As we make our way into Part 5 of my ongoing series on how the New Testament uses the Old Testament, we now come to a couple of Old Testament quotations in the infancy narrative of Matthew 2: Matthew 2:15’s quote of Hosea 11:1 and Matthew 2:18’s quote of Jeremiah 31:15. Both quotes are in the midst of the account of King Herod’s killing of all the boys in Bethlehem who were two years old and younger.
As I laid out in my earlier posts, I think the best thing to do whenever a New Testament writer quotes an Old Testament verse is to go back to that original verse and read the surrounding passage of that verse. Then once you understand the original context of that verse, go back to the New Testament passage and see how knowledge of that Old Testament context impacts your understanding of that New Testament passage. What you’ll see is that the New Testament writer is not treating the Old Testament verse as some sort of Nostradamus “prediction” of the far-off future that the Jews had supposedly held onto for centuries on end until Jesus made that “prediction” come true. Rather, you’ll see the New Testament writer is essentially telling the story against the backdrop of the Old Testament story: in Christ, God is bringing to full fruition His salvation plan. That being said, let’s look at our next two passages.
Hosea 11:1: “Out of Egypt, I called my son”
In Matthew 2:15, after telling us that Joseph took Mary and Jesus into Egypt to escape Herod’s attempt to kill Jesus in Bethlehem, Matthew tells us that they didn’t return until after Herod had died. He then says this was to fulfill what Hosea had said in 11:1: “Out of Egypt, I called my son.” I grew up thinking what this meant was that Hosea predicted the newborn Messiah was going to escape to Egypt to avoid an attempt on his life, only to return from Egypt at some point—that Hosea predicted the Messiah was going to literally travel from Egypt into Israel.
Needless to say, I now think that is quite an anemic understanding of what Matthew is doing. All we need to realize this is to look at the context of Hosea 11 itself. Now, Hosea was a prophet to the northern kingdom of Israel around 760-750 BC. This would be shortly before the Syro-Ephraimite Crisis and a mere 30-40 years before Assyria ended up completely destroying Israel. This historical context is important to know if one is to understand what Hosea 11 is about. When one reads Hosea 11 with that in mind, one realizes Hosea 11 is not a prediction about anything, much less a prophecy about the Messiah. In fact, Hosea 11 looks backward to the time of the Exodus. The “son” that God brings up out of Egypt is the nation of Israel. Not only that, but the passage is about how Israel, as God’s son, screwed up as soon as God brought them out of Egypt: they end up sacrificing to the Baals and other idols. The passage is a condemnation of Israel: God brought them out of Egypt and they proved themselves to be screw-ups.
Therefore, 11:3-7 talks about how, despite the kindness God had shown them, because of their persistent rebellion and idolatry, God was going to allow Assyria to destroy them. But then, in 11:8-11, God says, “Oh, I just can’t totally destroy them! I love them! I’m going to eventually bring them back from both Assyria and Egypt and I will restore them!” In short, Hosea’s prophecy is about how the northern kingdom of Israel would be destroyed by Assyria, but how God wouldn’t completely destroy them—in fact, there would eventually be a future restoration of some sort. And part of that prophecy involve a looking backward to the time of the Exodus to emphasize how, even though God treated him as a son and brought them out of slavery in Egypt, Israel had been a royal, idolatrous screw-up from the beginning.
So What is Matthew 2:15 Doing?
With that in mind, we can consider why Matthew chose to use Hosea 11:1. He isn’t claiming Hosea was predicting Jesus would literally come out of Egypt. In short, by saying this event was a fulfillment of Hosea 11:1, Matthew was essentially saying that Jesus would succeed as God’s Son where Israel failed. In a sense, Jesus was re-enacting the Exodus story, with that one major difference: whereas Israel proved itself to be an unfaithful and idolatrous “son,” Jesus would prove himself to be a faithful Son through whom God would bring about that long-promised restoration of God’s people that Hosea prophesied about in Hosea 11:10-11. Therefore, by quoting Hosea 11:1, Matthew is calling attention to the larger passage of Hosea 11:1-11 and is thus telling us that it is through Jesus, who succeeds where Israel failed, that God will bring about His promised restoration and salvation.
Jeremiah 31:15: “Rachel is weeping for her children”
A few verses later, in Matthew 2:18, Matthew tells us that Herod’s killing of the infants in Bethlehem was a fulfillment of Jeremiah 31:15: “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.” No, Matthew is not saying Jeremiah 31:15 was a prediction of Herod’s slaughter of the infants in Bethlehem.
Jeremiah was a prophet to the southern kingdom of Judah who prophesied in the years leading up to the Babylonian Exile. Most of the Book of Jeremiah is full of prophecies of the coming destruction at the hands of Babylon, yet in Jeremiah 31-33 is a unique section known as The Book of Comfort. In it, there are numerous prophecies about the coming restoration that God would bring about after the Babylonian Exile. When we read Jeremiah 31:15 in the context of Jeremiah 31, we see that the first fourteen verses in the chapter are all about the future restoration that would happen after the exile. Simply put, it is all positive stuff.
In Jeremiah 31:15, though, Jeremiah is lamenting the upcoming Babylonian exile, and is alluding to the death of Rachel from Genesis 35, when she is comforted by being told that she had given birth to Benjamin, even though she herself was dying. That happened near Ramah, on the road to Bethlehem. In Jeremiah’s day, though, it was from Ramah that the Babylonians were deporting the Jewish captives into exile. Jeremiah, though, flips the scene of Rachel’s death on its head, by saying that Rachel (i.e. the mothers in Judah) is weeping for the loss of her children (i.e. the Jewish captives). Nevertheless, though, in the very next verse, in Jeremiah 31:16, YHWH gives a word of comfort by assuring Rachel (i.e. the mothers in Judah) that her children will one day return from exile.
After that, in 31:18-20, Jeremiah then equates Israel to an untrained calf that needs to be disciplined. Why an untrained calf? Those who know the Exodus story should know full well: One of the first things Israel did once they got to Sinai was to worship a golden calf! Therefore, they became like the thing they worshipped. And that is why the Judeans of Jeremiah’s day were going to go into Exile—they were still “untrained calves” that needed to be disciplined. Eventually, though, (much like was said in Hosea 11:1) Jeremiah says that that “untrained calf” would receive mercy from God because Israel was still God’s son.
So What is Matthew 2:18 Doing?
So how does this relate to what Matthew is saying about Herod’s killing of the children in Bethlehem? At the very basic level, quoting Jeremiah 31:15 serves to highlight the sense of grief of the mothers who lost their sons in the Babylonian Exile. But we also need to see that Matthew is also equating the reign of Herod with that of the Babylonian Exile. Jewish mothers lost their children to both regimes. Indeed, because of Herod’s actions, Jesus himself goes in a sort of exile into Egypt.
At that same time, though, as seen in Jeremiah 31:16-20, there is the promise of a return from exile. In Jeremiah 31, that promise of restoration is couched in the terminology of Israel being God’s son who receives mercy. And given the fact that Matthew has just quoted Hosea 11:1, where Israel is called God’s son, and has said that Jesus fulfills that passage, it isn’t too much of a stretch to assume that Matthew knew full well that Jeremiah also equated Israel with God’s son here. Therefore, with both his quote of Hosea 11:1 and Jeremiah 31:15, Matthew is emphasizing that it is through Jesus, God’s Son, that the restoration and salvation of God’s people would be fulfilled.
The way I have seen it worded is that any specific prophecy may have multiple fulfillments. And what the gospel author seems to be claiming is that Jesus is aligned with many such kinds of things, which can be discerned after the fact.
Thank you for your insights.
I agree that the overall context of each of these scriptures attributed to Jesus has a contemporary meaning and fulfillment. However, am not sure if you are denying that there was a promise of a personal Messiah/Redeemer in any of the OT prophecies. I would think there is at least a secondary allusion to it, or perhaps there would not have been an expectation of one even in Jesus’ day. Some statements are seemingly so specific, such as in Isaiah 53 about his manner of burial, Psalm 22, Micah 5:2, etc. If God had always intended in bringing Christ into the world, then we should have some reasonable expectation that he would allude to that idea over time, especially as it got nearer to when he would bring that about.
I recall that after his resurrection Jesus, it is written, disclosed to the disciples and gave them understanding of what the OT scriptures said of him. In other words, they were taught the fulfilled meaning of these prophecies, as to how they applied to him. The early church teaching appears to be of a certain way of viewing these scriptures. The case of Justin Martyr in his long discussion with Trypho comes to mind. Also the teachings of Ignatius, Polycarp and others, so early in the church, view these prophecies as disclosing the Christ. Would the early church have lost the understanding Christ imparted to them so soon after his Ascension?
Hi Tim,
What you are saying and what I’m saying really isn’t that much different. What I am emphasizing is that at the time these prophecies were originally written, they were most definitely about something else–they weren’t seen as predictions of specific details regarding a coming Messiah. Hosea 11:1 was most certainly a look backward to the time of Israel during the Exodus. No one (as far as I know) for a good 750 years saw that verse as a prediction of the Messiah.
Now to what you said. Yes, we are told that the resurrected Jesus “opened the Scriptures” to the apostles to show how he fulfilled them. We can say he revealed a “deeper” meaning, or a “second” meaning, whatever–but what he taught them was not known up to that point. So yes, looking backward, we can say these verses foreshadowed or prefigured Christ, but at their specific original points in history, no one read them that way.
What I think is going on is that it isn’t a simple matter of “this verse predicted Jesus.” It is more like “this is what that original verse was referring to back then–back then, God’s salvation plan was accomplished in part; in Jesus it has come to fulfillment…and so Jesus is like that, but bigger.” So sure, in hindsight we can say they disclosed Christ; in hindsight, we can see how Christ fulfilled the story of Israel–but that hindsight is made available only after the resurrection. Therefore, to treat them as “predictions” that the Jews SHOULD have known about is to misunderstand what the Gospel writers are doing with these OT quotations.
I think one way to see this is that there is an original meaning in a book’s narrative and then possibly further elaborations on this original meaning in the metanarrative of the book in an evolving canon of Scripture. That is, one way to think of Matthew’s use of Hosea (etc.) is: See, God did similar things before along these lines, so it should not be too surprising when God does it again.
Yes. Well said.
This post was an awesome find. I was challenged at church this morning to stop letting my doubts freeze me and lean into them to deepen my understanding. Matthew 2 has been a doubt trigger for a couple years. In fact, that view of prophecy as prediction has lead me to confusion at many moments in the New Testament where I saw what looked more like circular reasoning or confirmation bias when I went back to read the cross referenced verses in context. I mean dude, people still preach like this way! Seems many preachers aren’t smart enough to see the inconsistency. So I’m grateful for the clarity and confidence in the Scripture you’ve restored for me tonight. I do have a question though. In Matthew 2, Herod asks the Jewish leaders where the Messiah is expected to be born. So there must be some prophecy they viewed as predictive right?
Hi Aaron, thanks for the note! I’m actually having a book come out in September, “The Blue-Scholar Bible Scholar’s Reader’s Guide to the New Testament” where I try to walk through the entire New Testament, just helping people understand what’s going on.
As for Matthew 2, I guess you can say it’s predictive, but at the same time, Bethlehem was the birthplace of David, so when the OT prophets looked forward to a Davidic Messiah, they couched those prophecies with the future Messiah coming from Bethlehem. But I think it was more of an emphasis that the Messiah would come from the Davidic line, Bethlehem being associated with David. I’m hesitant to say that Micah was PREDICITING that the Messiah would literally be born in Bethlehem—I think he was emphasizing the Davidic descent. But as it turned out, Jesus really was. And so, I wouldn’t put it past Herod, in his paranoia, to order all boys two and younger in Bethlehem killed because of his interaction with the magi.