead of actually calling him a shoot and explaining the word play. Secondly the plural requirement for prophets is met in a really obtuse way. There are no plural indications of Messiah being a nezer.

Okay. There are plural indications of him being a shoot. So that is kind of unsatisfactory.

A second way to interpret this is the way Calvin did and others have as well including I think Boaster and that is that he’ll be called a Nazarene. And that’s a word that’s very close to Nazirite. And so what it’s saying is that there are several messianic prophecies relating to Jesus as a Nazirite. And they were quote from that Judges 13:7 as saying that the child shall be called a Nazirite to God from the womb talking there Samson.

Again there’s only one prophecy there although you can also look at the indication of Joseph in the land of Egypt as being a Nazirite or rather consecrated apart separated from his brothers to God’s special purposes. And so they say that Jesus was separated or consecrated like a Nazirite. He wasn’t a Nazirite, right? He didn’t take a Nazirite vow. He didn’t abstain from alcohol. He didn’t abstain from the touching of dead bodies. He wasn’t a Nazirite in that sense. But certainly Jesus is the true Nazirite of all Nazirites. Totally consecrated to God’s purposes. The Nazirite, you know, had took the bow and cut his hair. He had a crown, really an emblematic crown on his head. And Jesus was the king to come and he was the king that was totally dedicated, consecrated to God. So that’s an acceptable alternative. But still, it asks for a play on the words there that is really kind of a little hard to understand why Matthew would make that sort of word play.

I think the better interpretation of this prophecy—not the idea of being a shoot or a chute—not the idea of being a Nazirite although both those things are certainly true of Christ—but I think what Matthew is referring to here is pointed out by Lenski in his commentary and he said that when he says that it’s said of the prophets he shall be called a Nazarene that he’s not going to quote now a specific prophecy. He’s going to take a motif of the prophets and apply that to Jesus. He’s taking the word the plural word for prophets. He’s not going to give a citation now the way he did that the other prophecies we’ve seen fulfilled—when he used a singular prophet. He’s going to give a general theme here of what’s being talked about in terms of Messiah. And that general theme is somehow encapsulated in the word a Nazarene.

Well, what’s a Nazarene? Matthew understood when he was writing his gospel the people that understood the time of the gospel and read the other references to Nazarene in the New Testament and other historical writings of the time. A Nazarene was a despised person. A Nazarene was looked down upon. He wasn’t thought of well at all. The region of Galilee where Nazareth was kind of like half Gentile, half Jew. They didn’t like those people at all. And so a Nazarene was a term of approbation. It was a term of you wanted to make the guy think he was if you wanted to say this guy’s a churl, you the guy is a Nazarene. And of course, that’s what happened to our Lord at his death. He was called a Nazarene, the King of the Jews. He was being referred to several times as a Nazarene.

“Did anything good come out of Nazareth?” was the same. Paul when he talks about the early church in when he was still Saul talks about the persecution of the cult of the Nazarenes. It was a way to you know put them down. There were synagogue prayers recorded by Josephus asking for God’s curse upon those Nazarenes, those terrible people. To be from Nazareth was not a good deal. It was a bad deal. It was a thing to be looked down upon. I was trying to think of some contemporary ways to get this across.

And I suppose at one time Harlem maybe was seen as a bad place to be from. My wife grew up to use a local illustration here. She grew up in a part of Portland and the hills there when she was a kid. The hills weren’t populated by people with a lot of money building fancy houses. There was an area called Bonnie Slope in Cedar Mill area and the people that lived there were poorer, kind of didn’t take care of themselves too well.

And if you were from Bonnie Slope, that wasn’t a good deal. And in fact, when you rode the bus, they wouldn’t say Bonnie Slope, they would call the land Bony Slop. So you, you know, the kids that got on the bus from Bony Slop always stank. They weren’t nice kids. They were bad kids. They used bad language. And so that’s what the term meant. You know, if you said a person was a Nazarene, it was like saying he was is a Bony Slop.

Point is that Matthew used this idiomatic expression here, an expression that was commonly used to indicate a person of despised origin. And he said that’s what Messiah was supposed to be according to the prophets. And we know that’s true. Even if you don’t buy into that particular interpretation of this prophecy now, it’s certainly true. The Messiah was to be afflicted. He was to be rejected by his people. Despise the suffering Messiah is portrayed in many Old Testament references as being a Nazarene in the sense of a despised one, not comely in appearance. People rejected him out of hand because of his background as a Nazarene. And I think that’s what’s being spoken of in Matthew said a lot of prophecies referred to Jesus as the coming king and instead of using king, he used Caesar for instance would have been the same idea.

He is seen as a despised one. Another evidence of the correctness of this interpretation is this parallel between Jesus and Moses that are drawn out in these Egyptian references. Remember Moses who was going to deliver his people was rejected by those same people. He was despised or abhored by the people as it were. Before his flight in dominion before he left Egypt the first time around, he attempted to stop two brothers from fighting and to produce peace in the nation even while they were in captivity.

And for his efforts, they said, “What have you got to do with them? Who made you ruler and judge over us now? Leave us alone.” And that’s really what the people said to Jesus. “Who made you ruler and judge to us king and one who would decide disputes among people? Forget it.” Now, that isn’t just true of Moses pre-dominion. Even when he came back to Egypt to deliver his people, his first attempts at delivery made Pharaoh produce even harder work for the people.

And the people went to Moses said, “Hey, we’ve become odious in Pharaoh’s sight. Why don’t you just leave us alone? and quit troubling us.” So even while Moses went back as God’s true ruler and judge, emblematic of the greater ruler and judge to come, Jesus Christ, he was despised of the people. And of course, it didn’t stop when he finally got him out of the land either. They continued to look down their nose at him. They didn’t like him at all. And he never was really seen as a great man by all the people. They were continually in a state of semi-rebellion against him.

And so Jesus Christ is the same way. So that’s yet another evidence to indicate in the context to this Matthew, these series of three vignettes referring to Egypt, referring to deliverance from Egypt, referring to Moses, the providential rescuing of Moses, the providential rescuing of Jesus to say that this means a despised one.