Thayer Thursday – Old Testament ‘Fulfillment’ (part 2)
Chris Thayer is the Director of Discipleship at Good Shepherd Church in Charlotte, NC where he oversees adult life groups and Biblical education. On Thursdays I share his weekly “Thayer’s Thoughts” for small group leaders, which are based on the previous Sunday’s sermon. Click HERE to watch or listen to the accompanying sermon.
Last week I wrote how important it is to go back and read the context of any Old Testament passage that a New Testament author references. When we do this, we see that Matthew is using the word “fulfilled” in a much different manner than many of us typically think of it. Specifically we looked at Hosea 11:1 and how Matthew used that portion of the Old Testament to show how Jesus is embodying Israel; that He, is in some way, becoming the one true Israel. Today, as we remain in Matthew 2, we’re going to look at the context of another of Matthew’s quotations from the Old Testament: Jeremiah 31:15.
Matthew 2:16-18 – When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
“A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.”
Israel’s history was incredibly turbulent. As a nation, if we start with Abraham in 2,000 B.C.: by the time of Jesus, they spent about the same amount of time as a free people as they did an oppressed people. Egypt held them in slavery for four hundred years. Assyria destroyed the Northern Kingdom in 722 B.C. Babylon overthrew Jerusalem and destroyed the temple in 586 B.C. They were then ruled by Persia followed by Greece. Other than a brief one hundred years of self-rule after the Maccabean revolt, they eventually came under oppression from Rome who defeated them and desecrated the temple in 63 B.C. When Jesus was born, they were still under Roman subjugation.
This may sound like boring history, but when we read the Bible, and the Gospel of Matthew in particular: we must recognize how much this history shaped the lives and thoughts of a first century Jew. For hundreds of years the Israelites looked to prophets such as Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah to discover not only why they were under oppression, but also as a source of hope that ultimately God would not forget them but would bring redemption and restoration to His people.
At first glance, the quotation from Jeremiah 31 about weeping and morning over the death of children seems to have a sole correlation to Herod’s obsessive and sick desire to hold onto his reign by killing the babies in Bethlehem. And Matthew absolutely uses Jeremiah 32:15 to point to the mourning that these mothers & families must have gone through because of their deranged ruler’s infanticide. However, remembering what we learned last week (that we should always go back and read the context of any passage of Old Testament Scripture quoted in the New Testament): we see that Matthew also uses this passage to point the attentive listener and reader back to what Israel was waiting for: redemption and deliverance.
Jeremiah was written to the people of Jerusalem before their destruction and dispersion by the Babylonian Empire in 586 B.C. Jeremiah told the people why they are going to be destroyed: their wickedness and idolatry. However, Jeremiah isn’t only a message of destruction and warning, but also contains a spark of hope – a glowing ember that would eventually burst into a great flame. God would not leave His people to their deserved end. He would rescue and redeem them. Jeremiah 31:15 is in the middle of a magnificent section of scripture that tells of this hope. God, through the mouth and pen of Jeremiah, tells His people that their weeping and mourning is not the end. In the midst of this mourning, God would pour out His redemption and deliverance.
Matthew, then, takes this horrific event – and rightly laments its occurrence. However, far from thwarting the plans of the one, true, almighty God – He quotes this section of Jeremiah to also point the hearers of His Gospel to what he will eventually unpack as he writes: God’s redemption is coming. In fact, it’s already here – in the person of Jesus. He’s the one that they had been waiting for, longing for, all along. This baby is going to bring about the redemption of God’s people – even the entire world; a redemption that was foretold 590 years prior!
Chris Thayer
Categories: Biblical Theology, Blog, Hebrew Bible, New Testament, Thayer Thursday