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Mat 2:15. Αέγοντος, saying) This must be construed with τοῦ προφήτου, the prophet, and so also in Mat 2:17.-ἐξ Αἰγύπτου ἐκάλεσα τὸν υἱόν Μου, out of Egypt have I called my Son) Thus Hos 11:1, in the original Hebrew, though the LXX. render it, ἐξ Αἰγύπτου μετεκάλεσα τὰ τέκνα αὐτοῦ, out of Egypt have I called for (summoned) his children. Aquila,[96] however, renders it ἀπὸ Αἰγύπτου ἐκάλεσα τὸν υἱὸν Μου, From Egypt have I called [him] My son. The meaning of the passage in Hosea is, “Then when Israel was a child, I loved him: and from the time that he was in Egypt, I called him my son.” This is evident from the parallelism of either clause. And the expression, “from the land of Egypt,” occurs in the same sense in Hos 12:9; Hos 13:4; and from the Egyptian era, Israel began to be called the son of God; see Exo 4:22, etc. And God is always said to have led forth, never to have called, His people out of Egypt. In like manner, St Matthew also. when interpreting the passage of the Messiah, and that, too, of Him when a child, connects the quotation with His sojourn in, rather than His return from, Egypt.-Cf. Isa 19:19. Jesus, from His birth, was the Son of God; and immediately after His nativity, He dwelt in Egypt. It behoved, however, that the Messiah, as well as the people, should return from Egypt into the land of promise, for the same reason, viz., because God loved each of them, and called him His Son. The sojourn of Christ in Egypt was the prelude to the Christianization of that country; see Deu 23:7. In the first ages of Christianity, the Egyptian Church was greatly distinguished: perhaps it will be so again hereafter: cf. Isa 19:24-25. Concerning the double fulfilment of the single meaning of a single prophecy, cf. Gnomon on ch. Mat 1:22. In short, God embraced in one address, as with one love, both the Messiah Himself, in whom is all His good pleasure, and His people for His sake. The Messiah resembles His people in His adversity; His people resembles the Messiah in its prosperity. The head and the body are the whole Christ. Moreover, when His people was in Egypt, Jesus Christ was there also in one of those patriarchs who are enumerated in ch. Mat 1:4.-Cf. Heb 7:10.
[96] A native of Sinope, in Pontus, of Jewish descent, who flourished in the second century of the Christian æra. Having renounced Christianity, he undertook to execute a new translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek.-(I. B.)