MATTHEW 2:15 AND HOSEA 11:1

Matthew 2:15 says the fleeing of Jesus to Egypt was to fulfill the Word of God: Hosea 11:1. It is charged that Matthew forces an interpretation to the words of Hosea that was never intended.  Barclay claims that Matthew “in his eagerness…finds prophecies in the Old Testament where no prophecies were ever meant” [Matthew, 1:27]. To many, Matthew’s interpretation appears to be arbitrary and have caused much discussion. Hosea 11:1 speaks of a historical event: the people of Israel going down to Egypt. Matthew’s method is to draw a comparison between the nation and the King of the nation. Dale DeWitt tells us, “The Old Testament is sometimes applied in an adaptive, expanded, or equivalent sense to both Israel and the church; when this is done, real visible or conceptual connections with the Old Testament source appear, so that a sense of historical reality and meaning continuity is sustained.” [DISPENSATIONAL THEOLOGY IN AMERICA DURING THE 20^TH CENTURY, 109].  Roy Zuck notes that “fulfilled” in some context like this one, points to an enlarging or heightening of Old Testament passages. That there are places were fulfillment is “not in the sense of prophecies being realized but in the sense that they are ‘filled with more meaning’” [BASIC INTERPRETATION, 269] Matthew compares and connects the history of Israel and Jesus:

Israel	Jesus
Born in the land	Born in the land
Fled to Egypt	Fled to Egypt
Baptized at the Red Sea	Baptized in the Jordan
40 years in wilderness	40 days in wilderness
Heard law from Mountain	Gave law from mountain
Experienced miracles	Performed miracles
Disobedient to God's Word	Obedient to God's Word

It is clear from the context that Hosea is not strictly a prophecy, but it is certainly a historical event.  Thus, the question that must be faced is how this passage can have a fulfillment?

First, notice the word fulfillment. It is the Greek word pleroo, which means to fill up or complete, thus fulfill. It does not necessarily need to be tied to a reference of predictive fulfillment. It can be taken in the sense of accomplishment or completion, such as an obligation or duty (cp Matt. 3:15). Thus, the word has a “broader significance than mere one-to-one prediction.” [D.A. Carlson, MATTHEW, 92]. Matthew takes the broader significance to make it appear that Hosea is predictive, thus a fulfillment of prophecy. That is not the case.

The answer how this is a fulfillment is simple. It is not a fulfillment or completion of predictive prophecy, but of a type. Types have to be completed, just as future prophecies must be. A “type is an Old Testament institution, event, person, object, or ceremony which has reality and purpose in Biblical history, but which also by divine design foreshadows something yet to be revealed.” [Donald K. Campbell quoted by Paul Lee Tan, THE INTERPRETATION OF PROPHECY, 167]. A type is never spoken of as future, yet it speaks of future things. Paul Lee Tan is correct when he reminds us that:

            Prophecies and types both point to things future and are predictive in their natures. Types, however, are to be distinguished from prophecies in their respective forms. That is, a type prefigures coming reality; a prophecy verbally delineates the future. One is expressed in events, person, and acts; the other is couched in words and statements. One is passive in form, the other active [Tan, 168].

Types are indirect pictures of Christ or New Testament truth. They are found in Old Testament events, places, and individuals that make historical connections between the two testaments. Such examples are the Passover, the brazen serpent, the temple, Melchizedek, among many, all of which find fulfillment in the person of Christ, actions and events in the life of Christ, or truths found in the New Testament. The fulfillment is not directly predicted in the type, but is clearly seen in retrospect through the eyes of inspiration by the writers of Scripture. Matthew does not say Hosea is in direct fulfillment of prophecy, but he is saying it is a fulfillment or completion of a type by means of a historical connection. Christ going to Egypt and being called out of Egypt is connected with the history of Israel. Matthew’s key seems to be not only the historical event, but also Jehovah’s expression “my son.” In this expression, Matthew saw a correspondence of God’s greater Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus, the history of Israel anticipated the life of Israel’s Messiah. Jesus was the “typological recapitulation of Israel” [Carson, 91]. Matthew interprets the passage correctly. He did not use it as a springboard for an unrelated homily. He did not exegete Hosea in a way that is unrelated to the original meaning. Instead, Matthew drew a relationship between the two events. For Matthew, Israel’s history is connected to Jesus’ history by the means of sonship (Exodus 4:12, Matthew 2:15). This does not deny the historical-grammatical understanding of the passage in Hosea, but affirms it so that the correspondence can be made. John Walvoord observes about the correspondence between the two events: “In both cases, the descent into Egypt was to escape danger. In both cases, the return was important to the providential history of the nation Israel” [Matthew, 23].