Bible Synapse
After Jesus was born, did the family flee to Egypt or go back to Nazareth?
Hard question · The life of Jesus · raised by 5 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
Warned in a dream, Joseph takes the child and his mother to Egypt; after Herod dies they come back and settle in Nazareth.
And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt: And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son. Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not. …
After the days of purification Jesus is presented in the temple; when all was done according to the law, the family returns to Nazareth.
And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord; (As it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord;) And to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, A pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons. And, behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him. And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. And he came by the Spirit into the temple: and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him after the custom of the law, …
The objection
Matthew says that after the wise men left, Joseph fled with Mary and the child to Egypt and stayed there until Herod died. Luke says that once the rites in the temple were finished, about forty days after the birth, the family went back to their own city of Nazareth, and he says nothing about Egypt. Both cannot be what the family did next.
The answer
Neither Gospel claims to record every move the family made, and each tells a different part of the story: Matthew the wise men, Herod’s threat and the flight to Egypt; Luke the shepherds, the circumcision and the presentation in the temple about forty days after the birth (Leviticus 12:2–4). Luke moves straight from the temple to Nazareth: “when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee” (Luke 2:39). That tells what came next in his account, not how soon it followed or what lay in between. He writes the same way at the end of his Gospel, where the ascension follows Easter Day in Luke 24 with no mention of the forty days between them (Acts 1:3).
The usual way of fitting the accounts together is this. The presentation took place in Jerusalem, about six miles from Bethlehem, some weeks after the birth, and the wise men came later, when the family was living in a house at Bethlehem (Matthew 2:11). Herod’s order to kill the boys “from two years old and under” suggests that the star had first appeared some time before (Matthew 2:16). Joseph then fled to Egypt and, after Herod’s death, settled in Nazareth (Matthew 2:22–23), which Luke shows was already their home (Luke 1:26–27; 2:4, 39). On this reading Luke 2:39 simply passes over the time in Egypt, as Matthew Henry and John Gill both explained.
Other answers Christians give
A first return to Nazareth
John Gill allowed that the family may have gone to Nazareth straight after the presentation, as Luke says, and soon come back to Bethlehem, where the wise men found them. Adam Clarke likewise thought that Matthew 2:23 describes a second return to Nazareth. This also fits both Gospels, though it needs a journey that neither of them mentions.
Still open
Christian scholars do not agree on the exact order of events: whether the wise men came before or after the presentation in the temple, and whether the family went to Nazareth in between. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown thought it best to leave the order unsettled. The year of Herod’s death is also debated: most historians place it in 4 BC, while some argue for 1 BC. That affects the dating of Jesus’ birth, but neither date changes how the two Gospels fit together.
From the classic commentators
Luke relates no more concerning them, till they were returned into Galilee; but it appears by St. Matthew’s gospel … that from Jerusalem they returned to Bethlehem, where the wise men of the east found them, and there they continued till they were directed to flee into EgyptMatthew Henry, Commentary on Luke 2 (1706–1721)
It is perhaps best to leave this in the obscurity in which we find it, as the result of two independent, though if we knew all, easily reconcilable narratives.Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary on Luke 2:39 (1871)
Sources
- John Gill, Exposition of the Bible: Luke 2 (1746–1763), at Bible Hub
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on Luke 2 (1810–1826), at Bible Hub
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on Luke 2, at HelloAO