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MATTHEW 2:20 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
Matt 2:19Matt 2:21
“Saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for they are dead which sought the young child’s life.”
Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child's life are dead. The command to return echoes Exodus 4:19, where God commands Moses to return to Egypt because all those who were seeking your life are dead. The parallel is deliberate: Jesus-as-Israel recapitulates the story of Israel-as-Israel, but Jesus is also the new Moses, the deliverer who leads the new exodus. Matthew's infancy narrative is simultaneously an exodus story, a Joseph story, and a creation of the true Israel — several Old Testament plotlines are being brought to their intended conclusion through the birth, flight, and return of this one child.

Church Fathers on Matthew 2:20

For the sacrilege which Herod had committed against the Saviour, and his wicked sl aug hter of the infants of the same age, the Divine vengeance hastened his end; and his body, as Josephus relates, was attacked by a strange disease; so that the prophets declared that they were not human ailments, but visitations of Divine vengeance. Filled with mad fury, he gives command to seize and imprison the heads and nobles out of all parts of Judaea; ordering that as soon as ever he…

Euseb · · Eccles. Hist., 1, 8

Many here err from ignorance of history, supposing the Herod who mocked our Lord on the day of His passion, and the Herod whose death is here related, were the same. But the Herod who was then made friends with Pilate was son of this Herod and brother to Archelaus; for Archelaus was banished to Lyons in Gaul, and his father Herod made king in his room, as we read in Josephus.

Jerome · 4th century

See how Jesus Himself, though far above all celestial beings, and coming unchanged to our nature, shunned not that ordinance of humanity which He had taken on Him, but was obedient to the dispositions of His Father made known by Angels. For even by Angels is declared to Joseph the retreat of the Son into Egypt, so ordained of the Father, and His return again to Judaea.

Pseudo- · · Dionysius, Dion. De Cael. Hierarch. 4
Read all 10 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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Matthew 2:20 — Community Reflections | HolyStudy