“And he arose, and took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel.”
Matthew 2:21 — Greek Interlinear
Church Fathers on Matthew 2:21
Joseph was not disobedient to the angelic warning, but 'he arose, and took the young Child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel.'
patra of Jerusalem, Herod, who was afterwards tetrarch, and Philip. The three first were put to death by Herod; and after his death, Archelaus seized the throne by occasion of his father’s will, and the question of the succession was carried before Aug ustus Caesar. After some delay, he made a distribution of the whole of Herod’s dominions in accordance with the Senate’s advice. To Archelaus he assigned one half, consisting of Idumaea and Judaea, with the title of tetrarch,…
Here is may be asked, How then could his parents go up every year of Christ’s childhood to Jerusalem, as Luke relates, if fear of Archelaus now prevented them from approaching it? This difficulty is easily solved. At the festival they might escape notice in the crowd, and by returning soon, where in ordinary times they might be afraid to live. So they neither became irreligious by neglecting the festival, nor notorious by dwelling continually in Jerusalem.