Introduction
The passage is chosen from the infancy narratives from the gospel of Matthew, which is not mentioned in the other synoptic gospels. This is the massacre of the infants during the time of the birth of Jesus by the king of Judea, Herod the Great, who was known for his ruthless ruling of the nation and cruelty. We shall go deeper into studying these verses and know the depth of what is written by the gospel writers, and what they really wanted to convey to the world by writing this account which even the historian of that time Josephus has not mentioned about.
Form, Source, Structure and Theology
It is quite interesting that the other gospel writers did not add this in their infancy narrative, whereas Matthew uses this to replicate what had happened in the Old Testament (OT) times, in the time of the birth of Moses. With this we get to know that Matthew relied a lot on the oral traditions. The historian of that time Josephus did not write about this incident but Matthew has added it, and has also given citation from the Old Testament to make firm his point that this had happened to fulfil what was prophesied by the prophets.
This passage holds a significant features; Firstly, this pericope ends with a quotation from the Old Testament Jer 31:15. This is the second occurrence in this pericope the first being that of Hos 11:1 in Matt 1:13-15, and later in Matt 2:19:23 that of Is 11:1.
Secondly, when we read this passage we realise that the stories in chapter 2 are quite independent, with continuance of chapter 1. It speaks of Herod’s atrocious act of killing leads the holy family to move out the land of Egypt and their return to Nazareth after the death of Herod and the rule of Archelaus, and recording their residing in Nazareth of Galilee.
“This narrative is in the genre of Midrashic Haggaddi. This narrative holds great theological significance which is related to the OT texts not simply in quotations but also the indirect dependence on the story of Moses”[1] much of the narrative indeed can be perceived as a Christian midrash on the biblical narrative of Moses’ birth and may have been influenced by the Jewish midrash in the same narrative.
It is interesting to see here that the portrayal of this act is not regarded as an evil event but rather an event that God was mindful about. There are various reason to support this; if suppose God would have intimidated the whole village about the massacre and all would have escaped but for sure Herod would have become more suspicious about the birth and made this massacre bigger than what we can imagine of, maybe God wanted to keep it as low as possible so that the saviour would be safe and will save the entire humankind.
Social Setting
The later part of the 16th verse gives us a clue of the place at which the execution of the babies could have taken place. ‘…in Bethlehem and throughout the whole district...’ Therefore it was not only Bethlehem but also the surrounding villages- all that were in the neighbourhood. We do not know how big Bethlehem was at that time, having said that the population ranges from 1500-2000 members, we for sure know that it is not a very big village. For a village of this many people the infancy rate was about 30-40 children per year and boy children were about 20-30 or even less.
Exegesis
16v. The verse starts with the magi deceiving Herod and that Herod’s anger and cruelty in seen here, as he wants to eliminate whom he fears would challenge his power. Herod is known for his cruel and brutal orders of killing, which include the killing of his wife and 2 sons. In this verse he gives orders to kill the infant boys as he fears the saviour was a male child. And he orders for the killing of the 2yr olds as we can take that this was the time taken for Herod to realise that the Magi had ‘Mocked’, ‘Deceived’ him, with that anger he gave the order to kill the infants.
The historian of that time Josephus does not write of the event in his work, the scholar suggest that the reasons could be that, because he was a Jew and he did not want to write of the Christian truth, or maybe he thought that this killing act of Herod was no where comparable with his other atrocious killings, and that this could be very small when compared with all the other killings, or maybe Herod could have done this secretly without informing Josephus. The number of infants could roughly range from 20-30 or even less, but some scholars suggest that it could even be 144,000 which are spoken of in Revelation, but this cannot be accepted as if the number was to be this big, other writers must have mentioned about this event or at least hinted about it.
17-18v. This is the citation of the fulfilment of the prophecy of Jeremiah 31:15. It looks as if it were given as an expression of the lament of the massacre of the children, but here Matthew gives it deeper meaning to it, Rachel weeping for “her Children” refer to the Israelites. “For Matthew, Israel is the source and sign of the new people of God, the messiah who emerges from Israel, takes upon himself the ancient lot (Babylonian Captivity) as well as inaugurating a new one similar to it.”[2]
Reflection
This particular story of the massacre create a wide range of questions in our mind as to why God intended to kill all the other children in the village and sparing juts one child. But Matthew in his narrative makes it clear that the god intervention was very much present and it was not just about seeing this incident in human eyes, but in that of the eschatological perspective, where this child that was saved would one day bring salvation to human kind. But we can see that the highlighted point here is the misuse of office by Herod, who for his own selfishness and want of the throne kills the babies, whom he feared would one day threaten his throne.
In today’s context we see that there are a lot of people, who are in power, go to extremes to safe guard their seat or throne or to maintain their own comfort zones. For example in India the political leaders bring in plans of urbanization of the rural areas by building all kinds of buildings and taking away the land from the farmers and the economically poor, this in turn leaves them and their family without a place for their survival. But the survival for these poor people is made even harder with the price hike of the commodities therefore ending in the death, in which the children are also hit.
If we had to compare this misuse of power to the urban context, it is sure to hit us back. The children are burdened so much these days. We the elders want our children to learn so much that we push them for all kinds of coaching classes, tuitions, music class, karate class, etc. but we fail to understand that the child has a childhood to live and enjoy, but the eyes are closed with our seeing of the future and for our own selfishness. In this place we misuse our power by killing the children’s childhood, which they will never get back in their lives again.
We cannot say that urbanization and teaching is bad, but it is necessary that we look back on our motives and also think in other perspectives, so that our decisions would not diminish the life of the ones in the receiving end. It is left unto us to decide if we want to be modern Herods or think wisely and give orders.
Bibliography
Craig L. Blomberg. The New American Commentary: Matthew; Broadman Press, Nashville Tennessee 1992
Donald A. Hagner, Word Biblical Commentary; Word books, Publisher, Dallas Texas (1993)
Donald Senior. Matthew; Abingdon Press, Nashville 1998
Francis B. Wright. The Gospel according to Matthew; Harper & Row, Publishers, San Francisco, 1981
Raymond E. Brown. The Birth of the Messiah; Doubleday & Company, inc. Garden City, New York, 1977.
Rudolf Schnackenburg. The Gospel of Matthew; translated by Robert. Barr; William B. Eerdmans, Publishing Company, Michigan/Cambridge U.K. 2002
Sherman E. Johnson The Interpreters Bible; Abingdon Cokesbury Press, Nashville
Tom Wright. Matthew for Everyone; Westminster John Knox Press, 2004
Warren Carter. Matthew and the Margins; Theological Publications in India, 2007
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