Flight into Egypt

Having fulfilled their Jewish legal and ceremonial obligations to be obedient to God, Joseph was warned in a dream of danger the newborn king faced from the Romanized Jewish King Herod (Matthew 2:13-14). The Holy Family hastily took flight during the night, and they traveled until they were outside of the domain and jurisdiction of the King and they traveled away to Egypt.

Flight into Egypt by Henry Ossawa Tanner (1923):

There were several long-standing routine trade routes from the Sumerian region of the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley to Egypt. By the time of Christ these routes had been traveled for at least five millennia. The route through the Jordan River Valley passed near to Jerusalem and it was the second most traveled of these trade routes.  Joseph, Mary and Jesus most likely took this route to travel to Egypt, and their presence along the route would not have seamed unusual to any of the traders journeying along the route.

The Jewish King Herod, the Great Ordered The Massacre of the Innocents

Back in Bethlehem a terrible tragedy occurred. The soon to died, King Herod continued to be troubled about the newborn king the wise men had mentioned. Herod thought the newborn King could be a threat to his reign in Judea and Iudaea (the region south of Judea). When the wise men did not comeback to tell him about Jesus, Herod decided to act decisively.

Evil Herod, not knowing which male child of Bethlehem was the newborn Messiah, decided to have all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all the surrounding districts, who were from two years old or younger put to death (Matthew 2:16).

Massacre of the Holy Innocents by Sebastian Bourdon (mid 1600s):

Pharaoh’s Instruction to the Egyptian Midwives to Kill all the Hebrew Newborn Males is a Foretype of Herod’s Murder of the Innocents

The infant Jesus escaped Herod’s Murder of the Holy Innocents in Bethlehem. That was because of Joseph heeded the divine warning he received in a dream. This act of Divine providence has a resonance with the story of Israel’s divine deliverance from the tyranny of slavery in Egypt.

Moses, the Levite, was a purely human but spiritual foretype of Jesus Christ. God raised Moses up to send him back to Egypt in order free the Israelite people. When famine broke out in Cana, the Israelites to fled to Egypt, where they were welcome guests and honored inhabitants because Joseph had served Egypt well and faithfully and had been raised to be the Egyptian Pharaoh’s Prime Minister.

Generations later, an unnamed Egyptian Pharaoh came into power “who did not know Joseph.” Since the Old Testament is meticulous about recording the names the ancient Kings that struggle with or assist Israel, it is significant that this Pharaoh is unnamed. That tyrannical Pharaoh enslaved and oppressed God’s people, and God heard their cries for help.

The first two chapters of the Book of Exodus tells us that the tyrannical Pharaoh ordered first the Egyptian midwives, and then ultimately the entire population of Egypt to kill all the newborn male babies born to the Israelites. However the infant Moses, like the infant Jesus, escaped the tyrant’s evil wrath by Divine providence. The Divine providence involved in Moses’ survival of his infancy is a biblical parallel or foretype of the tyrant Herod’s Murder of the Innocents and the infant Jesus’ providential escape.

The Holy Family stayed in Egypt until they heard that Herod was dead, which also happened in the year 4 BC, so they did not have to stay there for very long.

The Jewish Passover is a Another Foretype of Christ

God’s final plague on Egypt was the death of all of the firstborn of Egypt, men and livestock alike. The firstborn of the Jews were protected from plague by their sacrificing of an unblemished lamb and painting their lintels and doorposts with the blood of the sacrifice, so the spirit of death would pass over their homes. That event is remembered in the Jewish festival of the Passover.

Clearly God saving His people from slavery in Egypt by the blood of those lambs was a foretype of God saving mankind with the blood of His innocent son, Jesus.

The Holy Family’s Stay in Egypt was a Short One

The Holy Family stayed in Egypt until they heard that Herod had died, which secular history informs us happened in the year 4 BC, so the Holy Family did not have to stay in Egypt very long.

The other longstanding and routine trade route from the Sumerian region of the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley to Egypt, was the Coastal Highway.  That route had already been in use for millennia. Most likely the Holy family traveled home to Nazareth along that route.