Out of Egypt I Called My Son

The Exodus

And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

– Matthew 2:15

Jesus Christ was in Egypt with the holy family.  Herod dies then He goes back to the holy land then we see this verse.  What a wonderful fulfillment, right?

The enemy of the Christian faith who has been reading Ehrman or some other liberal “scholar” will say that this is a complete fraud.  This is a simple description of what happened to the nation of Israel.  The quote is Hosea 11.  Here are the first two verses of that chapter:

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.  But the more they were called, the more they went away from me.  They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images.

Out of context?  A shallow reading of the text appears that way.  Matthew certainly has an audience that he assumes know the Bible well.  Why is he doing this?  There must be some other reason.

First of all, it’s no mystery that Jesus Christ is called the Son of God in the Gospel of Matthew.  During the baptism of Christ, we read:

And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

– Matthew 3:17

Now, in the Torah, which is the centrepiece of Jewish theology, Israel is considered the Son of God.

Then say to Pharaoh, ‘This is what the Lord says: Israel is my firstborn son,

– Exodus 4:22

Jesus and Israel are both described as the Son of God and Hosea 11 is clearly referring to the state of Israel.  What is the context of the exodus out of Egypt?  God has made a covenant with His Son Israel and these are the very first members of this covenant.  This covenant would go on to include all of the prophets that we read about in the Old Testament and end with Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ comes out of Egypt as well when Herod dies.  Jesus Christ is the last of Israel to live under the covenant of Moses, while those of Israel who came out of the Exodus are the first to live under the covenant of Moses.  It wasn’t a fulfillment of prophecy, but a fulfillment of an event.

In the Exodus, God’s Son left Egypt.  When Christ came back to the holy land out of Egypt, the last of God’s son Israel, the eternal Son, came out of Egypt.  Jesus was the last to live under the old covenant because He ushered in the new one.

This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

– Matthew 26:28

We then read about the slaughtering of the boys under two at the command of Herod.

Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

– Matthew 2:18

This is a quote from a verse in the Old Testament from the book of Jeremiah.  This is the same book and chapter where we see a prophecy of the new covenant.  The verse quoted is verse 15.  The new covenant is spoken of in verses 31 through 33.  Matthew wasn’t just cutting and pasting Old Testament quotes.  He knew exactly what he was doing.