Matthew 2:16–18

Matthew 2:16–18: Herod Kills the Children

Synopsis

Another short passage. Which leads one to wonder why it took me so long to blog about it. What, I couldn’t spare five minutes to write this post? Anyway…

In the last passage, an angel sent Joseph and his family into Egypt. Why? Because he knew what was going to happen in this passage: Herod realizes that the Wise Men aren’t coming back, and his plan to find the new King of the Jews has been thwarted. So he decides to play it safe, and kill all of the male Jewish children in Bethlehem (and surrounding region), who are Jesus’ age or younger. We are told that this is a fulfillment of a prophecy from Jeremiah 31:15 (ESV) .

Thoughts

In the last passage God the Father was able to send an angel to get Joseph into Egypt, to save Jesus from Herod’s purging. But that means that it was in His plan for the other Jewish boys to be killed. (According to the ESV Study Bible, because of the size of the region that probably only meant 10–20 boys. But that’s still 10–20 boys who had to die.) Not that I’m criticizing God—hopefully that is self-evident—but it’s just one more way that the fallen state of the world has come to play throughout history. This is exactly the type of thing that Jesus has come to the world to save us from.