Matthew 2:16 ¶ 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,
18 In Rama was there a voice heard,
lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her
children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.
Herod, realizing the wise men had ignored his instructions to come
back and tell him where the king of the Jews as an infant lay, causes the death
of children two years old and younger in Bethlehem and its surrounds. The Holy
Spirit tells us that this is one prophetic meaning of;
Jeremiah 31:15 Thus saith
the LORD; A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel
weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they
were not.
…which in the Old Testament context is about God gathering a
dispersed Israel back to His land but used by God for this. Be careful though
if you try to do what the Holy Spirit does with His own work when you try to
pull a verse out of context to mean something it was not originally intended to
mean. YOU didn’t write it.
Another important point is that some atheist, agnostic, and
Christian skeptics will make much about Josephus, the ancient Jewish turncoat
to the Romans and writer of history of the Jews and Jewish wars, including
Herod’s reign, does not mention this atrocity in his own list of Herod’s
atrocities. However, Josephus fabricates, omits, contradicts, and invents so
many things that his omission of any event means little.[1] I’ve
quoted him but he is good only as a starting point and not as a final authority.
He is a starting point but not a final authority, the Bible is.
Matthew 2:19 ¶ But when
Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in
Egypt, 20 Saying, Arise, and take the
young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for they are dead
which sought the young child’s life. 21
And he arose, and took the young child and his mother, and came into the
land of Israel. 22 But when he heard
that Archelaus did reign in Judaea in the room of his father Herod, he was
afraid to go thither: notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he
turned aside into the parts of Galilee: 23
And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be
fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.
God appears in the form of an angel, which I’ve described
previously is an appearance of someone or some thing that is somewhere else but
appears to someone chosen by God to see it.
Verse 23 is an odd verse. According to older commentators Isaiah
11:1, which says;
Isaiah 11:1 ¶ And there
shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of
his roots:
Isaiah 11:1 has Branch coming from a Hebrew word
transliterated into English as Netzer, which can also be a cryptic reference to
Nazareth as the town’s root word come from Netzer. This is a bit of an obscure
interpretation, though, as it is not clearly evident from the text. The
prophets that spoke of this did not write books of the Bible that the Holy
Spirit chose to include in the canon of Scripture. There are other books and
verses which mention sayings that are found only in the reference such as the
book of Jasher in Joshua 10:13 and 2Samuel 1:18.
[1] http://www.torahtimes.org/writings/josephus-unreliable/article.html from https://www.layittoheart.com/josephus.html (accessed 12.10.22)
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