Out of Egypt
In Matthew 2:14–15, a close reader of Scripture will find one of the most bizarrely placed citations:
“So [Joseph] got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘Out of Egypt I called my son.’”
Matthew seems like he jumped the gun when he claims that Hosea 11:1 is fulfilled at this point in the life of the holy family. If we wanted to be exact, “Out of Egypt I called my son” is not technically fulfilled until Jesus and his parents return from Egypt (cf. Matthew 2:19ff).
Scholars and theologians have debated back and forth about this seeming discrepancy, and some have opted to claim that Matthew was not trying to be linear and exact in his citation of Hosea 11:1. The problem with that position is that just a few verses later, he is very exact about the fulfillment of Jeremiah 31:15 after Herod’s slaughter of baby boys in the Bethlehem vicinity.
What I think is going on here is some very profound work by Matthew, if we have ears to hear it. He is indeed referring to the flight to Egypt as the time when God fulfills the “Out of Egypt I called my son” prophecy. Yes, what he is saying is that things have changed so drastically that the Promised Land is now an “Egypt” and the literal Egypt is a place of refuge!
Once we see this, the parallels between Herod and Pharaoh are striking. Out of fear and jealousy, both Herod and Pharaoh order for the slaughter of children of God’s people. The physical bondage of the Hebrew people in Egypt is parallel to their years of bondage under Gentile authorities in Israel. The spiritual bondage of Egypt’s pantheon of gods is virtually equivalent to the yoke and leaven of the Pharisees in Israel. Egypt, the image of bondage, oppression, destitution, and godlessness, is now found in the Promised Land, the place where God’s own Son was not welcomed — “he came to his own, and his own did not receive him” (John 1:11).
Further still, the echoes of the Exodus ripple throughout this event. Jesus was called out of the “Egypt” that was sinful Israel to ultimately return to that “Egypt” on a mission of liberation. “Let my people go so that they may worship me” was the commission of Moses as a messenger; it was the incarnated mission of the God-man. He stood up for the most oppressed, the least of these. He gave dignity to the prostitutes and tax collectors. He valued women as equal image-bearers. He went to the cross bearing the names of all those who would look up to him in faith, like that bronze serpent in Moses’ day. He was baptized in the torrents of justice and and came up from the judgment waters without losing a single one of the beloved. He has led his people to the true banks of Jordan, feeding them by the bread of heaven and springs of living water in the pilgrim walk.
As application, one thing to consider is how the “Egyptification” of Israel is not unlike the United States. The land that many erroneously claim to be a “Christian nation” at its inception, a city on a hill and a new Jerusalem, stole land by raping and pillaging the native people of this soil. A nation whose claim of “In God we trust” enslaved Africans not unlike the Hebrews in order to build their own pyramids, palaces, and shrines.
Today, this same nation of whom people want to “make great again” is casting out the stranger, alien, and refugee. It is caging children, tearing families apart, ceasing necessary medical treatment, and is slaughtering the innocents, not unlike Pharaoh and Herod’s day. And above all, it is these refugee and asylee boys and girls at our borders who are most like our brown-skinned Savior, who was a refugee king. We cannot help but realize that our nation is often no different than Pharaoh’s Egypt or Herod’s “Egypt.”
But yet — our refugee king has been called out of Egypt to liberate. “Darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.”
