Jesus the Egyptian

For a time, was Jesus an Egyptian?

Matthew 2:14-15 briefly describes a part of Jesus' childhood. Our attention should naturally go to the quote from Hosea 11:1-2, 4, "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. But the more they were called, the more they went away from me... I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love. To them I was like one who lifts a little child to the cheek, and I bent down to feed them."

Not only is this referring to Israel while they were in Egyptian bondage… but to Christ and His rescue of the souls of people!

Why is that important to recognize this from the original Exodus story? By seeing the past, it becomes a guide to the future.

As the Israelites left Egypt, they quickly complained and doubted. We read in Hebrews 3:7-10, 12-13, 19, "So, as the Holy Spirit says: 'Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness, where your ancestors tested and tried Me, though for forty years they saw what I did'. That is why I was angry with that generation; I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known My ways.’ See to it…that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness… [because we know] that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief."

Egypt would always have a bitter taste in the mouths of the Jews, because of what it represented to them, but that was part of their embarrassing past. We've all got something in our past we wish would be forever forgotten, but Jesus went there (to their past) to change the future of all people.

Isaiah 19:21, "So the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians, and in that day they will acknowledge the Lord…"

Like the prodigal son who went off to a foreign land to enjoy his wealth, he remembered that his father wanted him to come home. It's within that story in Luke 15, that we see the truest picture of Exodus… deliverance from our own stupidity.