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We’re moving slowly through Matthew here. I hope you’re enjoying that. I’m certainly enjoying it. Let’s take two little steps forward.
You might notice that nearing the end of Chapter 2 in Matthew that the Gospel quotes two passages from the Old Testament. Those passages are Hosea 11.1 & Jeremiah 31.15.
What is that all about?
This is a great moment to talk about prophecy and how it “works” in the Bible. It’s not as simple as many people think. If you use the word prophecy in casual conversation, most folks would think you are talking about predicting the future – and, to be fair, often biblical prophecy is telling the future.
But what biblical prophecy is always doing is giving God’s opinion. That opinion may indeed include what is going to happen to Israel or Judah or Jerusalem or Babylon – it may be a warning of destruction or a promise of consolation. But it is not their accurate prediction of the future that makes a biblical prophet a true prophet. It is rather the fact that they really do speak for the Living God.
So what is Matthew doing by way of borrowing lines from Hosea and Jeremiah? What can we learn about prophecy here? More importantly, what can we learn about the Kingdom of God?
Let’s take the Hosea passage. He says, Out of Egypt I called my son.
Intriguingly this verse from Hosea doesn’t talk about the future at all. Hosea looks backwards to Exodus, casting the ancient Israelites who were freed from Egypt as God’s “Son.” It seems then that this is what Matthew is saying: what is happening to Jesus, the Son of God, is very much like what happened to Israel in Egypt, God’s chosen son. They both came back out to Egypt. In other words, the Hosea passage was not, in Hosea’s mind, waiting for any kind of fulfillment. Even so, Matthew thinks it tells us something about Jesus. Jesus is, like Israel was, the beloved son of God rescued by God.
Even more interesting is what Hosea says in the rest of Chapter 11 – it has nothing to do with bankruptcy. Read it for yourself! If you think you see any more resonances between what is happening to the infant Jesus and to Israel in Hosea 11, write to me (phartwig@christschool.org).
Now let’s look at Jeremiah. In his 31st chapter, Jeremiah offers this haunting paragraph.
Thus says the Lord:
“A voice is heard in Ramah,
lamentation and bitter weeping.
Rachel is weeping for her children;
she refuses to be comforted for her children,
because they are no more.” 31.15
In its original context, this passage looks forward to Israel’s coming deportation to Babylon. Rachel here, the Biblical matriarch, is crying because she’s seeing her children destroyed by the Babylonians. But look at what Jeremiah says right after this in vv.16-17:
Thus says the Lord:
“Keep your voice from weeping,
and your eyes from tears,
for there is a reward for your work,
declares the Lord,
and they shall come back from the land of the enemy.
There is hope for your future,
declares the Lord,
and your children shall come back to their own country.
The promise of redemption follows immediately! And Jeremiah, assuming that we are all good readers of the Old Testament, thinks that we know this.
In its original historical setting, this prophecy is predicting the deportation to Babylon that began in 597 BCE. This is to say, Jeremiah’s prediction of the future had already come to pass by Jesus’ day. Any Jewish reader would have told you that.
So what is Matthew doing here?
Along with biblical scholars like Richard Hays, I want to suggest that Matthew is trying to tell us that the Jeremiah 31 passages and the entire history that it evokes – deportation, exile, return to Jerusalem – is all rather like what is happening in the life of the infant Jesus. It’s not that Jeremiah is looking into the future and waiting for Jesus (as many prophets did). No, Jeremiah is looking into his future while Matthew is looking into his past and saying The birth of Jesus will bring a new restoration of the people to the land in just the same way that Jeremiah looked ahead to predict Israel’s return to the land after the weeping of Rachel.
What’s the point of all of this for us?
Matthew is teaching us how to read the Old Testament. He takes these little moments where just one or two words (son, children, they are no more) lead him to connect massively important parts of the biblical narrative (Exodus, exile, return) to Jesus himself. Matthew is making disciples of us, showing us how to read Israel’s scriptures through the light of Jesus. We should learn from him.
Now let me say, I know that this post has been longer and denser than most. I don’t intend these to drift the way of academic lectures. But every so often, I think it is good to remind us all what our school aspires to, what we hope for all of our boys: a Christian faith that is just as rich intellectually as it is childlike in its dependence on God. We want young men of “cool heads and hot hearts,” as one friend of mine says. Isn’t that what we all want for ourselves?