The Flight Into Egypt

  
13 Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Arise, take the young Child and His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word; for Herod will seek the young Child to destroy Him.”
14 When he arose, he took the young Child and His mother by night and departed for Egypt, 15 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 2:13-15)

The flight into Egypt serves two purposes as we read it in Matthew chapter 2. First, of course, it serves to protect the baby Jesus and his mother Mary from the aggression of King Herod. But second, and more significantly, we read at the end of the passage that it served as a fulfillment of prophecy. Hosea 11:1 records the profit saying that he had delivered his people, the nation of Israel, "out of Egypt".

This is, of course, a reference to the national deliverance of Israel from out of slavery to Egypt in the time of Moses. It is very clear that that was the intention of Hosea in Hosea 11. Yet it is just as clear in Matthew two that it is the intention of God's Spirit to apply that passage, which doesn't be referred to physical bondage on the part of gods people in Egypt, and use it to speak of the return of his Messiah from Egypt in heritage day.

Egypt, throughout the Scripture, was a symbol of bondage; slavery and the hardness that terrible institution represents. Got used His people Israel frequently to illustrate the horror of slavery and to paint a picture of what a glorious deliverance was coming for them. This was the chief reason why He tolerated the presence of slavery in the Old Testament. It wasn't because He approved of the institution, not by a long shot!

Just as he called the nation of Israel out of Egypt, and thereby painted a wonderful picture of the freedom that was coming when Their Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ finally came to deliver them; so also, once Christ was finally on the scene, God symbolically took him into Egypt and then returned him from out of Egypt to fulfill that picture. The matter of "safety from Herod" was really almost incidental. What safety did Egypt provide that the hand of the almighty God could not provide?