FEW attentive students of Scripture will be satisfied with
the hypothesis that the wise men from the East arrived at
Bethlehem on one of the first nights after the birth of the
Holy Child ; and that both the flight into Egypt, and the
return thence, took place before the presentation in the
Temple. In harmonizing the narratives of St. Matthew
and St. Luke, it is far more natural to receive Luke's statement
(chap. ii. 39) as a rapid general summary of events,
than to insist, contrary to the literal meaning of ver. 22,
upon intercalating there the whole of Matthew's record.
That so diligent an inquirer as St. Luke should have been
unaware of the visit of the wise men, and the flight into
Egypt consequent thereon, we hold to be most improbable.
But according to the plan he proposed to himself in writing
his gospel, he might very well pass over these facts.
That Joseph and Mary, with the child born to them in the
city of David, should remain there a while, seems very natural
; but, upon closer consideration, we see many reasons that
explain the purpose of God in preventing the growing up
of the child at Bethlehem, in the immediate proximity of
Jerusalem. And the manner in which this purpose was
fulfilled, as well as the chain of events that led to the return
of the holy family to Nazareth, are given us only by
the first Evangelist in the chapter now under consideration.
We may observe that it was in a house, no longer in a
inanger, that the wise men found Him they sought for.
The first divine communication made to them is spoken of
(ver. 12) in precisely the same manner as that to Joseph,
ver. 22. A divine injunction, of which the words are not
given, warned the strangers against returning to Herod ;
a similarly divine injunction is given three times to Joseph,
and twice the actual words of the angel are recorded.
After the miraculous testimony to his birth, it was decreed
that everything connected with the wondrous child, born
as he was to suffering, not to splendour, should proceed in
the most simple and natural manner, with this exception,
that an angelic voice was twice more to point and mark
out his way. The words spoken by the angel apparently
confine themselves merely to the external measures he
enjoined, but there is in them a latent reference to much
that is prophetic, pre-ordained, and highly significant.
It is not said whether the wise men were two, three, or
more, but merely, with a grand indefiniteness, careless of all
but the main point, that a divine command was given to
them in a dream. Hardly as Menken would have us overliterally
read :" What one dreamt the others dreamt also,
and thus it was impossible for them to doubt that the dream
and the injunction were a revelation from the invisible
world." It is equally satisfactory to assume that one received
the injunction for the rest. 1 Whether they were
themselves suspicious of Herod, and had prayed for divine
guidance, is an open question ; but this is not implied in the
words of the text, and to us, indeed, it appears more pro-
bable that it was their simple-hearted confidingness in the
tyrant that rendered the divine admonition necessary. If
it be argued that an angel appeared to them also, because
verse 22 is to be understood like verses 13, 19, we might,
on the other hand, with better reason, say that both in
verses 12 and 22, mere voices are carefully distinguished
from the appearance of the speaker. To judge from the
precision with which the different degrees of spiritual
manifestations have hitherto been indicated by the evangelist,
we should say that, in all probability, the last theory
is correct.
It was to Joseph, not to Mary, that the divine command
now came, and again in a dream, as in chap. i. 20. His
paternal and guardian relation to the child was established ;
Mary, according to the law of marriage, was now in
subjection to her husband, however contrary to all the
human imaginings with regard to the "Holy Virgin"the
" Mother of God "this may seem.
If, as is probable, the wise men had imparted the divine
warning they had received, by way of explaining their return
home by another way, contrary to Herod's will, Joseph
must have surmised some threatened danger from Herod,
which would have prepared him for the angel's injunction.
One may indeed say with Lange :" He saw the deep
seriousness with which the wise men resolved upon the
other homeward way. The consequent excitement of his
spirit was the element in which the ray of divine revelation
kindled into flame." But too much stress is not to
be laid upon these assumptions of peculiar mood and susceptibility,
especially with regard to so simple a character
as Joseph's, so far as the Scripture reveals it to us. Certainly
a sincere devotion on his part to the child must be
presupposed as the very condition of his being thus teach64
able by visions of the night. But to go on with Lange to
speak of Joseph's four prophetic dreams, as the consequence
of an exalted development of his sleeping consciousness,
" and of the reciprocal action of Joseph's
fidelity and Mary's anxious spirit," does appear to us
simple-minded ones to have a dangerous tendency to convert
the fact of divine revelation into a result of mere
human moods, evolutions, and circumstances. Kather
would we humbly hold to Scripture, which, for the most
part, does not speak at all of this human substratum, and
seldom explains anything thereby.
The angel now appearing in a dream spake in the following
words :"Uprisen (or uprising) take to thee the young
child, and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and remain
there till I tell thee (tell thee something else), for Herod
intends to seek the young child that he may destroy him,"
The very first word enjoins haste ; so soon as thou hast
awaked and arisen from this sleep, this dream. Joseph,
no doubt, would wake instantly, and he is as instantly to
rise and prepare for flight, so near and so great is the
danger threatened to that holy life. According to ver. 14,
it was thus that Joseph understood and acted upon the
direction given." In the same night," no delay, not even
that of a single day, but immediately, he prepares to obey,
to flee as he was commanded.
In their humble circumstances, Mary and he would have
but little to take with them on their journey ; they would
willingly leave behind what they did not want. Joseph
had already, according to the angel's first bidding, as her
husband and her guide, taken to him the mother ; now he
is especially to take the child. E?ery one must have
observed how significant the prominence given by the
Evangelist to the young child here, and in ver. 11, differ-
ing, as it does, from Luke ii. 16. The angel neither says
'thy child/ nor 'thy son,' nor even, on this occasion,'
thy wife,' as he had done before (chap. i. 20). He who is now
immediately concerned is Jesus, the new-born Saviour of
men and the King of the Jews. For such a flight as this,
Joseph, though he may have had some vague fear of
Herod's cruelty and cunning, could not possibly have been
prepared. After what the heavenly hosts had announced
and sung, after Simeon's prophecy and the wise men's
worship, after all this honour done him, must He, whose
very name is' God with us,' flee secretly and hurriedly by
night into a place of safety, that he may not be destroyed
in his infancy ? First there was no room for him in the
inn ; now there is no room for Immanuel in his own land
(Isa. viii. 8).
" But wherefore flee ?" As Menken observes :"Might
not the angel who brought the command have encamped
like a wall of fire around the child, and rendered him un-
approachable? Could he not have overthrown all the
weapons of human and devilish malice, like that angel who
wrought such destruction in the Assyrian host ? Or might
he not have smitten with blindness the men commissioned
to take Jesus, like those who came to take the prophet
Elisha ? Might not this Herod have been suddenly smitten
by an angel before he could give his murderous behest, as
was the case with his descendant who slew James with the
sword ?" Oh, we know well why none of these events happened.
It was that Jesus, from beginning to end of his
suffering career, should walk in our likeness, and be at
once our atonement and our example. As at his life's close
one out of the legions who were not permitted to fight for
his kingdom, strengthened him for the death-agony, so
now, out of the host of guardian and guiding angels, one is
appointed not openly to wage war in his defence, but only
to direct the foster-father, before the child can even understand
the direction," Flee with him."
And not only flee from the neighbourhood of Jerusalem
into Judea or G-alilee, but flee to Egypt. That had been
once before a land of refuge to Israel, and was now the
most convenient place for the holy family in their banishment.
Herod's jurisdiction did not extend thither ; many
Jews lived there in civil and religious liberty. Joseph
might find there acquaintances whom he had previously
made at the feast of the Passover, or, at all events, he
would easily make friends among his countrymen in Egypt.
Thus the absence from the land of Israel would be as much
softened as possible. But under cover of all this, we discern
in this flight to Egypt a special significance, which
the Holy Spirit, speaking through the Evangelist, discloses
in ver. 15.
It is worthy of remark that this passage, from Hos. xi. 1,
where it applies historically to Israel, is not quoted from
the Greek translation, then in common use, which here
obscures and mutilates the prophetic text, but, agreeably
to the original Hebrew, where it may be paraphrased thus :
"I called this my chosen people (chosen in their forefathers),
after it had been hidden in Egypt from the
destroying Canaanites, in due time out of this very Egypt,
and with a special calling, it being first in Egypt that I
named the people of Israel my son" (Exod. iv. 22). Thus
Israel, out of which the promised Messiah was to spring, is
here, at its very outset, as well as throughout its subsequent
career, a type of Christ, who, in Isaiah xlix. 3, is called
the true servant Israel. This typical parallel is also implied
in the choice of the texts wherewith Christ answered
the tempter in the wilderness. Not only are we shown in
a general way that the same grief- and temptation-fraught
way which Israel, his type, had traversed before, was now
to be trodden by Christ himself, as forerunner, as pioneer,
of that new people of God, which was to be ransomed by
him out of humanity at large, and of which the old Israel
was but a shadow, not only is this clearly expressed, but
the land of Egypt has a peculiar significance here. The
ransomed people, the young child, are both to come forth
from the house of bondage, are to be prepared under the
yoke of affliction for becoming glorious through their God.
Thus it is, too, that Israel's God still calls all his children
out of Egypt ; and thus it behoved his own Son, in so far
as he was the son of man, to be actually called thence too.
Short as was the stay of the child in that land, it testified
to, and, as it were, incorporated this truth.
No doubt the dwelling in Egypt of the parents with the
child was short, yet not so short as (according to Wieseler)
to" amount to little more than a coming and a going."
The chronological researches of learned men with regard
to this subject are very complicated, and lead to various
deductions. We judge it safest to hold simply to what Is
made certain to us in Scripture, which amounts to this at
least, that the young child was still a young child at the
time of his return ; but as to limiting the period to a fortnight,
or a few days, that again we hold to be incongruous
with the important nature of the whole transaction.
" Remain,dwell, be there ;" surely this sentence of the angel's,
with its" Until I tell thee"(bring thee word), conveys
the idea of a longer space of time.
In what place in Egypt, Joseph, with the mother and
child, was to dwell, and how he was to support them there,
the angel does not say ; but in his very command there to
stay till another command be given, a promise and a secu68
rity are contained, in the land to which he was supernaturally
directed, Joseph would be certain that he might
safely dwell. Neither his nor Mary's faith could doubt
that, warned and delivered as they had been, they would
be further helped and guided.
Certainly without such a revelation a compulsory flight
like this with the child would have been almost too painful
and mysterious for them to bear ; for we can hardly suppose
that up to this time they were quite free from other
and worldly expectations for the Messiah. But now, both
knew with certainty from the angel's words, that though
the way lay through humiliation and distress, yet that it
was foreordained by God's wisdom, and guarded by his care.
When Pfenninger imagines that in the first inn reached,
on the confines of Egypt, Joseph saw another angel who
told him where to go, and to whom to apply, he overlooks
the text,"till I tell thee" (to return to thy country).
In the interim, therefore, there was evidently no manifestation
to be expected. But such a special direction would
not be needed amongst the Egyptians, at that time so
hospitable to Jews ; especially by those who were calmed
and secured by the first behest, and indirectly under divine
guidance, as were the shepherds when seeking the child
in the manger. While Joseph and Mary sleep together
with the young child, God watches over that child, and
for his sake over them too. Doubtless till this moment
no one knew the secret purpose of the tyrant, but the
messenger of God reveals it :" Herod will seek the young
child in order to destroy him." This aim will be frustrated
; but the search for the child, with its terrible consequences,
the murder of the innocents, will be permitted.
Thus watches the providence of God over the children of
men, especially over his own children in Christ : what is
ordained by him comes to pass ;all else is frustrated, and
the course of events invariably fulfils the settled purpose
of His will, let man struggle against it as he may (Isa.
viii. 9, 10).
Joseph rises up and obeys. Mary believes, and obeys
also. The young child is borne away, sweetly sleeping
perhaps the while, in that unconscious reliance upon his
God prophesied of in Ps. xxii. 10, 11. For the expense
of this first journey, perhaps for other purposes besides,
the presents offered by the wise men would suffice. The
road through the wilderness, a rough one indeed, but well
known, practicable, and much used, led from Bethlehem to
the confines of Egypt in the course of a few days.
" But when Herod was dead, behold." The second
and promised announcement is made in exactly the same
way as the first, which the Evangelist indicates by using
the very same words. Probably it was made by the same
angel, for his address begins with the identical words before
used, only that from the nature of the case, the arise,
and take, and go, do not now imply the same immediate
and imperative haste. Then it was a warning cry," Flee!"
Now it is a gracious permission, go, travel, as conveniently
and leisurely as thou wilt ! Now it is a homeward journey
"into the land of Israel." There is something solemn in
this giving of the old name, that no longer politically appertained
to it, to the beloved country from which Joseph
and Mary had mourned their banishment, and to which
the holy child by right belonged. The expression has
also reference no doubt to the typical passage quoted by
the Evangelist (ver. 15), as the context still more plainly
shows. " For they are dead who sought the young child's
life." But why have we the plural pronoun they, when
Herod only is spoken of? Commentators have very un70
necessarily (disregarding the close connexion of the angel's
second speech with his first) imagined that another personage
was here pointed out besides the king, probably
his son Antipater, who died a few days before him. But
evidently we have in this expression a quotation from
Exod. iv. 9, where the passage occurs in close proximity
to that which speaks of Israel as God's first-born son. Thus
Moses in his own person, as Israel collectively, appears as
a type of Christ, a fact which the angel brings into notice
by using the same words now as were used of old. He
gives the well-known proverbial expression literally, with
the one omission of the word all, an omission intended to
^show that the history was only a type in its main features,
not in every detail. But it must have been full of comfortable
promise to Joseph and Mary : Jesus delivered as
Moses was, both as child and man ; Herod dead like Pharaoh.'
The reticent angel says nothing of the horrible
disease of which Herod died ; and the concise Evangelist,
too, leaves us to learn it from the secular historian, Josephus.
Neither does the angel vouchsafe any more special
direction as to whither in the land of Israel the holy
family must betake themselves; except, indeed, that the
more general name land ofIsrael, instead of land of Judea
(ver. 1), might have seemed to point at Galilee. But
Joseph, to whom not only child but mother were entirely
subject, might have thought, on the contrary, that the holy
child ought not to belong to the despised Galilee of the
Gentiles (Isa. ix. 1). It never could have occurred to his
unassisted reason that Nazareth could be a fitting home for
the Son of God.
In ver. 22 we read what ought not to surprise us, that
on hearing of the succession of Archelaus to the throne,
some degree of fear again mingled with Joseph's faith,
not indeed on his own account, but arising from his tender,
and by late events intensified anxiety, respecting the child
confided to his care. Shall they return to Bethlehem, near
as it is to Jerusalem ? That does not seem to him judicious,
though, perhaps, Mary may have urged it; for we
find Joseph in uncertainty, waiting no doubt and praying
for guidance, till for the third time, recorded in this chapter,
the divine will is made known to him. At first only
in a general way ; he is fearlessly to turn aside into the
parts of Galilee, more accurately the borders, the confines.
And now, as we see, it becomes the most natural thing in
the world that he should return to his former home, Nazareth.
This small and despised town becomes the dwellingplace
of him whose lowliness and humiliation the prophets
had in many different ways foretold, and accordingly he
must be called Jesus of Nazareth. In this Nazareth he
grows up, lives in holy mysterious seclusion till his thirtieth
year, without any further words of angels, without the occurrence
of any miraculous events, till the day appointed
comes for his showing unto Israel.
