Bethlehem as the Messianic Birthplace

0. Introduction

Bethlehem is where King David was born and it is fitting that the King Messiah should have the same birthplace as David. (1 Sam. 17:12) Matthew 2:1-6 claims that Jesus was born in Bethlehem to fulfill Micah 5:2 which prophesied the birth of a certain king in this city. The particular place in question is Ephrathah, five miles south of Jerusalem, not the city of the same name in Galilee. (Joh. 7:41-43) 

1. History of Interpretation

Targum Jonathan acknowledges the birth place of Messiah was to be in this Bethlehem because it renders Gen. 35:21, "And Jacob proceeded and spread his tent beyond the tower of Eder (Heb. Migdal-eder, לְמִגְדַּל־עֵֽדֶר׃) the place from whence, it is to be, the King Messiah will be revealed at the end of the days." One may recall this tower because Rachel was buried on the way to Bethlehem and this is where the tower of Eder was constructed. (Gen. 35:19-21) This is where Jonathan ben Uziel declares the Messiah will be born, if we can accredit this Targum to him properly.

The Sibylline Oracles 8:479 record that "Bethlehem was said to be the divinely named homeland of the Logos." It was prophesied in Micah chapter 5 that the King Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, the city of David. Pirqé de R. Eliez. c. 3:4, applies Micah 5:3 to the Messiah, 

"That was also taught in a baraita: Persia is destined to fall into the hands of Rome. One reason is that they destroyed synagogues. And furthermore, it is the King’s decree that the builders will fall into the hands of the destroyers, as Rav Yehuda said that Rav said: The son of David will come only when the wicked kingdom of Rome spreads its dominance throughout the world for nine months, as it is stated: "Therefore He will give them up until she who is to bear has borne; then the remnants of his brethren will return with the children of Israel." [Micah 5:3]. The duration of Rome’s rule over the world will be the duration of a pregnancy, nine months." (Yoma 10a)

Although much of this prediction failed, it suffices to show that Micah chapter 5 was applied Messianically. by the author. It is claimed by Matthew 2:23 that the Messiah is prophesied to have been born not only in Bethlehem of Ephrathah, but raised specifically in the small town of Nazareth. 

"And [Jesus and his family] came and lived in a city called Nazareth. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophets: "He shall be called a Nazarene.""

But to which of the prophets does he refer? It does not seem as though Matthew necessarily has in mind a particular passage of the Hebrew Bible or a specific author for he says "spoken through the prophets," in the plural as if to say, ‘the teaching of the prophets on this matter summarized together.’ The small town of Nazareth did not exist during the days of the prophets who wrote the Tanakh however God is Omniscient and knows all present and future truths. Recall that God prophesied that Cyrus would conquer Babylon before Cyrus was ever born. (Isa. 45:1-3) Therefore, on the same grounds, God could have prophesied regarding a city that does not yet exist. Gill suggested that Matthew likely had Isaiah 11:1 in mind, "a branch shall grow out of his roots," which uses netzer (וְנֵ֖צֶר) from which the name of the city "Nazareth" is derived, Natzrat (נָצְרַת) and may be taken to mean "city of the root." An angel of the Lord was sent to warn Joseph and Mary to flee the slaughter commanded by King Herod. They fled to Egypt and waited there until the death of Herod. Matthew sees a fulfillment of prophecy in their choice to flee to Egypt and later to depart from there. 

"Now when they had gone, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Get up! Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is going to search for the Child to destroy Him." So Joseph got up and took the Child and His mother while it was still night, and left for Egypt. He remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called My Son."" (Matt. 2:13-15)

Matthew makes a quotation from Hosea 11:1 which was not directly a Messianic prophecy but a reference to the flight of Egypt from Israel. This is a typological interpretation, Matthew understands the Messiah as a representative of Israel as a whole and sees parallels between his life and the event of the exodus. We should not be harsh with St. Matthew because of his use of this sort of typology because it is thoroughly Jewish. In Exod. 4:22 we read,

 "Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, "Israel is My son, My first-born." 

This verse is applied to the king Messiah in Midrash Tehillim 2:9 because he represents the nation of Israel in an antitypical sense. This is the same sort of interpretation given by Matthew, where Israel and the Messiah are conflated. The flight of the Messiah from Egypt so closely paralleled the exodus from Egypt in the mind of Matthew that it could be no mere coincidence but a matter of divine providence. There is another prophecy in the Torah which may be understood as prophesying that the Messiah will be brought out of Egypt just as Israel was. In the oracles of Balaam we read, 

"Water will flow from his buckets, and his seed will be by many waters, and his king shall be higher than Agag. And his kingdom shall be exalted. God brings him out of Egypt. He is for him like the horns of the wild ox. He will devour the nations who are his adversaries, And will crush their bones in pieces, And shatter them with his arrows." (Num. 24:7, 8) 

In Targum Jonathan, Num. 24:7 is applied to the ‘King Redeemer’ but what follows in verse 8 is referred again to Israel. It would be equally natural to refer all of Num. 24:7-8 to the Messiah himself and then we would have a direct prophecy of a flight out of Egypt. In either case we have the advent of the Messiah closely associated with the flight out of Egypt in this passage and Matthew does no injustice to Hosea 11:1. 

"When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he became very enraged, and sent and slew all the male children who were in Bethlehem and all its vicinity, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the magi. Then what had been spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: "A voice was heard in Ramah, Weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; And she refused to be comforted, Because they were no more." (Matt. 2:16-18) 

The quotation here is from Jeremiah 31:15 and Rashi rightly recognizes these words as a reference to the suffering of Israel during the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles. The Jewish mothers who suffered the loss of their children are personified as Rachel. The warfare of heathen nations against Israel was barbarous and merciless. Often children were slaughtered rather than taken into slavery. It is fitting that Rachel should personify the suffering of Jewish mothers because her grave was in between Bethlehem and Ramah. This event resembles the needless massacre of Jewish boys conducted by King Herod and so Matthew makes reference to it. The original text in Jeremiah is not a prediction nor is it in the future tense but the resemblance between these two events is too close to be a mere coincidence. Matthew’s reasoning is that God providentially referenced the slaughter of children during the exiles before promising a New Covenant because a similar massacre would occur before the messianic age. The context of the latter part of Jeremiah chapter 31 is the Messianic age when a New Covenant is established between God and Judah. We read of the promise of a new covenant with Israel and Judah. 

""Behold, days are coming," declares the Lord, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them," declares the Lord. "But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the Lord, "I will put My law within them and in their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them," declares the Lord, "for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."" (Jer. 31:31-34) 

This passage is applied to the Messianic age in Yalkut Shimoni 1:78; 1:196; 2:54; 2:66 and signifies the new covenant which the Messiah must establish. [Although Yalkut was compiled in the middle ages it preserves very ancient traditions, many of which span to the time of the Second Temple period if not before.] The Jesus quoted from Jeremiah 31:31 at his last supper and proclaimed that he was about to establish a New Covenant in his own blood. (Matt. 26; Mk. 14; Lk. 22:20; 1Cor. 11:25) It seems Matthew constructed his narrative with this passage in mind, improving upon Mark, and perhaps Luke did the same independently if the Two-Document hypothesis is to be believed.