Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 2:20
saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for they are dead which sought the young child’s life.
19 21. The Return from Egypt
20. they ] Plural by a euphemism, the reference being to Herod alone.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
They are dead who sought … – This either refers to Herod alone, as is not uncommon, using the plural number for the singular; or it may refer to Herod and his son Antipater. He was of the same cruel disposition as his father, and was put to death by his father about five days before his own death.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 20. They are dead] Both Herod and Antipater his son; though some think the plural is here used for the singular, and that the death of Herod alone is here intended. But as Herod’s son Antipater was at this time heir apparent to the throne, and he had cleared his way to it by procuring the death of both his elder brothers, he is probably alluded to here, as doubtless he entered into his father’s designs. THEY are dead-Antipater was put to death by his father’s command, five days before this execrable tyrant went to his own place. See Josephus, Antiq. xvi. 11; xvii. 9.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
20. Saying, Arise, and take theyoung child and his mother, and go into the land of Israelnotto the land of Judea, for he was afterward expressly warned not tosettle there, nor to Galilee, for he only went thither when he foundit unsafe to settle in Judea but to “the land of Israel,”in its most general sense; meaning the Holy Land at largetheparticular province being not as yet indicated. So Joseph and theVirgin had, like Abraham, to “go out, not knowing whither theywent,” till they should receive further direction.
for they are dead whichsought the young child’s lifea common expression in mostlanguages where only one is meant, who here is Herod. But the wordsare taken from the strikingly analogous case in Ex4:19, which probably suggested the plural here; and where thecommand is given to Moses to return to Egypt for the samereason that the greater than Moses was now ordered to be brought backfrom itthe death of him who sought his life. Herod died inthe seventieth year of his age, and thirty-seventh of his reign.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Saying, arise, and take the young child and his mother,…. Joseph strictly observed and obeyed the divine command of the angel, who had ordered him to continue in Egypt, till he brought him word what he should do, and where he should go: here he was with Mary and Jesus, when the angel bid him arise, and take them with him,
and go into the land of Israel. He does not bid him go to Bethlehem or Nazareth, or any particular place, but the land of Israel, where he might go even into any part of it, without fear; and gives this reason for it,
for they are dead which sought the young child’s life; meaning either Herod only, the plural number being put for the singular; or including Antipater his son with him, who might be equally concerned in seeking the life of Christ; since he was next heir, and whom Herod z ordered to be slain about five days before his death; or else designing with him many of the executioners of the infants at Bethlehem, and thereabout; who might have been, as well as he, miserable instances of divine vengeance, for their concern in that barbarous tragedy.
z Joseph. de Bello Judaico, l. 1. c. 33. sect. 8, 9.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
For they are dead (). Only Herod had sought to kill the young child, but it is a general statement of a particular fact as is common with people who say: “They say.” The idiom may be suggested by Ex 4:19: “For all are dead that sought thy life.”
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
1) “Saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother,” (legon egertheis paralabe to paidion kai ten metera autou) “Directing him, (saying) arise and take the child (Jesus) and his mother (Mary).” The instruction was just as direct as when he had been directed by an angel to take them and leave Bethlehem to escape the anger and jealousy of Herod, Mat 2:13.
2) “And go into the land of Israel” (kai poreuou eis gen Israel) “And go as you may or will into the land of Israel.” The exact place of his destination was not designated by the angel, but Divine Providence led him to go to the right place, Rom 8:14-16; Mat 2:23. Note he was not directed to go to Judea, where he had left, but to Israel, which included Galilee.
3) “For they are dead,” (tethnekasin gar) “Because those have died,” Herod and his courtiers, his murderous cohorts, or helpers. So Joseph and Mary headed for the Holy Land much like Abraham when he went out “not knowing whither they went.”
4) “Which sought the young child’s life.” (hoi zetountes ten psuchen tou paidiou) “Those who sought to take the life of the child (Jesus).” When they had slain so many young children, two years and under in Bethlehem and that region of Judea, Mat 2:16-18.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(20) They are dead.The use of the plural is noticeable, as Herod alone had been named. Possibly, however, others may have been implicated in the scheme; or the turn of the phrase may have been suggested to the reporter of the dream by the parallel language of Exo. 4:19, in reference to Moses.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
20. They are dead Words quoted from Exo 4:19, where they are applied to Pharaoh the type of Herod. Our Lord’s stay in Egypt could have not been many months in duration.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“Arise and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel, for they are dead who sought the young child’s life.”
Joseph is told to arise and take the young child, with His mother, and go into ‘the land of Israel’. Note again the reference to His mother as an added extra. All attention is on Jesus. She is mentioned in order to emphasise Jesus youthfulness. He is still a ‘young child’.
The description ‘the land of Israel’ (repeated in the next verse, and nowhere else in the New Testament), deliberately takes the mind back to the time of early Israel when Israel was a newish nation in the time of the Judges, and even more to Ezekiel’s vision of the return from exile. It was a reminder of the land that was available to them but which for a time they had lost. ‘And you will know that I am the Lord, when I bring you into the land of Israel, into the country for the which I lifted up my hand to give it to your fathers’ (Eze 20:42, compare Mat 11:17). Now Jesus is entering in to possess ‘the land of Israel’.
‘For they are dead who sought the young child’s life.’ Compare Exo 4:19. They had tried to kill Him, just as another once had Moses, but now it was they who were dead. The plural suggests that it was not only Herod who was unhappy about the prospective alteration to the status quo. The ‘they’ probably has in mind Herod’s commanders and his sycophants, whose influence would be dead even if they were not. However, it may well also have arisen because the Exo 4:19 parallel is in mind. But whoever they were, His enemies were all known to God, and for the time at least they had been seen off.
The loose use of the phrase from Exo 4:19 draws our attention to the parallels between Jesus and Moses. Moses had been delivered when children around him had been slaughtered, and he had also fled from a king to a place of safety, and had been called back once that king was dead. But that had been in a foreign land. In Jesus’ case it had been in His own land, and by a supposed King of the Jews. He is as it were rejected even before He begins His mission, but like Moses enjoys God’s protection. In the back of Matthew’s mind may also have been the thought that while Moses returned to Egypt, Jesus was, on behalf of His people, leaving Egypt behind for ever. Here was a greater than Moses, taking the final stage in the deliverance of God’s people. (In general there are no real grounds, apart from here, for thinking that Matthew was trying to portray Jesus as a new Moses. Elsewhere He is seen as representing the whole of Israel).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Mat 2:20. Who sought the young child’s life Greek. Who sought the soul; a Hebraism, of which our version gives the sense. See 1Ki 10:14. Exo 4:19 to which last passage the angel seems to allude. It is an ingenious conjecture of Mr. Manne, that Antipater, the son of Herod, who, at the time when Christ was born, was heir apparent to his crown, and was a prince so cruel and ambitious, that he had procured the death of his two elder brothers to clear his way to the succession, would very probably be anactive counsellor and instrument in seeking the destruction of the new-born Jesus, and in advisingthe slaughter of the infants; and as this Antipater died but five days before Herod, both might be referred to in these words of the angel, they are dead. See Manne’s Dissert. p. 74. Doddridge, and Wetstein.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Mat 2:20-21 . ] is to be understood simply of Herod . The plural is very often used where the conception of a species is to be expressed, and then denotes the subject, not according to number , but chiefly according to the category to which it belongs. Reisig, ad Soph. Oed. C . 966, and Conject. in Aristoph . p. 58; Wunder, ad Soph . O. R. 361; Elwert, Quaestion. ad philolog. sacr . 1860, p. 10 f.; Winer, p. 165 [E. T. 219]. Frequently, particularly in the tragic writers, it contains a special emphasis, Hermann, ad Viger . p. 739, which also announces itself in the present passage. Others (Euth. Zigabenus) regard it as including Herod and his councillors or servants . Mat 2:19 is decisive against this view. Others (Gratz, B. Crusius, de Wette): the plural is put, because the words are taken from Exo 4:19 . But there the plural is required not only by the , which stands in the text, but likewise by the whole connection. The resemblance to Exo 4:19 is either accidental, or, more probably, intentionally selected in the consciousness of being a historical parallel.
. .] Note the extent and indefiniteness of the designation; Joseph could thus afterwards turn his steps to Galilee without acting in opposition to the instruction. Comp. 1Sa 13:19 ; Eze 11:17 .
] , seek the soul that is, seek after one’s life (Rom 11:3 ). The present participle with the article used as a substantive, see Winer, p. 103 f. [E. T. 219]. Comp. Dissen, ad Dem. de cor. p. 238.
Herod died in Jericho (according to Gerlach, in Jerusalem) in the year 750, his genitals and bowels being eaten up of worms (Joseph. Bell. i. 33. 1, 5; Antt. xvii. 6. 5; Euseb. H. E. i. 68), in the thirty-seventh year of his reign, and in the seventieth of his age, Josephus, Antt. xvii. 8. 1, xvii. 9. 3. The tyrant became a prey to despair at his death, an attempt at suicide having failed in his last extremity.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.
The most interesting of all subjects, is to eye CHRIST as the Great Nazarene. Few have ever considered the importance of the name; and yet there is none by which the Lord JESUS is distinguished in his holy scriptures more personally directed by way of emphasis, than this. For my part, so very highly significant is it in my view, that I venture to believe that all we read of in the word of God of the Nazarites, and the particularity of their order, had no one object whatever, but to point to CHRIST; and He, and he alone, is the One, and only One Nazarite to GOD. If the Reader will first turn to the following scriptures, and carefully read them, I will venture to offer him my view upon the subject. Num 6:2-21 ; Jdg 13:5-25 ; Lam 4:7 ; Amo 2:11-12 .
The name of Nazarite, is evidently taken from Netzar the branch and this is well known to be the name of the Lord Jesus CHRIST. The Patriarch Jacob had pointed to CHRIST, in that prophecy concerning Joseph the Nazarite: He separated from his brethren Gen 49:26 . So that the whole concerning the law of separation had a direct reference to Jesus. In Christ therefore, being called Jesus of Nazareth, this must have been wholly upon this account: for CHRIST was born in Bethlehem, and not in Nazareth. And it should seem to have been nothing less than the overruling power of GOD, which could have so universally procured this name to CHRIST, when there were no causes but the LORD JESUS dwelling there which could have led to the idea. I have in my Poor Man’s Concordance more fully dwelt upon this subject; so that I shall not in this place enlarge. I will only beg before I dismiss it to observe, that this name was made use of in a manner, and way particularly striking. The Devils used it. Mar 1:24 . The Apostles used it while JESUS was upon earth. Joh 1:45 . And again after our LORD’S resurrection. Act 4:10Act 4:10 . The band of armed men which came to apprehend Christ used it. Joh 18:5 . Pilate used it in his inscription on the cross. Joh 19:19 . The servant maid at the hall of Pilate used it. Mat 26:71 . The Angels at the tomb used it. Mar 16:6 . Yea the LORD himself from heaven used it. Act 22:8 . And if all these were intended (as I venture to believe they were) purposely to point to CHRIST as the true Nazarite to GOD, yea the only One; surely there is much blessedness in the view; and we see sufficient cause wherefore it was that JESUS came and dwelt in the city of Nazareth that he might be called a Nazarene.
REFLECTIONS
READER! let you and I ponder well the sweet and interesting record here given of the birth of CHRIST. If angels, who needed no redemption, praised God at his birth, with what holy rapture and joy ought our songs to go forth in thanksgivings for the same. Behold! with what unequalled humbleness the SON of GOD, as man, when he came and tabernacled in our flesh, manifested himself to the church. But behold! how GOD the FATHER honoured his nativity, in not only sending wise men from the east to worship him, but in causing a star to point to the SAVIOUR. Was not this indeed sweetly fulfilling that blessed scripture; the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. But did the Lord God, in order that his blessed SON should be known, grant such a starry influence to the wise men ; and will he withhold the light of his grace from the hearts of his people? Will he not reveal CHRIST in all his glory, and suitableness, and all sufficiency, that, like them, we may fall down and worship him, and present him more than gold, and frankincense, and myrrh, even those graces of his Holy Spirit which are his own?
And was it needful that the Lord of life and glory should go down into Egypt, that what the Prophet had said of calling God’s dear SON out of Egypt might be fulfilled? Surely then, LORD, it must be needful to call all thy sons from the Egypt of this world; for all by nature are in that house of bondage, before that an act of sovereign grace hath called them out. Was JESUS, the holy, harmless, undefiled Lord Jesus, here also, as in a thousand other instances, the forerunner and glorious Head of his redeemed? Oh for grace to follow the LAMB whithersoever he goeth
But Oh! thou true and only real Nazarite of GOD! Precious Jesus, thou art indeed the Branch, the Plant of Renown, the Spiritual Joseph of thy people, whose branches ran over the wall. Blessings be on the Head of Him, and on the Crown of the Head of Him that was the Netzar, the Separate, from thy brethren! Methinks I hear my LORD again say, as he did once in the days of his flesh: for their sakes I sanctify myself! Ever precious; and dear name, JESUS CHRIST of Nazareth! Thou art thy church’s Nazarene!
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
20 Saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for they are dead which sought the young child’s life.
Ver. 20. For they are dead which sought the young child’s life ] God hid him, as it were, “for a little moment, until the indignation was overpast,” Isa 26:20 . So he did Jeremiah, Baruch, Athanasius, Luther in his Patmos (as he used to call the castle of Wartburg), where when the Pope had excommunicated him, and the Emperor proscribed him, the Lord put into the heart of the Duke of Saxony to hide him for ten months; in which time the Pope died, the Emperor had his hands full of the French wars, and the Church thereby obtained a happy halcyon. At which time a pretty spectacle it was to behold Christ striving with Antichrist for mastery. For whatsoever the Pope and his champions could do to the contrary, all happened rather, as at Philippi, unto the furtherance of the gospel, Phi 1:12 . So was it here in Queen Mary’s time; do what they could, the Christian congregations in London were sometimes forty, sometimes a hundred, sometimes two hundred. I have heard of one (saith Mr Fox) that being sent to them to take their names and to spy on their doings, yet in being among them was converted, and cried them all mercy. Harpsfield hearing that the queen lay dying, hasted home from London to burn those six that he had in his cruel custody. Those were the last that were burnt. Many others escaped by the queen’s death.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
20. ] The plural here is not merely idiomatic, nor, as Wordsw., “for lenity and forbearance, in speaking of the dead;” but perhaps a citation from Exo 4:19 , where the same words are spoken to Moses ( ): or, as Meyer, betokening, not the number, but the category. Cf. Soph. d. Col. 966. Herod the Great died of a dreadful disease at Jericho, in the seventieth year of his age, and the thirty-eighth of his reign, A.U.C. 750. Jos. B. J. i. 33. 8.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Mat 2:20 . : it is expressed in the same terms as those of the message directing flight to Egypt, except of course that the land is different, and the order not flee but return . “Arise, take the child and His mother.” The words were as a refrain in the life of Joseph in those critical months. : in this general manner is the death of Herod referred to, as if in studious avoidance of the dreaded name. They are dead. The plural here ( ), as often, expresses a general idea, a class, though only a single person is meant ( vide Winer, 27, 2, and Exo 4:19 ). But the manner of expression may indicate a desire to dissipate completely Joseph’s apprehensions. There is nothing, no person to fear: go! Mat 2:21 . : prompt obedience follows, but (Mat 2:14 ) is omitted this time. Joseph may wait till day; the matter is not so urgent. Then the word was . It was a flight for life, every hour or minute important.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
they. Note the Figure of speech Heterosis (of Number), App-6, by which the plural is put for the singular.: i.e. Herod.
life = the soul. Greek. e psuche.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
20. ] The plural here is not merely idiomatic, nor, as Wordsw., for lenity and forbearance, in speaking of the dead; but perhaps a citation from Exo 4:19, where the same words are spoken to Moses ( ): or, as Meyer, betokening, not the number, but the category. Cf. Soph. d. Col. 966. Herod the Great died of a dreadful disease at Jericho, in the seventieth year of his age, and the thirty-eighth of his reign, A.U.C. 750. Jos. B. J. i. 33. 8.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Mat 2:20. , into the land of Israel) Joseph was allowed to choose the town or district, but not the country of their abode; since it behoved that Emmanuel should come to years of manhood (adolescere) in His own land.-, they are dead) The plural concisely signifies, that Herod is dead, and that there are not any others who entertain evil designs.[104]- , who sought the life) literally, who sought the soul. A phrase employed by the LXX.
[104] What a vast host of enemies rising against Christ, from then till now, has perished utterly.-B. G. V.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
arise: Mat 2:13, Pro 3:5, Pro 3:6
for: Exo 4:19, 1Ki 11:21, 1Ki 11:40, 1Ki 12:1-3
Reciprocal: Exo 2:23 – the king Jdg 9:5 – slew 2Sa 4:8 – sought Ecc 9:6 – their love Isa 26:14 – dead Mat 2:14 – General
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
2:20
Verse 20. He was instructed to leave Egypt and return because the ones who sought to slay the child were dead. The first Instructions were general and designated only that he should return to the land of Israel which would Include Galilee as well as Judea..
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Mat 2:20. They are dead which sought the young childs life It has been conjectured by some, that Antipater, the son of Herod, who died but five days before his father, might also be referred to in these words, They are dead, &c. At the time when Christ was born, he was heir apparent to the crown, and was a prince so cruel and ambitious, that he had procured the death of his two elder brothers, to clear his way to the succession, and no doubt he would be an active counsellor and instrument in seeking the destruction of the new-born Jesus, and in advising the slaughter of the infants.