Matthew 2 · a question people ask

Hosea's "called my son out of Egypt" speaks of Israel. How can Matthew say it was fulfilled in Jesus?

In the text

Here is what each says. Hosea: "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt" (Hosea 11:1). Matthew: Joseph "departed into Egypt, and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”" (2:14-15). Matthew doesn't name the prophet, and he doesn't explain how the words were fulfilled; he says that they were. These notes don't explain it for him. Favor's chapters on Exodus 4 and Genesis 46 each draw a line through Hosea 11:1 to this verse, and each is labelled there as a reading, not as something the New Testament states. The chapter on Deuteronomy 8 asks whether Matthew sets Jesus's forty days in the wilderness beside Israel's forty years, and one of its two readings rests partly on this verse; it chooses neither.

The verses

““When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.”
Hosea 11:1 · World English Bible
“He arose and took the young child and his mother by night and departed into Egypt, and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, “Out of Egypt I called my son.””
Matthew 2:14-15 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Matthew 2

Matthew 2: Born King of the Jews

The wise men asked for the one "born King of the Jews" (2:2), and Matthew doesn't give that title again until the governor's question (27:11), the soldiers' mocking (27:29), and the words set over Jesus's head on the cross: "THIS IS JESUS, THE KING OF THE JEWS" (27:37). And Matthew never says how many wise men there were.

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions