One of the two weirdest (there is one that is even weirder) is Matthew 2:15. Is Matthew able to read and understand the Hebrew Bible? Is he guilty of a strange and arbitrary reading simply to justify his belief in Yeshua of Nazareth? Of course the author of Matthew knows what he is doing. It is the modern reader who must make the adjustment into the world of midrashic use of scripture. Midrash is a kind of teaching using the scriptures in a homiletic manner (a sermon, a talk on a religious or moral subject). Midrash is interested in going beyond the plain meaning — but it is not intended to replace the plain meaning. Midrash is looking for something hinted at. And Midrash always has a justification. It is never arbitrary. It is always based on some technical detail about the words, grammar, or interconnections between the verse in question and other verses on the same theme.

One aspect of the art of midrash is to say something that seems a tad outrageous. But on closer investigation the outrageous statement can be justified and also can be shown relevant. The sages and rabbis of old loved to discuss halakhah (detailed investigations of categories and practices for keeping the commandments of Torah). But the public preferred to hear from them midrashes — sermons and parables with moral, theological, and narrative interest.

So, let’s look at the great midrash of Matthew on Hosea 11:1 and learn as students.

Matthew’s citation of Hosea 11:1 is much closer to the Hebrew than the Greek translation (LXX, Septuagint). The Hebrew text of Hosea 11:1 rendered in as literal a form as possible looks something like this:
When a youth [was] Israel, I loved him; and out of Egypt I called my son.
The LXX has: out of Egypt have I called his children.
Matthew has: out of Egypt I called my son.

Although Matthew wrote in Greek, his midrash on Hosea depended on the Hebrew text (or if not, a Greek text that was based on the proto-Masoretic text).

It is quickly obvious if you look up Hosea 11:1 that the verse is not about Messiah, but about Israel. Vs.2 says, “As they [prophets] called to them they went away from them; to the Baals they would sacrifice and to images they would burn offerings.” (Note: Most modern translations deviate from the Masoretic text, but I am not persuaded of their reasons regarding this verse and so offer my own translation based on the Delitzsch commentary).

What facts of the situation did Matthew have in front of him that led to this connection between Yeshua the son and Israel the son?

First, Matthew had the gospel accounts from eyewitnesses that the heavenly voice twice called Yeshua “son,” once at the baptism and once at the transfiguration. Second, he had the unusual manner of Yeshua’s speaking, which was frequent, about his Father. The sonship of Yeshua was a major theme of Yeshua’s teaching and God was “Abba” to him. Third, he knew the deep theme of Israel’s sonship in the Hebrew Bible. In Deuteronomy 32 (a key chapter), Israel is the son who disappointed God who gave him birth. In the Exodus tradition, God said to Pharaoh, “Let my son go” (Exod 4:23). God promised to be a father the Davidic king (Messiah) who would be a son to him. In the Psalms about the Davidic king (Messiah) the king is called son and it is even said, “you are my son; today I have begotten you” (Psa 2:7).

Matthew is saying that Yeshua is the son like Israel is the son and like the Davidic-messianic king is the son. He is defining the meaning of Yeshua’s sonship. The specific event that brought this comparison to mind is Yeshua’s family coming back into Galilee out of Egypt, where they had been hiding from Herod.

Comparisons between contemporary events and ancient biblical events were a poetic Hebrew way of thinking. A similar famous text is also used in this section about Rachel weeping for her children. The event that inspired Jeremiah the prophet to speak of Rachel weeping was when exiles to Babylon, terribly treated Judeans being taken away from everything they held dear, passing nearby the place where Genesis had indicated Rachel was buried. It was not unusual for Jeremiah to relate geography — the place Rachel was buried — to events in his time — exiles being tragically marched away.

The problem a modern reader has is simple: we look for the plain meaning, the literal. We tend to be bothered by poetic, symbolic, homiletical connections. If Matthew doesn’t have a prophecy-fulfillment connection to Hosea 11:1, how dare he cite the verse!

But Matthew has done something much deeper. He has related Yeshua (not only here, but in dozens of places) firmly to the sonship of Israel and the sonship of the Davidic-messianic kings.

In Matthew’s day, the movement of Yeshua-followers was expanding. Certain elements already wanted to remove Yeshua in some ways from his Jewish context. Matthew famously represents the interest of keeping the image of Yeshua within a Jewish framework. Yeshua is Ideal Israel and Yeshua is the New Moses. The midrash on Hosea 11:1 is a masterful example of the art of teaching Yeshua’s life from within Jewish thought.

And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and sought a way to destroy him; for they feared him, because all the multitude was astonished at his teaching.
–Mark 11:18

The gospel did not just happen. The events which marked the onset of a new stage in the world’s redemption happened in a time and place with three main cultural backdrops. Parts 1 and 2 introduced Greek and Roman influences on these events, both in Yeshua’s time and the later time the gospels were written. What about conditions and social structures in Israel itself? What are some basics readers need to know about conditions and groups in Israel? What about Jewish concerns in the times of the evangelists?

First, it cannot be over-emphasized, and it rather has been under-emphasized, that Yeshua was Galilean and his movement was primarily a Galilean one at the beginning. For more about this, see “Yeshua the Galilean” by clicking here. In Galilee itself, Yeshua was safe unless he ran afoul of Herod Antipas. It was primarily in Judea and Jerusalem that there was danger for Yeshua. Galilee was rural and had no aristocracy. Judea had powerful people with statuses to protect so that prophets and upstart messianic brigands were quickly eliminated.

Second, we must locate Yeshua among the common Jews and not see him as part of any of the parties. In an overreaction to centuries of neglecting the Jewish context of Jesus, some studies in recent decades have aligned Yeshua with the Pharisees. This is a misunderstanding of what the Pharisees represented. Yeshua did not belong to any of the parties. Of the parties, the Pharisees may have been closest to Yeshua’s way of thinking, but he himself was not a Pharisee.

As one of the people of the land, Yeshua’s common belief with his countrymen centered on monotheism, covenant, the election of Israel as God’s people, the Temple, and the way of life laid out in the Torah. Readings of Yeshua overturning laws of the Torah are without basis and should be rejected. A more sophisticated reading of Mark 7 and Matthew 15 is called for, a reading based more in Jewish discussions about how to keep the food and purity laws, not whether to keep them.

Second, we can and should accept the picture of the gospels that there was some degree of literacy in Galilee and synagogues with some education. It is not difficult to believe that Yeshua could read the Hebrew text. But we should not imagine him as a scribe with the kind of training found in Judea in the small movement of Pharisees and scribes. Yeshua would have been a literate, but by Judean standards, poorly educated layman.

Third, we should understand the times of Yeshua in Judaism as formative. The last decades before the First Jewish Revolt in 66-70 CE were a time when Israel was looking for an identity, for a way to be Israel. The powerful chief priests and Sadducees held nearly all the power in Jerusalem. Galileans paid tithes to the chief priests out of duty to Torah in spite of corruption and the fact that the Temple-state in Judea was abusive of wealth and power. The Pharisees were seeking to bring their own kind of renewal, but it too was a movement defined by power and status, not righteousness in the mode of the prophets of Israel.

Israel was seeking to be Israel, to recover some sense of what Torah had expressed as the ideal. The common people were powerless. From time to time, groups of the common people would follow an upstart messianic or prophetic leader. None of the small revolts inspired a wide following.

It is in this sense that we should understand Yeshua, who worked wonders in Galilee and attracted crowds. People were ready for change. They wanted to see something from God. Some of the people were ready for a revolution. Otherwise the various brigands who led small revolts would have found no followers. Yeshua seemed to be a person who could make things happen at long last.

Yet nearly all of Yeshua’s teaching and his actions were calculated to overthrowing popular messianic notions. Yeshua found a people so out of touch with the vision of the prophets for the world to come, the kingdom of God, that he set about overturning sacred cows. He dined with sinners. He healed impure people. He praised the faith of non-Jews. He warned that being the Chosen People would not bring inheritance by itself in the kingdom. He denied the idea of power and status as a way for Messiah or Messiah’s followers. He spoke of a long delay in the coming of the kingdom. He established a renewal movement, a group within Israel to be True Israel. He claimed to be of very high and exalted status which people would only understand when he was glorified. He gave many hints and signs of his identity. He left a group of disciples to lead a movement after his death and glorification when these things would become clear. He spoke of coming in the future as the Son of Man.

Yeshua’s vision of Messiahship and kingdom is a Jewish vision, but different in many details from other Jewish ways of imagining the kingdom.

In the days of the evangelists, division with synagogues throughout the empire heightened the distance between the Yeshua-movement and Jewish communities. The evangelists emphasized the origins of their movement as Jewish but with a view to spread to the nations. Yeshua had other sheep. Yeshua called for his name to be proclaimed to the gentiles. The Abrahamic promise was at last being realized.

The list of parallels is not only interesting, but a great clue to the meaning of the temptation story itself.

The note that Yeshua was led up into the wilderness is more than a hint of God leading Israel into the wilderness. Forty days and nights without food, while more similar to Moses’ stay on Mt. Sinai (Deut 9:9), also calls to mind the forty years Israel was in the wilderness. See Jer 2:6; Ezek 20:10; and Amos 2:10 for verses about God leading Israel into and through the wilderness.

Israel was tempted (and tested God) with regard to three things:
…(1) Hunger (Exod 16:2-8), the Manna story.
…(2) Putting God to the test due to lack of water (Exod 17:17:1-3; Deut 6:16).
…(3) Idolatry (Exod 32), the Golden Calf story.

Compare Matthew 4:8 and Deuteronomy 34:1-3, where God showed Moses all of the land.

Yeshua quotes three verses from Moses:
…(1) Deuteronomy 8:3, in order to teach you that man does not live on bread alone, but that man may live on anything that the Lord decrees.
…(2) Deuteronomy 6:16,  Do not try the Lord your God, as you did at Massah.
…(3) Deuteronomy 6:13, Revere only the Lord your God and worship Him alone, and swear only by His name.