CHAPTER 4

From Hosea.

Again concerns the Words, Out of Egypt have I Called My Son, and King Herod, and the Destruction of the Kingdom of the Jews.

[Passages quoted, Hos. x. 14; xi. 1.]

FOLLOWING the Hebrew slavishly, Aquila translates, "Out (c) of Egypt have I called my son." But I have noted the exact words, because Matthew quoted the prophecy, when he recorded that Jesus was carried into Egypt, and returned thence to the land of Israel. And if any one objects to the idea of our Saviour's going into Egypt, let him know that He went for good reasons. For neither was it fitting for (d) Him to restrain Herod from his self-chosen wickedness, nor that our Saviour while still an infant should begin to shew His Divine Power by working miracles before the time, which would have been the case, if He had punished Herod miraculously for plotting against Him, and had not submitted to go down to Egypt with His parents. For it was surely the note of a better dispensation that He should wait till the fitting time to begin the miracles of His Divinity, Whose whole life is known to have been gentle and patient, ready to do pood deeds and acts of kindly service, and not to defend Himself from them that would not hear Him, even when "He was led as a Lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers was dumb." Where then is the (427) improbability that one like Him when a child should give way before Herod's wickedness, Who we know when a man yielded and submitted to evil men, hid Himself and shrank from the glory of His miraculous works? For He used to bid those He had healed tell no one.

And if any prefer to apply the prophecy to the people, regarding it as spoken concerning the people of Israel, let him consider the sequence of the argument, which implies that this will take place after the saying addressed as to Jerusalem itself, "And destruction shall be raised up in thy (b) - 160 - people, and all thy strong places shall depart." And those things, it says, which such and such a king suffered in a war in which he was involved, when they dashed the mother to the ground on her children, the like will I do unto you because of your wickedness. He must mean by "you" them that are called Israelites, who also were cast away with their king, by whom he implies Herod. "And you have suffered all this," it says, "because Israel is a child, (c) and I loved him, and out of Egypt have I called my son." But how can he praise and blame the same people at the same time? The real meaning supplies the explanation. The Christ is called "Israel," in other prophecies, as He is in this. Since then, it says, being obedient to Me, He took the form of a servant, and became My beloved Son, fulfilling all My will, therefore I called Him back as My (d) true and beloved Son from the Egypt whither He descended when He became man, meaning by Egypt this earthly sphere, or possibly Egypt itself. But you, to whom the prophecy is spoken, shall suffer ruin and destruction, together with your king. Such is the prophecy. And we can see that from our Saviour's time by the siege of Jerusalem the independence and national power of the Jewish race that existed up till then was destroyed and utterly cast away. This is the third prophecy concerning Egypt, and His sojourn there.

But if any one say that it does not apply to our Saviour, yet let him not deny that the words quoted by Matthew were taken by him from the witness of Moses, which I have lately expounded, when explaining the words, '' God led (428) him out of Egypt," and as the evangelist himself never says that the oracle was quoted from the prophecy of Hosea, he can seek for it and find it laid up in any place, whence it is probable that the evangelist quoted it.