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Part VI - Three "Weird" Fulfillments in Matthew

Weird Passage One: Herod's Slaughter of the Children
Another prophecy related to the birth of Jesus is the claim that the Messiah would be born at a time when King Herod was killing children.
Just a quick comment here-very few of the messianic prophecies are detailed enough to match the statement above! The nature of predictive prophecy and typology generally is to 'draw the pattern', and anchoring that pattern in a detail or two, but RARELY getting as specific as 'King Herod ...killing children'.

Only the gospel of Matthew (2:16-18) makes this claim, quoting a prophecy of Jeremiah (31:15) which states that "A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; and she refused to be comforted, because they were no more." There are two problems with this alleged messianic prophecy:

Just another quick comment-most of the OT references that Matthew makes involve TYPOLOGY, not PREDICTIVE PROPHECY PER SE. As such, the 'predictive' element is NOT foremost in the OT context, but in the background of the Israelite worldview. (I have discussed this in detail in the earlier piece on Typology.) The implications of this for this discussion are significant--these types of passages are referring PRIMARILY to a PAST event, rather than to a future one, with the import that the objection "they cannot be messianic, because the OT context is about the PAST" is irrelevant at best, and ill-informed at worst.

it is not a prophecy about children being killed and it is quite doubtful that there ever was such a slaughter of innocents by Herod. "Rachel weeping for her children" refers to the mother of Joseph and Benjamin (and wife of Jacob) weeping about her children taken captive to Egypt.

I do not mean to be picky, but this statement itself is a little misleading. We don't have a passage in which a literal Rachel 'weeps for her children'. The closest we have is Jacob weeping over the supposed death of Joseph in Gen 37.34-35. But this in no way diminishes the force of Jim's argument.

In context, the verse is about the Babylonian captivity, which its author witnessed.

Technically, the data supports a reference to the Assyrian captivity, rather than that of Babylonian. Rachel was the ancestor of the Northern Tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, who covered much of the Northern territory (but was also that of Benjamin, the smaller tribe of the south). Ramath is at the border of Israel (northern kingdom) and Judah (southern kingdom), and could accordingly be involved in EITHER/BOTH captivities. Most commentators think the data supports the Assyrian exile rather than the Babylonian. But, again, this does not mute the voice of Jim's objection.

Subsequent verses speak of the children being returned, and thus it refers to captivity rather than murder.

I have to agree with Jim on this point (as do most commentators on Jer 31). The reference is CLEARLY to the captivity of the heart of Israel, with YHWH's subsequent promise to restore these children to the Land. The mistake that Jim makes (along with many, many Christian interpreters) is in assuming that the 'weeping' is over the slain children, INSTEAD of over the exiled Christ-child. If there is one thing that Matthew makes clear to us throughout his gospel (especially the first half), it is that he sees Christ as the embodiment of True Israel. (see BEAP: 140-141; EBC, (in loc)). [This can be understood either as a case of typology (ruler/nation) or the stronger relationship of CORPORATE SOLIDARITY (below). In either case, the identification is well within the bounds of acceptable Jewish exegesis in the 1st/2nd centuries.] The prophecy of the Assyrian (or Babylonian) captivity in Jeremiah is NOT about the massive casualties of the events leading up to the exile, but about the survivors of those events! In other words, Rachel in Jeremiah is 'weeping' over the living/exiled children (not those who perished in the seige/battles) and "Rachel" in Matthew is 'weeping' over the living/"exiled" Christ-child (not those slaughtered by Herod). And, just as YHWH brings a message of hope to Rachel ('the children will return') so Matthew re-iterates that hope as he narrates the return of the Child in the next few verses.

Thus the objection doesn't stand-the passage is understood typologically, and the alleged discordance between 'captivity' and 'murder' is simply a product of misunderstanding the passages.

The slaughter by Herod is also in doubt because the writer of Matthew is the only person who has noted such an event.

I have commented on these types of arguments before ("only X people refer to Y..."). The VAST MAJORITY of ALL human experience is witnessed by individuals, not groups. This criteria of 'you cannot accept what only ONE witness says' would eliminate the vast majority of history as we know it (including much of the formative scientific experiments of our era). There is no compelling argument to support such an arbitrary criterion of truth/trustworthiness, and indeed, it approximates a more feeble form of the 'argument from silence'.

Flavius Josephus, who carefully chronicled Herod's abuses, makes no mention of it.

There are several things wrong with this statement.

It would be silly to expect Josephus to write an EXHAUSTIVE record of Herod's abuses-there aren't enough books in the world!
Although the act was one of heartless cruelty, it must be remembered that probably no more than a dozen infants were killed in this event. Bethlehem was quite a small town in that day. This event would hardly have been recorded in such violent times. (See RT France, Novum Testamentum 21:98ff //1979)
This event is in PERFECT ACCORD with what we know of Herod's character, esp. at the end of his reign. Barnett has an excellent summary of the data in BSNT:24, which I quote at length here (footnotes are changed to citations, for completeness):
Herod's suspicion bordered on paranoia. He killed his own wife, the Hasmonaean princess Mariamne, and, at a later date, her adult sons Alexander and Aristobuus. At the end of his life he executed another son, Antipater the son of Doris. Augsutus made the grim joke that it was safer to be Herod's pig than Herod's son (Macrobius, "Saturnalia" 2:4:11). The king's pig was safe, due to Herod's studied outward observance of Judaism; his sons were not. When he realised his death was near Herod ordered the arrest of the leading citizens of all the villages. These were to be killed at the news of the king's death. Tears would then be shed, even if not for him! Mercifully the village notables were released unharmed from the Hippodrome where they had been imprisoned.
Civil wars erupted throughout Herod's kingdom when his violent and repressive rule finally ended. Josephus commented that Herod had "an evil nature, relentless in punishment and unsparing in action against the objects of his hatred" (Antiquites, xix:328).
A decade or so after his death an anonymous author wrote inferring that Herod was "an arrogant king...a reckless and godless man...who will exterminate their chief men...and bury their bodies in unknown places...he will slay the old and the young and show no mercy...terrible fear of him will come over all the land" (Assumption of Moses, 6:2ff)
The BBC:50 tells the story of a young but popular competitor of Herod, who had a 'drowning accident' in a pool that was only a few feet deep!
So, what was the reference to the killing of the children for, if it was not the point of citing the prophecy of Jeremiah?

As far as I can tell, it has three functions in Matthew's narrative:

It demonstrates the urgency of the situation that provoked such a last-minute journey;
It sets the tone for the on-going animosity of the world's political/religious leadership towards the Son of God and King of Israel;
It plays on an interesting parallel between Moses and the New Moses (Deut 18.15). Both escaped a slaughter of infants by flight from home; both returned after the death of the ruler. (so BBC:51)
The Net: Matthew is probably both exegetically correct for his day, AND historically correct in his information.


Weird Passage Two: The Return from Egypt
Matthew goes on to claim that to evade Herod's murders, Jesus was taken as a child to Egypt. This is done, according to Matthew 2:15, in order "that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, 'Out of Egypt did I call my son.'" This is a reference to Hosea 11:1, which is not a messianic prophecy at all. It is a reference to the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt. Matthew goes on to claim that to evade Herod's murders, Jesus was taken as a child to Egypt. This is done, according to Matthew 2:15, in order "that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, 'Out of Egypt did I call my son.'" This is a reference to Hosea 11:1, which is not a messianic prophecy at all. It is a reference to the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt.
This passage is just another case of typology, and so the argument doesn't find the intended target. A simplified version of many of these arguments looks like this:

The OT passage is describing a PAST event.
(PAST events can have NO future messianic pattern-predictive content/implications.)
Therefore, this OT passage can have NO messianic pattern-predictive content/implications.
The problem is obviously with statement #2 above, for we have demonstrated amply that the very OPPOSITE was true-MOST major past events in Israel's history were ASSUMED to have predictive elements, under the structure of typology. This was NOT a 'Christian Invention', as we demonstrated. Therefore, all such objections are off-target, due to the incorrect middle premise.

But this still doesn't answer the question of WHY Matthew used this passage-it DOES look a bit strange to 'Western minds'. We have seen that typology would be an appropriate vehicle for understanding this connection, but is there something MORE TO IT?

Indeed, in this passage we see the peculiar Semitic notion of 'corporate solidarity', that forms an ever-present substrate in biblical teaching, and which goes BEYOND typology.

In what sense can we say that Israel was a type of the Messiah? The 'my son' element in the passage in Matthew tips us off that the element of sonship may be the pivotal concept.

In the OT, YHWH uses the term 'son' in several different settings:

The nation of Israel (Ex 4:22,23-"Then say to Pharaoh, 'This is what the LORD says: Israel is my firstborn son, 23 and I told you, "Let my son go, so he may worship me.")
The promised Son of David (2 Samuel 7: "'The LORD declares to you that the LORD himself will establish a house for you: 12 When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be his father, and he will be my son." See also Psalm 2, Psalm 89:26f)
Individual Israelites (Dt 32.19-" The LORD saw this and rejected them because he was angered by his sons and daughters." See also Hos 1.10)
Angelic figures (Job 1,2; Psalm 82:6; Dan 3.25)
In this case, the usage of "My son" for BOTH Israel AND the promised Son of David is the crux of the matter. If there is some REAL identification of the two in Israelite thought, then applying a passage ORIGINALLY used on one semantic target, to the OTHER one, in a different context, would be perfectly acceptable, and be even STRONGER of a link than simple typology.
Enter the concept of Corporate Solidarity. (For the seminal work on this topic, see H.W. Robinson, Corporate Personality in Ancient Israel, 1964). This notion is somewhat bizarre to western minds, to be sure, but was part and parcel of the ANE worldview. It is summarized in Reumann's introduction to Robinson's work:

that important Semitic complex of thought in which there is a constant oscillation between the individual and the group-family, tribe, or nation-to which he belongs, so that the king or some other representative figure may be said to embody the group, or the group may be said to sum up the host of individuals.
Eichrodt has one of the better descriptions of how this looked to the individual in Isreal (The Theology of the Old Testament, vol II, 175):
With all the unbroken force of primitive vitality men felt their individual lives to be embedded in the great organism of the life of the whole community, without which the individual existence was a nullity, a leaf blown about by the wind, while in the prosperity of the community, on the other hand, the individual could alone find his own fulfillment. His devotion to the great whole was therefore the natural thing, this being bound to the destinies of the totality an axiomatic process of life. This is seen most clearly in the assertion of collective retribution, which feels it to be a completely just ordinance that the individual should be involved in the guilt of the community, and conversely that the action of the individual should react upon the fate of the group.
Even though there are examples of ordinary individuals affecting the community this way (e.g. Joshua 7.1), the three most explicit identifications are 1) father=offspring; 2) king=nation; and 3) Servant of YHWH=nation (or remnant).

Father = Offspring

This has been dealt with in the typology piece, and was pervasive throughout both Israel and her neighbors in the ANE. (For a full discussion, see Eichrodt, II: 231-267). It has no relevance to the passage before us [but does in many cases, in which David (father)= Son of David (offspring).]

King = Nation

This is where the King 'sums up' or embodies the whole of the Nation. The familiar stories in 2 Sam 12 and 24 demonstrate how the sin of the king (i.e. David) resulted in judgment on the nation, and the theological histories we call the books of I and II Kings record soberly how the moral failures of Israel's leaders resulted in the great judgments.

Servant = Nation

This is where the celebrated Servant of YHWH in Isaiah (specifically in the Servant Songs-principally 42:1-4; 49:1-13; 50:4-11; 52:13-53:12) is identified with the nation Israel and often with the righteous remnant of Israel.

The Servant Song passages are notoriously complex, but the Servant designation is variously applied to Israel the nation AND to some individual/remnant group that 'ministers' to Israel (1st and 2nd Songs), and in the 3rd and 4th Songs, the emphasis seems to be on an individual (e.g. birth, obedience, suffering, death, triumph, sacrifice)-beyond the bounds of simple personification. [see ZPEB, "Servant of the Lord" and EBC, VI: 17-19.] Jewish interpreters over the ages have identified the Servant with historical Israel, the faithful remnant, Ideal Israel, and various historical characters (e.g. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Moses, Zerubbabel, Cyrus, the Messiah).

The relevance of this to our study here should be clear. The identification of Israel-King-Messianic Servant --at the corporate solidarity level-allows NT (and Jewish) writers to see OT passages in the wider messianic complex of concepts. Longnecker (BEAP: 94) states it carefully:

In biblical exegesis, the concept of corporate solidarity comes to the fore in the treatment of relationships between the nation or representative figures within the nation, on the one hand, and the elect remnant or the Messiah, on the other. It allows the focus of attention to "pass without explanation or explicit indication from one to the other, in a fluidity of transition which seems to us unnatural" (Reumann)
The Net: Not only would typology allow Matthew to use Hosea 11.1 in reference to Christ, but the pervasive concept of solidarity between the Messiah and the Nation gives even stronger support for the legitimacy of his exegesis.
Weird Passage Three: Nazerene, Nazirite, or What?!
At the end of the same chapter of Matthew (2:23), its author writes that Mary, Joseph, and the child Jesus settled in Nazareth, in order "... that what was spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, 'He shall be called a Nazarene.'" There is no such prophecy in the Hebrew scriptures, though some claim this refers to Judges 13:5. This verse describes an angel speaking to the mother of Samson, telling her that her son "shall be a Nazirite." This is not only not a messianic prophecy, it can't be what Matthew is referring to. A Nazirite is quite different from a Nazarene. A Nazarene is an inhabitant of Nazareth, but a Nazirite is a Jew who has taken special vows to abstain from all wine and grapes, not to cut his hair, and to perform special sacrifices (see Leviticus 6:1-21). Jesus drank wine (Matthew 26:29, Mark 14:25, Luke 22:18), and so could not have been a Nazirite.
Strictly speaking, Jesus COULD HAVE BEEN a Nazirite at some point in his life, since Nazirites didn't have to STAY Nazirites (Numbers 6). But I tend to agree with Jim that Jesus was NOT a Nazirite during his public ministry, and that this 'prophecy' does NOT refer to a Nazirite vow.

But Jim has not dealt with the other, more probable options here-that of Nazarene (of Nazareth-as the context seems to suggest) or that of Netser-ene ("branch"-a play on a messianic title in Isaiah, Zec., and Jeremiah). The later suggestion (i.e. a word-play on the OT word for "branch") fits well with the plural in "prophets", and has identifiable passages in the prophets, but leaves the link with the town of Nazareth obscure and unexplained.

The option of Nazarene-as simply being one from Nazareth-makes the most sense of the place-name association, but leaves us with the obvious question of where in the prophets are there ANY mentions of Nazarene or Nazareth? We cannot find ANY overt references to these in the OT at all (much less MULTIPLE references!), so what's going on? Matthew is using this passage to argue with his Jewish contemporaries that Jesus is the promised Messiah, so how effective would it be if he were SO BLATANTLY WRONG?! Something MUST be 'hidden' in the context that confuses us, yet makes the argument powerful to Matthew's contemporaries. What clues do we have to go on?

Well, the first major clue is the use of the plural 'prophets'. Matthew has 11 formulaic fulfillment passages (1.23; 2.15; 2.18; 2.23; 3.3; 4.15f; 8.17; 12.18-21; 13.35; 21.5; 27.9f), but this is the ONLY passage with the plural-EVEN in those passages which are 'compound prophecies' from MULTIPLE prophets (i.e. 21.5; 27.9) attributed to only one of them.

When we begin to study passages in which 'prophets' (or equivalent collective nouns such as 'law' or 'scripture') are 'quoted' we notice a peculiar pattern-the 'quote' turns out to be a summary that finds NO explicit word-for-word occurrence. It seems to work as a summary or a conclusion. Consider some of these:

Jer 35.15: 15 Again and again I sent all my servants the prophets to you. They said, "Each of you must turn from your wicked ways and reform your actions; do not follow other gods to serve them. Then you will live in the land I have given to you and your fathers."
Jer 44.4: Again and again I sent my servants the prophets, who said, `Do not do this detestable thing that I hate!'
Zech 1.4: 4 Do not be like your forefathers, to whom the earlier prophets proclaimed: This is what the LORD Almighty says: `Turn from your evil ways and your evil practices.'
Mt 7.12: 12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
John 7.38: "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."
Gal 3.22: But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.
In each of these cases, we have a collective reference, with a 'quote' that has no close parallels in the OT. The quotes seem to be summaries of multiple passages.

The last three of these warrant special attention-Mt 7.12; John 7.38; and Gal 3.22.

In Matthew 7.12, we have the Golden Rule. There is NO statement even close to it in the OT, and the first known version of it was a 'passive one' from A.D. 20. Rabbi Hillel, challenged by a Gentile to summarize the law in the short time the Gentile could stand on one leg, reportedly responded: "What is hateful to you, do not do to anyone else" (b Shabbath 31a, cited in EBC: 8:187). Jesus' version is of course the stronger statement, covering sins of omission as well as commission. But the point is that it is a summary and/or paraphrase of the OT--NOT a specific citation or string of citations.
In John 7:38, we have a similar summary statement--with no direct citation spot--of several passages with overlapping images (e.g. Is 44.3; 55.1; 58.11; Jer 2.13; 17.13; Zec 14.8) . The 'streams of living water' is an appropriate summary, but doesn't occur 'as is' in the OT.
In Gal 3.22, we have an even more relevant example. We have a summary statement, that uses the vernacular of the times ("prisoner") to summarize OT teaching on our moral culpability. When Paul says Scripture calls the whole world a 'prisoner of sin', he has merely used the cultural forms of the day to communicate the OT teaching in summary form (for the expanded passage list, see Rom 3).

What this suggests to us is that Matthew is making a summary statement of OT teaching, which we could not find the 'proof-text' for in ANY SINGLE OT passage. His summary is a pattern-statement, something recognizable to the readers of his day, but something that might elude those of us without their shared backgrounds.
But let's try anyway! What might be the import of the phrase 'Nazarene' to Matthew's readers? (We have seen that the exact word doesn't have to be in the OT, just as the phrase 'prisoner of sin' didn't have to be in the OT for Paul's usage to be correct in Gal 3). What data do we have about Nazareth and "Nazarene" from those times that would suggest a 'content' for this summary phrase?

First, there is no mention of Nazareth in the OT, the Talmuds, or Josephus. In fact, there is only ONE literary reference to N. outside of the Christian scriptures-an inscription discovered in 1962 in Caesarea Maritema (Meyers and Strange, Archeology, the Rabbis and Early Christianity, SCM: 1981, p. 56). It was a small town, of no particular fame or stature.

Second, Nazareth was in Galilee, of which the prophecy Matthew uses from Isaiah 9 (in Mt 4.15f) describes as 'dwelling in darkness and in the shadow of death' and a land 'of the Gentiles'. The land of Galilee (which Jesus is also associated with-cf. "Jesus of Galilee" in Mt 26.69) was accordingly "2nd or 3rd class citizens" from the standpoint of Jerusalem! .

Third, this portion of the land (i.e. Galilee) was originally given by King Solomon to Hiriam, king of Tyre, as a gift but the OT records his appraisal: "King Solomon gave twenty towns in Galilee to Hiram king of Tyre, because Hiram had supplied him with all the cedar and pine and gold he wanted. 12 But when Hiram went from Tyre to see the towns that Solomon had given him, he was not pleased with them. 13 'What kind of towns are these you have given me, my brother?' he asked. And he called them the Land of Cabul, a name they have to this day.[I Kings 9]." [ "Cabul" sounds like the Hebrew for "good-for-nothing"!]

Fourth, the most important information we have about Nazareth is the exchange in John 1:

Philip found Nathanael and told him, "We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote -- Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." 46 "Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?" Nathanael asked.
The implication is QUITE clear from this derisive comment-Nazareth was a place of low-esteem, contempt, and the LAST PLACE in which one would look for a messiah! (Sounds like the 'good-for-nothing' passage above, doesn't it?!) And this dispersion was by a fellow-Galilean (Nathaniel was from Cana of Galilee), which would have made Nazareth the 'worst of a bad lot'!
Fifth, Jesus' experiences in Nazareth illustrate the rather 'low caliber' of many of its citizenry. In Luke 4, they try to kill him (minutes after 'speaking well of him'!), and in Mrk 6.6 it records that Jesus was 'amazed at their lack of faith'.

Sixth, not only did the Gentiles reject Nazareth in King Solomon's day, but they apparently didn't find it 'good-for-anything' later either. After the Jewish war with the Romans from AD 66-70, it was necessary to re-settle Jewish priests and their families. Such groups would ONLY move to un-mixed towns--towns WITHOUT Gentile inhabitants. The ONE extra-biblical literary reference to Nazareth (cited above) is to such a moving of the priests of the order of Elkalir to Nazareth. The implication is that Gentile populations avoided Nazareth well past the time of Jesus...It still was Cabul-"good for nothing".

What emerges from this look at the data about Nazareth is that the term "Nazarene" would have been quite a disparaging remark, conveying contempt and pointing to the insignificance of the community. As such, it would have been the perfect moniker for conveying the pervasive OT witness to Christ's humble origins and despised status (cf Is 53: "he was despised and rejected of men"). And, in this case, the plural 'prophets' were a constant witness.

[Even after Christ, the term 'Nazarene' (i.e. from Nazareth) remained a contemptuous term for Christians. The first Christians were, of course, Jewish and to their fellow-Jews they were known as Nazoreans (of the Nazarene), although they called themselves 'followers of the Way' and later, "Christians". (see BNTH: 213-215.) As such, the original notion of 'contempt' would have been present in the very name they called the Christians. Indeed, after the fall of Jerusalem, the Sanhedrin had the synagogue prayers changed to SPECIFICALLY exclude the Nazarenes. The twelfth of the Eighteen Benedictions in the Jewish prayer book, towards the end of the first century (it is different now), was changed to read:

For apostates let there be no hope, and the kingdom of arrogance do Thou speedily uproot in our days; and let Nazarenes and heretics perish as in a moment; let them be blotted out of the book of life and not be enrolled with the righteous. Blessed are Thou, O Lord, who humblest the arrogant.
"This revised edition of the prayer was authorized by the Sanhedrin and adopted in the synagogues, so that Jewish Christians, by keeping silence at this point, might give themselves away and be excommunicated." (BNTH: 386)
It is interesting that this 'nazarene' designation STILL SURVIVES in Hebrew as nosri, the term for one who believes in Jesus! (DNTT, II:333).]

Rengstorf, arriving at notions of rejection, disassociation, and contempt as the basic connotation, makes a fitting summary in a Christological context (DNTT, II:334):

At all events, for all the witnesses, Jesus' origins in Nazareth are a sign of his lowliness. Nobody understood this as well or emphasized it as unmistakably as Jn., when in his account the description of Jesus as NAZORAIOS found its place in the inscription for his cross on the initiative of the Roman procurator (19.19). Here finally, so to speak, the reader's attention is once again drawn to the fact that Jesus' origins in a place without status or prestige in the surrounding world formed a glaring contrast to the claim with which he had appeared before them.
The NET of this: Matthew knew the OT witness to Jesus' insignificant human origins, AND knew how his audience would understand his use of the term "Nazarene". While not as specific a fulfillment as Micah 5.2, it did express a broader pattern in the messianic matrix.
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