Monday, March 02, 2009

Matthew 2:13–15

Matthew 2:13–15: The Flight to Egypt

Synopsis

In the last chapter, the Wise Men came to visit Jesus, via Jerusalem—whereupon Herod heard about this new “King of the Jews,” and got very worried about competition in the king department.

In this chapter, the Wise Men leave, but an angel appears to Joseph in a dream, and warns him that Herod wants to “destroy” the child, so Joseph and the family should therefore hightail it to Egypt, until the angel calls them back. So they do, and remain there until Herod’s death.

We’re told that this series of events is fulfilling a prophecy from Hosea 11:1:
Out of Egypt I called my son. (Hosea 11:1b (ESV))

Thoughts

There’s not much I have to say about this chapter; not only is it short, it’s straightforward. Except that Joseph gets more than his share of dreams from angels. I know that we have all we need in the Bible, but I’m sure I’m not the only modern-day Christian who sometimes wishes God would give me dreams and tell me explicitly what to do. (Except, if He did, there would be a chance I wouldn’t obey Him, and then I’d be in real trouble—if God explicitly comes and tells you to do something, and you don’t do it, you don’t think there will be trouble?)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Interesting that you seem to be doing with the Bible what I've been doing with the Book of Mormon, going through it and trying to understand the meaning in context with the history. I came across your blog because I was trying to find some drawing or artwork of what a meeting tent might look like. Not THE tent of meeting, but a tent where men, rabbis, a prophet and his sons, whatever, might meet together to discuss things. I wondered whether there might have been a diaphanous curtain of some sort and women could listen on the other side, sort of the way Jewish congregations were divided in earlier times, and still are in some very orthodox synagogues.

Anyway, I found your drawing and thoughts on Moses' Tabernacle in the desert and thought it was interesting.