Herod's Response to Jesus
I wanted to spend one more day sharing information concerning a tragic event that took place after the birth of Jesus. READ Matthew 2:13-23. The angry response of King Herod occurred approximately two years after the visit of the magi to King Herod. These men were wise men, who were warned by God to ignore Herod and not return to him. These events are both tragic and yet the fulfillment of prophecies concerning Jesus Christ. The following notes are from a site owned by Answers in Genesis, written by Tim Chaffey, and posted on December 24, 2012.
Herod’s murderous response of slaughtering the young boys of Bethlehem led to the fulfillment of three more prophecies.
First, this tragic massacre fulfilled the words of Jeremiah. “A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted because they are no more.” (Matthew 2:18; cf. Jeremiah 31:15) The original context of this prophecy had to do with mothers in Israel lamenting the deportation of their sons to Babylon. These mothers were personified as “‘Rachel,’ the mother in the days of the patriarchs whose sons Joseph and Benjamin had also been threatened with being ‘no more’ (i.e., carried away into Egypt; cf. Gen. 42:36).”3 Ramah was a town close to Jerusalem and associated with Rachel’s tomb (1 Samuel 10:2–3).
The second fulfilled prophecy resulting from Herod’s paranoiac rage took place after Joseph took Mary and Jesus to Egypt. Upon their return, God’s words to Hosea were fulfilled. “Out of Egypt I called My Son.” (Matthew 2:15; cf. Hosea 11:1) This prophecy was originally made as a statement of history—God had called (and brought) Israel out of Egypt. Guided by the Holy Spirit, Matthew used these words to refer to the Messiah.
The final prophecy discussed by Matthew pertaining to events in the early years of Jesus has to do with his boyhood home. God warned Joseph in a dream not to go back to Judea, so instead, he took Mary and Jesus to Nazareth in Galilee, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, ‘He shall be called a Nazarene’” (Matthew 2:23). This statement has confused Christians because the Old Testament does not seem to make this specific prediction. Skeptics have jumped on this verse, claiming that it is a contradiction in Scripture. However, there are a few plausible solutions to this dilemma.
Jesus fulfilled the requirements of the Old Testament Law and was like a Nazarite who vowed to separate himself to the Lord (Numbers 6:1–8). However this is an unlikely explanation since no record exists of Jesus making this vow, and if He did make one, He would have broken it when He drank wine or vinegar (Matthew 26:27–29; John 19:29). Also, even though the words Nazarite and Nazareth look and sound similar in English, they are unrelated in Hebrew.
Nazareth comes from the root word netzer, which means branch, and multiple prophets spoke of the Messiah as the “Branch” (cf. Isaiah 11:1; Jeremiah 23:5; 33:15; Zechariah 3:8; 6:12).
Nazareth was looked upon with scorn. Even Nathanael asked, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46). Several prophets revealed that the Messiah would be “despised and rejected of men” (Isaiah 53:3, cf. Psalm 22:6; Daniel 9:26; Zechariah 12:10).
Matthew may have recorded an oral tradition handed down from the prophets that were not written in the Old Testament, or perhaps it was a prophecy recorded in a non-extant, non-canonical work familiar to Matthew 4.
Also, notice that Matthew indicated that the “prophets” (plural) had spoken about this rather than simply indicating that one particular prophet mentioned these things. Whatever the proper solution is to this dilemma, it is clear that Matthew did not introduce a contradiction in the text.
I hope you have enjoyed our journey through the Scriptures concerning the birth of our Savior. "...the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us..." (John 1:14).
Your Friend and HIS,
Pastor Abbott