לתשובת המינים

Hosea 11:1

Who was the Son called from Egypt?

Matthew 2:15

"When Israel was a lad I loved him, and since Egypt I have been calling out to My son."

In the section before last we mentioned the story in Matthew where Herod calls for the slaughter of boys under the age of two in order to kill the infant the Nazarene. Matthew says that Joseph had previously been warned and therefore fled to Egypt with the infant Nazarene. Matthew then said this fulfills what the Prophet said, "Out of Egypt I have called my son", a quote from Hosea 11:1.

Without dwelling on it too much, one may notice that there is a fair amount of difference between the quote that Matthew records, (via NIV translation) and the quote taken from the Stone Edition T'nakh above. Matthew’s quote would seem to imply that God instructed his son (ignoring who this son is for the moment) to leave Egypt "Out of Egypt I have called My son." The word, however, is וּמִמִּצְרַים, umiMitzraim. Mitzraim (מִּצְרַים) is the Hebrew word for Egypt. The prefix ו/u means "and". The second prefix מ/m, means "from" (Our translation uses "since" i.e. from that time, the temporal sense 1). Now even if we translate the prefix as "out" (from a place rather than from a time), it would seem to refers back to the origin of the call rather than the son as suggested by the addition of the prefix ל/l (meaning "to") connected to the word son. The call was from Egypt (the place or time) to Hashem's son, which would seem to support the temporal usage of our translation above.

It is noteworthy that only a few chapters later in Hosea 13:4 we see מ used in a temporal sense, "I am Hashem your God since the land of Egypt." On the other hand we do see it used in a clearly ablative sense in Hosea 12:14, "And by a prophet Hashem brought Israel up from Egypt.

Of course either the temporal or ablative senses work, after all, the son was in Egypt since the son clearly refers to Israel. This is shown by the opening sentence of our verse, "When Israel was a lad I loved him." To further establish this we need only read the next verse, "[As much as] they (the prophets) called to them, so did they turn away from them; they sacrificed to Baalim and burnt incense to the idols." (Vs. 2).

Christianity cannot possible accept that the Nazarene offered sacrifices to idols (never mind for the moment that the verse is in the plural) since the Nazarene is supposed to be God Himself and therefore sinless.

To the English reader it may seem that the New Testament writer is giving and interpretation to these verses different from the original intention of the Old Testament author. For instance Matthew 2:14-15 presents Jesus' childhood in Egypt in terms of fulfillment of Hosea 11:1 ("Out of Egypt I called my son"), a text that speak of God's redemption of Israel at the exodus.
Many believe that, rather than being an illegitimate interpretation, this approach reflects a typological interpretation of the Old Testament.(Hermeneutics: Principles and Processes of Biblical Interpretation, page 51.)

This is a very difficult hypothesis. If, indeed, we are to believe that Matthew intended to make an analogy between Israel and the Nazarene then why, we must ask, is the reference to Israel removed from the citation? It is difficult to accept that Matthew hoped for us to envision Israel as a "type" of the Nazarene while omitting any reference to Israel. Furthermore the "parallel" between the Nazarene and Israel on this point is exceedingly weak. With regard to Israel the sojourn in Egypt was a veritable gestation period in which the children of Abraham grew into a nation. The exodus from Egypt was, as it where, their birth as God’s nation and is referenced repeatedly throughout the Hebrew Bible. The Nazarene’s Egypt experience was a brief one at an age most children would remember little to nothing about once they reached adulthood. It is only mentioned once, in passing, with no other significance that its supposed "fulfillment" of our verse from Hosea.

"Second, look for a type not in the details but in the central message of the text concerning God's activity to redeem his people."(Preaching Christ from the Old Testament, page 257)

Michael Brown argues against the assertion that Matthew was intentionally being misleading by not citing the entirety of the verse, "Soon enough, if his citation really was erroneous, someone would have quickly challenged his reading, and within days—or even hours—Matthew would have been exposed and his book of Good News (=Gospel) would have been discarded as an unreliable fraud." (Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, vol 4, page 23). I am disinclined to believe that people who promote false teachings based on out of context citations of scripture or so forth do so to be intentionally deceptive (unless perhaps they appear to be financially motivated), but intention doesn’t really effect the legitimacy or truthfulness of the exegesis methodology. That being said, the Jewish people did reject Matthew’s "book of Good News", it only received widespread acceptance among non-Jews. And with respect to that minority of Jewish people who may have accepted his teachings, this is really no different than today when sectarian groups will misuse the Bible but find those who are willing to follow them despite being capable of checking it out themselves.

So while last time one only needed to examine the following verse to see the error of Mathew’s translation, this time one only needs to read the verse he quoted in its entirety.

1 "4.1.13 מִן (a) Source-- One of the most common uses of מִן designates where something or someone originated:… מִן can place emphasis not just on the point of origin but also movement away from that point of origin, making it ablative…(Exodus 12:42)…(b)Temporal-- similar to source, marks the beginning point of a given period…(Mic 4:7)." (A Guide to Biblical Hebrew Syntax pages 116, 117). מ is the prefix form of מִן