Matthew 2

v13

If I were writing this and wanted to make it suspenseful, I'd have had the Herod story first then the fleeing story. But Matthew probably doesn't want to make it suspenseful. I think he wants to make it clear, and perhaps even knows that this might be read a lot and so wants it to serve that purpose instead.

Interesting that the dream comes to Joseph. I guess, again, he's the husband, so he's the one that will need convincing.

v14

And again Joseph is obedient. Good on him. Egypt is a long way to go!

v15

This is one of those prophetic exegeses that I would not countenance if anyone else made it; but when you find it in scripture, you are kind of bound by it.

v16

This is terrible violence, but not altogether uncommon from royalty of the time unfortunately. For instance, Herod got into an argument with the Hasmoneans, and so gave an order that all their male inheritors should be killed. Politics was a bloody business.

This is one of the things that bring praise for democracy - plurality of power increases stability and apathy, reducing these kinds of violence.

Also it's clear that the time between Jesus birth, the magis' visit, and Herod realising that they had not returned to him, is around two years.

v17

It just strikes me at this moment that if you asked me to independently point to all those passages of scripture that align neatly enough with Christ's life and death that they could be prophecies, I'd be rubbish at it. The knowledge of scripture of the Jewish people at the time must have been amazing. Besides, what else did they have to read? Scripture was knowledge, education, entertainment and culture. It's true that our increase in media distracts us from knowing God's word - even Christian media. I'm not sure what the answer to that is though. Be all the more thankful for people who study it full-time and share their knowledge with us!

v18

And so Christ's birth was celebrated by magi, and by shepherds, and mourned by so many mothers whose children were lost in an attempt to kill him. Christ's arrival is a source of joy, but also causes human terror.

v19

So Joseph didn't even have to wait for a report from travellers - he got a dream that was essentially a newspaper article.

v20

I assume that the dream was to assure him that the danger was gone and to also encourage him to head back to Judea, since it would have been easy to stay in Egypt, but that would have made for quite a different Christian story!

v21

Once again, Joseph was obedient, and I think there's a difference between the obedience of following instructions that take your family out of harm's way, and the obedience of putting your family in harm's way. Both are important, but one is easier.

v22

And there was danger - Archelaus was Herod's son (known also as Herod Archelaus, so he's another Herod), and upon his father's death killed 3000 people in Jerusalem for arguing with him about a justice matter. This is not the kind of person you want to be King of the Jews near. And so that is why Jesus was born in Bethlehem, became a refugee in Egypt, and then grew up a Galilean.

v23

And he lived in a place called Nazareth, which was yet another fulfillment of prophecy. "Nazarene" later came to refer to a sect of Jews who followed the teachings of a man from Nazareth called Jesus. In fact, Christians in some Middle Eastern countries are still called Nazarenes - you might recall that when those ISIS losers took over parts of Syria and Iraq to play at being rulers, they painted an Arabic ن (the letter N) on the houses of Christians to mark them out: N for Nazarene.