The starting point for the journey that Joseph, Mary, and Jesus took down to Egypt is shortly after the end of the wise men’s visit with them, before Herod realized, after a few days or a couple of weeks, that they weren’t coming back to his court as they had promised.

retribution for atrocities like this one that he committed, but in this case it seems that the perpetrator very quickly joined his victims in death and had to answer for his crimes.

An interesting question that also arises is, since Jesus did find shelter as a refugee in Egypt for some length of time, whether He still feels a debt of gratitude to his briefly adopted homeland, and whether this provides an even further incentive for God to want to see justice done for all sides in current Middle Eastern disputes.  Speculative, but intriguing.

But the gospel of Matthew primarily wants us to take away from this episode an appreciation for how Jesus recapitulated the history of Israel in his own life.  The author quotes a historical recollection of the exodus from the book of Hosea, “Out of Egypt I called my son,” and says that through the journey to Egypt Jesus “fulfilled” this Scripture.  That is, he gave it a fuller and deeper meaning in light of the significance of his own life.

This same gospel shows how Jesus recapitulated the history of Israel in several other ways as well, for example, by spending 40 days in the wilderness, where Israel spent 40 years.  Ultimately through his death and resurrection, Jesus inaugurated a “new Israel” composed of those people from every nation who put their faith and trust in him.   The journey to Egypt, though it may well have been relatively brief, is another small signpost pointing in that direction.

A reader has asked this follow-up question: “Which angel told the parents of Jesus to go to Egypt?”

The biblical text does not tell us.  It says simply that “an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream” and warned him that the family needed to flee to Egypt because Jesus’ life was in danger from King Herod.  So we don’t know which angel this was.