Matthew 2

Matthew 2
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Gospel of Matthew 1:22-2:18 on Codex Vaticanus, written about AD 325-350.
Book	Gospel of Matthew
Bible part	New Testament
Order in the Bible part	1
Category	Gospel

Matthew 2 is the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. It describes the events after the birth of Jesus, the visit of the magi and the attempt by King Herod to kill the infant messiah, Joseph and his family's flight into Egypt, and their later return to live in Israel, settling in Nazareth.

The New King James Version organises this chapter as follows:

Each of these four sections refers to a quotation from the Old Testament which Matthew sees Jesus fulfilling:

The last portion of Matthew 1 is similarly written, with a quotation from Isaiah 7:14, and is often seen as part of this same section. Theologian Krister Stendahl notes that each of the four quotes in this chapter contain place names, and sees this entire chapter as an apology for why the messiah moved from the important centre of Bethlehem to the minor one of Nazareth.

France notes that the Old Testament quotations in this chapter are "notoriously obscure and unconvincing." Many of them are heavily modified from the originals, with some passages being reversed in meaning. Almost all of them are taken out of context, and presented as prophecy when they were not in the original. The most confusing is that cited in Matthew 2:23, which does not appear anywhere in the Old Testament. Jerome associates it with Isaiah 11:1, where the etymology of Nazareth is derived from the Hebrew word for branch (ne'tser). That the quotations have been so contorted to fit the narrative, is to France and others, clear evidence that the narrative came first, and the quotations were added after. The author of Matthew firmly believed in the accuracy of the narrative he was recording, and would not alter it to make it better fit the prophecies.