Passage

Matthew 2.15

Book: Matthew · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

13. Now when they were departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I tell thee: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. 14. And he arose and took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt;

15. and was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt did I call my son.

Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the Wise-men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the male children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the borders thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had exactly learned of the Wise-men. 17. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet, saying, (Matthew 2:13-17, ASV)

WEB

13. Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Arise and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and stay there until I tell you, for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.” 14. He arose and took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt,

15. and was there until the death of Herod; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked by the wise men, was exceedingly angry, and sent out, and killed all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all the surrounding countryside, from two years old and under, according to the exact time which he had learned from the wise men. 17. Then that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled, saying, (Matthew 2:13-17, WEB)

KJV

13. And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. 14. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt:

15. And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.

Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men. 17. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, (Matthew 2:13-17, KJV)

YLT

13. And on their having withdrawn, lo, a messenger of the Lord doth appear in a dream to Joseph, saying, 'Having risen, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and be thou there till I may speak to thee, for Herod is about to seek the child to destroy him.' 14. And he, having risen, took the child and his mother by night, and withdrew to Egypt,

15. and he was there till the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled that was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, 'Out of Egypt I did call My Son.'

Then Herod, having seen that he was deceived by the mages, was very wroth, and having sent forth, he slew all the male children in Beth-Lehem, and in all its borders, from two years and under, according to the time that he inquired exactly from the mages. 17. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, (Matthew 2:13-17, YLT)

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Setting

Speaker: the narrator of Matthew, citing Hosea
Audience: Matthew's readership, with its heavy investment in the fulfilment of Israel's scriptures
Location: Egypt, during the flight from Herod
Time period: the infancy narrative, shortly before the death of Herod the Great in 4 BC

Theological reading

Out of Egypt have I called my son. This is the standard test case for how the New Testament uses the Old, and it is a test case precisely because the objection to it is strong.

The objection is that Hosea 11:1 is not a prediction at all. In Hosea the sentence looks backward, not forward: when Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt. The subject is the nation, the event is the exodus, and the verse continues immediately into an indictment for idolatry. There is no future messiah anywhere in the context. An honest treatment concedes this at once, because pretending Hosea is predicting the flight to Egypt is not defensible and will be corrected.

What Matthew is doing is typological rather than predictive. He reads Jesus as recapitulating Israel's story, and the pattern runs through his infancy and early narrative consistently: a descent into Egypt, a return, a passage through water at the baptism, and then forty days in the wilderness where Jesus answers each temptation with a quotation from Deuteronomy, the book of Israel's own wilderness testing. Israel went into the wilderness and failed; Jesus goes and does not. The Hosea citation is the opening move of that structure, not an isolated proof text.

Read this way the citation is doing more theological work than a prediction would. A fulfilled prediction would show that someone knew what would happen. A recapitulation claims that Jesus is standing where Israel stood and succeeding where Israel failed, which is the argument Matthew is making throughout.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word; see Lexicon Roadmap.

G5207 - huios, huios, Strong's G5207
G2962 - kyrios, kyrios, Strong's G2962
G3004 - lego, lego, Strong's G3004

Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

Concepts:

Lexicon:

Passages:

Hosea 11.1

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.