Matthew 2:1-23 - Exposition

Of these naturally the first is the most important, and it may indeed be that the chief object of the evangelist was to show that Jesus satisfied the conditions of prophecy with respect to his birth. He was only driven from Bethlehem to Egypt and subsequently to Nazareth by the jealousy of the ruler of the Jews.

While, however, the fulfilment of prophecy by Jesus the Christ was doubtless the most prominent thought in the evangelist's mind, the typical character of the treatment received cannot but have forced itself upon him, writing as he did at a time when the contrast between the Lord's rejection by Jews and his reception by Gentiles was becoming daily more marked. It is, further, not impossible that the spread of the gospel to other lands may in itself have proved a stumbling-block to the Jews, who made so much of the superior sanctity of Palestine, and that there may be in this chapter something of the same thought that moved St. Stephen to insist on the fact that God's presence is not tied to one spot or country ( Acts 7:1-60 .).