”Then Herod called for a private meeting with the wise men, and he learned from them the time when the star first appeared. Then he told them, “Go to Bethlehem and search carefully for the child. And when you find him, come back and tell me so that I can go and worship him, too!” After this interview the wise men went their way. And the star they had seen in the east guided them to Bethlehem. It went ahead of them and stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were filled with joy! They entered the house and saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. When it was time to leave, they returned to their own country by another route, for God had warned them in a dream not to return to Herod. After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,” the angel said. “Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” That night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and Mary, his mother, and they stayed there until Herod’s death. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: “I called my Son out of Egypt.” Herod was furious when he realized that the wise men had outwitted him. He sent soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, based on the wise men’s report of the star’s first appearance. Herod’s brutal action fulfilled what God had spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: “A cry was heard in Ramah— weeping and great mourning. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted, for they are dead.” When Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt. “Get up!” the angel said. “Take the child and his mother back to the land of Israel, because those who were trying to kill the child are dead.” So Joseph got up and returned to the land of Israel with Jesus and his mother. But when he learned that the new ruler of Judea was Herod’s son Archelaus, he was afraid to go there. Then, after being warned in a dream, he left for the region of Galilee. So the family went and lived in a town called Nazareth. This fulfilled what the prophets had said: “He will be called a Nazarene.”“
Matthew 2:7-23 NLT
As Matthew begins his case for who Jesus is, he skillfully crafts his typological narrative. He connects Jesus to the typology of Moses, with the killing of the infants and to Joseph with the entrance into Egypt. Beyond this, he calls out several prophecies from many authors. Jeremiah, Hosea, Malachi are all named here as well as Isaiah in the previous chapter. This is all to show that Jesus has a plain context. That context isn’t contrived or constructed, but present in the details of his life. He was a man, but he was a man who was chosen and skillfully woven into the fabric of Jewish and world history. Even the events of his birth were of significance. Even wise men and kings knew that he was a threat. They chose what to do with that threat, but both sought him out as the coming of someone different. He was something history had not seen yet. He was the star of the show. He was the true protagonist of the story who had been waiting for his cue, and that cue had finally arrived. As a gospel to the Jews, this would have been an exciting aspect of Jesus to share. Jesus needed the context of his birth because the Messiah was creature of great context. His lore was vast and seeing it all come together in Jesus was important.
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