Jesus' Infant Years (preaching resource for 12/28/25, Christmas season 1)

This post exegetes Matthew chapter 2, providing context for the Gospel reading on 12/28/25, which this year is the 1st Sunday in the season of Christmas. Insights are drawn from commentary by Craig Keener in "The IVP Bible Background Commentary New Testament," by RT France in "The New Bible Commentary: and by Louis Barbieri in "The Bible Knowledge Commentary."

Introduction

Matthew chapter 1 examines Jesus’ royal genealogy and miraculous birth. Now in chapter 2, Matthew addresses Jesus’ infant years in order to show from prophecy that Jesus truly is the promised Messiah.

"Flight Into Egypt" by Girardet (public domain via Wikimedia Commons)

Pagan seekers 

Matthew 2:1-12

1 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him." 3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. 5 "In Bethlehem in Judea," they replied, "for this is what the prophet has written: 6 "'But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.'" 7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him." 9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

Here Jesus’ birth is dated during the reign of Herod the Great (called “King Herod” in v1), who died in 4 B.C. Thus Jesus was born before that time, perhaps as early as 6 B.C., since this episode may have occurred as much as two years after Jesus’ birth (v16). 

There is great irony in this account of the Magi, for the Jewish religious leaders, who knew the most about the Old Testament prophecies concerning the birth of the Messiah (v5), failed to act on what they knew. In contrast, the Magi, who were non-Jews, acted decisively, going to great trouble, to seek out this King of the Jews, the promised Messiah. 

The Magi were a class of people who advised kings and other rulers in some of the states/provinces in the East (Mesopotamia and beyond). Their insights were derived from sophisticated astronomical observation combined with the ‘interpretation’ which some present-day astrologers use. By such calculations, this particular group of Magi concluded that an important royal birth had taken place in Palestine, which called for a ‘state visit.’ Even though they were Gentile (and thus pagan), God chose to reveal himself to them and Matthew sees their response as laudable, though the means of gaining understanding were a bit dubious (the Old Testament forbids prognostication from signs, see Deut 18:11). 

Various explanations have been offered for the appearance of the “star in the east” (v2) which led the Magi to a particular home in Bethlehem. Could it be that this “star” was actually the Shekinah glory of God which led the children of Israel through the wilderness as a pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day? Other efforts to explain this star have proven inadequate (such as a conjunction of certain planets, or a supernova or comet). Whatever it was, this “star” got the attention of many. In that era, people thought such stars predicted the fall of rulers. Even Jews at this time accepted the idea that stars could predict the future. King Herod, like many rulers of the time, feared astrological signs of their demise (v3). 

The sharp contrast between the response of the Magi and the unscrupulous jealousy of Herod, the official “King of the Jews, and all Jerusalem with him” (v3), foreshadows the response which official Judaism will eventually make to Jesus. The Magi’s faithful response also foreshadows the welcome of Gentile believers into the true people of God.

Because Jerusalem was an important trade center; the Magi must have come with quite an entourage for the whole city noticed them. Many people resented Herod’s rule and rumors would have circulated quickly. King Herod, who was aware of broad currents of thought in the Roman Empire and sponsored pagan temples among Gentile cities in his realm, might have been especially apt to consider the Magi’s mission significant.

The Jewish “chief priests” (v4), belonged mainly to the wealthy ruling class of Sadducees. The “teachers of the law” (v4 – translated “scribes” in the KJV), were experts in Jewish law; most were also teachers of that law. Herod exercised a great deal of influence over these leaders, having forcibly removed most of his political opponents.

In this whole episode, Matthew finds rich material concerning the fulfillment of Scripture. The formal quotation of Micah 5:2 in v5 shows how Jesus birthplace (Bethlehem) indicates his status as the coming “ruler”, and the “star” probably echoes Balaam’s prophecy of a “star…out of Jacob” (Numbers 24:17). This prophecy also shows that the Messiah would be a descendant of David, for Bethlehem was David’s hometown. 

Bethlehem was a small town not far from Herod’s capital, Jerusalem. The Magi had come to Jerusalem because that was where they expected to find the “king of the Jews”—perhaps he would be one of Herod’s sons. What is remarkable is that the scribes would know where the Messiah would be born, yet not act on that knowledge either positively (v11) or negatively (v16). Because successors of these Jewish leaders later sought Jesus’ execution (Mat. 26:3–4, 57). Matthew may be suggesting here that the line between taking Jesus for granted and crucifying him is very thin.

We find here (and see below) interesting parallels to the Exodus story. Herod’s deceit (vv7-8) resembles that of Pharaoh who instructed the midwives to kill Hebrew boys at birth (Ex 1:16). Then the movement of the star guiding the Magi to Bethlehem (vv9-10) resembles God leading Israel by fire and cloud in the wilderness (Ex 13:21-22). In v11, the Magi enter the house in Bethlehem where the baby Jesus is staying (perhaps months after his birth). They bow in worship. Such worship was shown in the East toward gods or kings. Incense and myrrh were treasures characteristic of the East that the Mediterranean world typically imported from there.

Most kings reacted with hostility to potential usurpers and to astrological predictions of their demise. Thus that the Magi had to be warned by a dream not to return to Herod (v12), suggests their naiveté—an innocence Jews rarely expected of Gentiles. Most peoples in the ancient world paid attention to special dreams (1:20); some even had rules on how to interpret them; and the Greeks thought that Magi were especially adept at dream interpretation. 

The main road the Magi would need to take northward in leaving Bethlehem went directly through Jerusalem, then eastward through Syria. Given the probably large size of their entourage, the Magi could not approach Jerusalem without being noticed, as Herod knew very well. Indeed, no major direct route could take them homeward without passing through Jerusalem. Thus they probably ventured far south to Hebron, then followed the rugged road to Gaza on the coast, where another road could lead them northward. This route would then have carried them through Nazareth, then Capernaum and on to Damascus.

Egypt and a new Exodus 

Matthew 2:13-15

13 When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. "Get up," he said, "take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him." 14 So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, 15 where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my son."

The rest of chapter 2 focuses on the movements of the infant Jesus from his birthplace in Bethlehem to Egypt, then back to Judea and on to Galilee. Matthew makes clear that these changes of location are not haphazard, but directed by God as predicted in Scripture. Travelling from Bethlehem to Egypt (v13) necessitated taking a very rough road. Nevertheless Joseph obeyed God’s command to go. Joseph would have known that Egypt had served as a place of refuge for God’s people in the past (see 1 Kings 11:40; Jeremiah 26:21). Moreover, many Jews lived in Egypt (perhaps a third of the one million residents in the Egyptian city of Alexandria were Jewish). By leaving Bethlehem “at night,” Joseph, Mary and Jesus made their route of departure impossible to trace. 

The language that Matthew uses here would have reminded his Jewish readers of Exodus 12:31. Indeed, Matthew builds almost every paragraph from the genealogy (chapter 1) to the Sermon on the Mount (chapters 5-7) around at least one such Old Testament passage. In v15, Matthew directly quotes Hosea 11:1, which refers to the Israelites leaving Egypt in the Exodus. Matthew applies this text to Jesus because Jesus epitomizes and fulfills Israel’s history (Mat 1:1). Matthew likely borrowed this Israel/Messiah interpretive analogy from Isaiah chapters 42–53, which narrows down the mission of Israel as a whole to the one person who ultimately fulfills that mission and suffers on behalf of the whole people. This one person, is, of course, Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah.

Herod’s slaughter: a new captivity 

Matthew 2:16–18

16 When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. 17 Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: 18 "A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more."

Because the natural route by which the Magi would have returned home was through Jerusalem (Mat 2:12), Herod knew that the Magi had purposely avoided returning to him. Herod was known for acts like the massacre described here. He even strangled his wife and had three of his sons executed. One of Herod’s fortresses, the Herodium, could be seen from Bethlehem, and he may have dispatched guards from there. Jewish people saw infanticide (killing babies) as a hideous, pagan act; normally applied by the Romans to deformed babies, it had also been used to control oppressed populations (see Ex 1:16). Like Moses, Jesus escaped the fate of other male babies (Ex 1:22–2:10), and some Jews were expecting the coming of a prophet “like Moses” (Deut 18:15, 18). The quote in v18 is from Jeremiah 31:15, which refers to the figurative weeping of Rachel, who was buried in Bethlehem (Gen 35:19). Jeremiah said she mourned for her descendants carried off into captivity during the Babylonian exile. Like righteous Jeremiah, Jesus was carried off to Egypt, but Rachel had cause to mourn anew at Herod’s murder of her people.

The Nazarene 

Matthew 2:19-23

19 After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20 and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child's life are dead." 21 So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, 23 and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: "He will be called a Nazarene."

Matthew’s original readers would certainly have caught the comparison here that is being made between Jesus and Moses (see Ex 4:19). After Herod’s death, his son Archelaus began to rule in Judea on behalf of the Romans. He was a bad ruler, and the Romans eventually deposed him and banished him to Gaul (France). Joseph may have had friends or relatives in Nazareth (see Luke 2:4). This village was on a major road from the coast to Syria and only a few miles from the culturally diverse city of Sepphoris, which was being rebuilt at the time. Thus, though small, Nazareth was exposed to the broader cultural currents of antiquity.

No single verse in the prophets refers to the promised Messiah as being a “Nazarene” (v23). Matthew is probably using a play on words—an approach common to ancient authors. The Hebrew word nētser, meaning “branch,” is a title used by the prophets for the Messiah (see Jer 23:5; Zech 3:8; 6:12; Isa 11:1). Another possibility is that he is playing on the word “Nazirite,” a class of people dedicated to God (see Num 6:1–21).

Conclusion

Here in chapter 2, Matthew has carefully built a case from prophecy that Jesus truly is the promised Messiah. Matthew’s hope is that this evidence will strengthen his Jewish-Christian audience in their Christian faith and practice.