The starting point for the journey that Joseph, Mary, and Jesus took down to Egypt is shortly after the end of the wise men’s visit with them, before Herod realized, after a few days or a couple of weeks, that they weren’t coming back to his court as they had promised.
An icon of the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt
The gospel of Matthew tells us that after the wise men had started back home, “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.’”
We don’t know exactly when to date this historically. It was, however, no more than two years after Jesus was born, because Herod then tried to kill Jesus by slaying all of the baby boys who had been born in Bethlehem in the past two years, based on when the wise men told him they first saw the star. And since, according to the gospel of Luke, Jesus was born around the time of “the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria,” his birth occurred some time between 6 B.C. and 4 B.C. (Even though A.D. dating is supposed to begin with the birth of Christ, it wasn’t quite calculated correctly in the first place and so it actually begins a little way into his lifetime.)
We have a better idea of when the sojourn in Egypt ended. The gospel of Matthew also tells us that “after Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 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.’” Herod died in 4 B.C. So depending on when Jesus was born, the journey to Egypt lasted no more than two years, and perhaps as little as a few weeks or months.
It seems to me that the most likely scenario is that Jesus was born around 6 B.C., the wise men (by their own account) arrived in Jerusalem two years later in 4 B.C., and in that same year Joseph, Mary, and Jesus fled to Egypt, Herod died, and they returned. So the length of their sojourn in Egypt was probably about a few months.
One takeaway from this investigation is the realization that King Herod the Great, who had been on the throne for 33 years, died a short time after slaying the children of Bethlehem. We don’t always see immediately what feels like fitting retribution for atrocities like this one that he committed, but in this case it seems that the perpetrator very quickly joined his victims in death and had to answer for his crimes.
An interesting question that also arises is, since Jesus did find shelter as a refugee in Egypt for some length of time, whether He still feels a debt of gratitude to his briefly adopted homeland, and whether this provides an even further incentive for God to want to see justice done for all sides in current Middle Eastern disputes. Speculative, but intriguing.
But the gospel of Matthew primarily wants us to take away from this episode an appreciation for how Jesus recapitulated the history of Israel in his own life. The author quotes a historical recollection of the exodus from the book of Hosea, “Out of Egypt I called my son,” and says that through the journey to Egypt Jesus “fulfilled” this Scripture. That is, he gave it a fuller and deeper meaning in light of the significance of his own life.
This same gospel shows how Jesus recapitulated the history of Israel in several other ways as well, for example, by spending 40 days in the wilderness, where Israel spent 40 years. Ultimately through his death and resurrection, Jesus inaugurated a “new Israel” composed of those people from every nation who put their faith and trust in him. The journey to Egypt, though it may well have been relatively brief, is another small signpost pointing in that direction.
“At that time also there appeared a certain man of magic power … if it be meet to call him a man, [whose name is Jesus], whom [certain] Greeks call a son of [a] God, but his disciples [call] the true prophet who is supposed to have raised dead persons and to have cured all diseases. Both his nature and his form were human, for he was a man of simple appearance, mature age, black-skinned (melagchrous), short growth, three cubits tall, hunchbacked, prognathous (lit. ‘with a long face [macroprosopos]), a long nose, eyebrows meeting above the nose, that the spectators could take fright, with scanty [curly] hair, but having a line in the middle of the head after the fashion of the Nazaraeans, with an undeveloped beard. (*Halōsis, ii.174).”[4]
--Flavius Josephus
Posts: 22234 | From: האם אינכם כילדי הכרית אלי בני ישראל | Registered: Nov 2010
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[Intro] x3 The Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth
[Hook: Killah Priest] x2 Life is a test many quest the universe And through my research, I felt the joy and the hurt The first shall be last and the last shall be first The basic instructions before leaving earth
[Verse 1: Killah Priest] Knowledge is wisdom, this goes back when I was twelve I loved doing right but I was trapped in Hell Had mad ideas, sad eyes and tears Years of fears but yo my foes couldn't bear I searched for the truth since my youth And went to church since birth but it wasn't worth the loot That I was paying plus the praying I didn't like staying cause of busy-bodies and dizzy hotties That the preacher had souped up with lies Had me cooped up looking at loot, butt and thighs During the service he swallowed up the poor And after they heard this, they wallowed on the floor But I ignored and explored my history that was untold And watched mysteries unfold And dropped a jewel like Solomon but never followed men Cause if you do your brain is more hollow than Space oblivia or the abyss With no trace of trivia left with the hiss Does it pay to be deaf, dumb and blind? From a slave we was kept from the mind And from the caves he crept from behind And what he gave was the sect of the swine When the Bible, it condemned the pig I don't mean to pull your hems or flip your wigs But we used to wear a turban but now we're in the urban No more wearing beanies and dress like a genie No hocus pocus cause I focus on the facts And put it on the tracks and embroid it through the wax I speak on Jacob, it might take up some time And too much knowledge, it might break up the rhyme I did it anyway just to wake up the mind Of those who kiss stones or prays on the carpet Those who sit home or sell books by the market Need to chill and get their mind revived For years religion did nothing but divide The Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth
[Hook]
[Verse 2: Killah Priest] I strolled through the books of Job to unfold And open bibles, instead of hoping on revivals Calling on His name and screaming hallelujah When he hardly knew ya, that's how the devil's fooled ya See look into my eyes brethren, that's the lies of a Reverend Why should you die to go to heaven? The Earth is already in space, the bible I embrace A difficult task I had to take I studied till my eyes was swollen, and only arose when I found out that we were the chosen I deal with the truth, and build with the youth And teach my son as he kneels on the stoop Son, life is a pool of sin, corrupted with foolish men And women with wicked minds, who build picket signs To legalize abortion, the evil eye distortion I quiz Son with my wisdom Before I converted, I was perverted, and knowledge was asserted The study of wisdom, I preferred it The understanding, it gave me mental freedom I even learnt Caucasians were really the Tribe of Edam The white image of Christ is really Cesare Borgia And uhh, the second son of Pope Alexander The Sixth of Rome, and once the picture was shown That's how the devils tricked my dome I prophesized to save a man, but no one gave a damn For my nation - the seed of Abraham Blessed with the tongue of Hebrew Now we're strung on needles, and some are plungin evils So study and be wise in these days of darkness Peace to my nephew Marcus
The basic instructions before leaving earth
[Hook] x4 to fade
Posts: 22234 | From: האם אינכם כילדי הכרית אלי בני ישראל | Registered: Nov 2010
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