Introduction

The following text explains the events in which Joseph, Mary and Jesus went to Egypt to escape Jesus being slaughtered:

Matthew 2:15 quotes Hosea's prophecy:

The King James Version and other versions give a different rendering:

The wording difference is major. The literal states, "I called to my son from Egypt." The KJV states, "I called my son out of Egypt."

Many questions arise regarding both texts. I will attempt to answer these questions after I have pointed out numerous issues, each one pertinent to answering them. Please be patient and thoughtful.

The Angel of the Lord

The Name Pele is also found in Isaiah and normally translated Wonderful, though it is a noun and not an adjective. It is a certain name of the Messiah.

The angel of Yehovah sometimes refers to a regular angel:

Since the Holy Spirit is Yehovah and the child is Messiah Yeshua, the angel is a regular spirit-form messenger (an angel) like Michael or Gabriel. Gabriel had done the announcing to Mary that she would be pregnant with Yeshua.

Look further in Matthew 2:13 in order to tell whether this angel is Yehovah, Messiah Yeshua or a regular angel (like Gabriel): "And be thou there until I bring thee word." Yehovah would have said something akin to "And be thou there until I command thee to return" as He did in the following text:

Since the wording is "bring thee word," the angel is a messenger from Yehovah to Joseph who only transports what he has been told.

The Location of the Messenger

This angel spoke to Joseph in a dream in the Land of Israel. Remember this; it will be significant later in this document.

Translation, Copying and Transmission

Translators translate. Copyists copy. Transmitters transmit. Each serves a separate function in the movements of writings from one place to another.

A translator's responsibility is to faithfully translate from one language to another, making certain that the translation is both clear and concise. If the translator is sloppy in translation, the recipient of the translation will gain the wrong idea. This can have terrible consequences.

A copyist's responsibility is to faithfully copy a document so that the copy is almost like viewing the original document. The spelling, spelling errors, word order, etc., must be faithfully copied as if the person is a photocopy machine. Taking undo liberty to correct the original within the copy can lead to disastrous results.

A Transmitter's responsibility is to bring the original from one place to another and one form to another without changing the content of the transmitted copy.

Differences between the Hebrew and the Greek/English

Matthew 2:15 quotes Hosea 11:1, "Out of Egypt have I called my son."This gives the impression that the speaker is calling his son to exit Egypt. Hosea 11:1 states, "And I called to my son from Egypt." From is what out of should have been. "I called my son" should have been "I called to my son." These two changes turn the text's meaning. "I called to my son from Egypt" indicates that the speaker is in Egypt, and is calling to his son. He is calling his son to come to Egypt, not calling his son to leave.

Translators have done great disservice by writing what they thought texts should say instead of what they said. For example, King James Version translators wrote the following:

New American Standard Version translators did no better (but did worse):

The Hebrew of the last statement reads, "And Babylon: thou shalt come!" This indicates that the person to whom the speaker is speaking will come to Babylon, indicating that Yehovah is already there. When Yehovah says "come" He is indicating that He has already arrived in that location. The difference is profound.

The same is true in the text portion I am considering. "Out of Egypt have I called my son" is far different from "I called to my son from Egypt."

Which Son?

Does this son refer to Yeshua, does it refer to Israel, or does it refer to Yeshua at one time and Israel at another time?

I have no reason to conclude that the Hosea text refers to Yeshua, but only to Israel. Yehovah calls Israel His son:

Suppose that I was unsure of Matthew's use of son (in "Out of Egypt have I called my son") so that it might refer to Yeshua. If I didn't know what the Hosea text literally meant, could this be telling me that Yehovah sent His Son Yeshua into Egypt so that He could call His Son out of Egypt in order to fulfill the Hosea prophecy? It could, and that is the problem with sloppy renderings. If the Hosea original is set into the Matthew text (since the Matthew text is a quote from Hosea and from no other text since the phrase in question occurs in no other place in the Bible), this outcome would not be possible. For, "I called to my son from Egypt" could not possibly refer to Yeshua. The only way that it could would be for Yehovah Himself to call to His Son Yeshua from Egypt in the form of a command, and this never occurred. Instead, Yehovah sent an angel in a dream to Joseph in Israel to tell him to take the child to Egypt. Thus, Yehovah didn't call to Yeshua from Egypt. He sent an angel into Israel to speak to Joseph, not Yeshua. Yehovah has never called to Yeshua from the location of Egypt. (If it has occurred and has not been recorded, it is the same as its never having occurred; all prophecies will be openly fulfilled to the same degree of openness as they were prophesied.)

Therefore, the son is Israel, not Yeshua.

That It Might Be Fulfilled

Matthew 2:15 has the phrase, "that is might be fulfilled." Most readers read verse 15 as if it said,

This is not the same, and it is not what the Greek states. The grammar of the verb in it might be fulfilled is an aorist passive subjunctive.

The aorist tense seems to be unconcerned with a event‚s timing; it ignores the past, present and future. Its main concern seems to be the action itself. English has a form that is something like this: "Putting down the ball, he ran home." Putting down in this sentence does not tell when the event occurred, but that it did occur. The same expression can be used in present and future events: "He then trips while putting down the ball." "He will trip while putting down the ball." This is not the same as the Greek aorist tense, but I hope you understand the examples.

The passive voice means that the subject of a sentence‚s verb is subjected to or affected by the action represented by that verb. The alternative is the active voice. The following is passive:

The following expresses the same thing, but is active:

A subjunctive form expresses uncertainty, possibility or a state that is wished but not true. It does not express certainty. For example, "If I were a rich man" is subjunctive. "If you come, I will also come" is subjunctive, because the first coming is not certain.

Subjunctive forms are very commonly used throughout the New Testament. and they don't belong there! Even John 3:16 has a subjunctive where it should have an indicative form (expressing certainty):

Should makes no sense. Shall makes much better sense. I have learned to ignore most of the subjunctives in the New Testament. If I did not ignore them, the Bible would be expressing total uncertainty most of the time. The same is true in the statement under consideration: "that it might be fulfilled". It should at least be, "that it shall be fulfilled" since the words of the prophet Hosea will certainly be fulfilled if the Bible is Truth.

I put all this together to reconsider "that it might be fulfilled," and I found a better way to express it: "in order to be fulfilled".

What is the text declaring? It is declaring that his going to Egypt and being there until the death of Herod was necessary for the fulfilling of the word of Yehovah by the prophet Hosea. (A number of other texts use the same wording translated "that it might be fulfilled," they are showing the same thing: a prophecy that could not be fulfilled until the event being mentioned was first fulfilled.)

Not Returning into Egypt

Returning into Egypt showed violent sin:

An Israeli fearer of Yehovah who knows the Torah will know that returning to Egypt is not an option. Yehovah has forbidden this. He will force some evil Israelis to return to Egypt, but they will find that a deadly banishment. Once Yehovah took the Israelis out of Egypt, the type and picture would be ruined if they returned to live there again. If they return to live, Yehovah will kill them.

Why Did It Have To Be Fulfilled?

The Hosea passage is a Tribulation text. Yehovah will call to His son Israel from Egypt so that Israel that is nearby can escape slaughter just as Messiah escaped slaughter by going to Egypt. Israelis who fear Yehovah and believe that Yeshua was and is the Messiah will understand that fleeing to Egypt to avoid being slaughtered was right for Yeshua, and it is therefore right for them. It is not a violation of the command not to return to Egypt since they are not going there to dwell, but only to escape until they can safely come back to Israel. Yehovah will call to Israel His son; the son will obey. They will realize that if it was right for the Head of the Body, it will be right for the Body. Yehovah will give them an understanding so that they will know that this case is right. Yeshua experienced this so that future Israelis will understand and believe Yehovah's call to Israel from Egypt to come to Egypt temporarily to escape certain slaughter.

Wrap-Up

I had to put all these things together in order to understand one verse. The following is a list of other texts that utilize the wording, "that it might be fulfilled"

Someone will think through each of these and will discover some vital component of the End Times.