Even if Matthew’s genealogy is understandably omitted from the readings at our Christmas services, the list will undoubtedly include other portions from the rest of Matthew 1–2, for they are among the most familiar of Jesus’ infancy stories. Matthew weaves together five scenes from the conception, birth and early childhood of Jesus. And then, perhaps for the benefit of those who missed the point of his genealogy (or more likely skipped it altogether), he ties each of those five scenes to a quotation from the Hebrew Scriptures that, he claims, has been “fulfilled” by the event described.

Five scenes from Jesus’ childhood. The five scenes and their scriptural links are as follows:

1. 1. The assurance to Joseph concerning the child conceived in Mary: Matthew 1:18-25 “to fulfill” Isaiah 7:14, which was the Immanuel sign given by Isaiah to King Ahaz.

2. 2. The fact that Jesus was born in Bethlehem: Matthew 2:1-12 “to fulfill” Micah 5:2, in which it is prophesied that a ruler of Israel will come from Bethlehem.

3. 3. The escape to Egypt, and then the return from there: Matthew 2:13-15 “to fulfill” Hosea 11:1, which is a reference to God having brought Israel, his son, out of Egypt at the exodus.

4. 4. The murder by Herod of the boys in Bethlehem: Matthew 2:16-18 “to fulfill” Jeremiah 31:15, which is a lament for the Israelites who were going into exile.

5. 5. The settlement of Jesus’ family in Nazareth: Matthew 2:19-23 “to fulfill” “the prophets,” which is a bit of a puzzle because there is no text that says exactly what Matthew records here. It seems to be a reflection of several possible allusions, which needn’t detain us here.

The five scenes thus cover the early life of Jesus, from conception through his birth in Bethlehem and his temporary stay in Egypt up to his settling in Nazareth. And in all of it Matthew sees Old Testament reflections. By repeated use of the fulfillment phrase, Matthew clearly wants his readers to see that Jesus was not only the completion of the Old Testament story at a historical level, as his genealogy portrays, but also that he was in a deeper sense its fulfillment. This gives us another way of looking at the Old Testament in relation to Jesus. Not only does the Old Testament tell the story that Jesus completes, it also declares the promise that Jesus fulfills.

A destination is not just the end of a journey; it is also the point of a journey. We can ask about any journey not only the question, “Where are you going?” but also, “Why are you going there?” The journey is undertaken because of some purpose or commitment, which is fulfilled when the journey reaches its destination. Or the journey may be undertaken because of some invitation and promise that the person on the journey had received earlier. In the Old Testament journey, God had declared his purpose and made his promise. He had made them known in all kinds of ways to and through Israel—especially in the prophets. God’s purpose or commitment was then fulfilled in the arrival of this child, Jesus. And through his five Old Testament quotations in quick succession, Matthew makes sure we don’t miss the point.

Now some people get a bit suspicious over what Matthew does here. Is he not just “prooftexting”?—that is, just matching up a few Old Testament predictions with some stories that seem to fit them. Or is it even worse: according to some, that Matthew has invented stories about Jesus to make the Old Testament predictions “come true”? This idea that the infancy narratives are pious fiction, produced by a Scripture-fired imagination, has become quite popular in some quarters, but it really does not stand up to the evidence. There are two solid objections.

First of all, why did Matthew pick such obscure texts? If his purpose was to start from Messianic prophecies and create stories to fulfill them, there are any number of texts that, already in Matthew’s day, were far better known and much more detailed regarding the coming Messiah. Any of them could have produced good narratives, if the “facts” could simply be invented.

Second, it is clearly mistaken to say that the narratives Matthew tells are fulfillments of Old Testament predictions, because only one of the texts he quotes is in fact a recognized Messianic prediction at all, and that is Micah 5:2, predicting that the future king would be born in Bethlehem. The others were not primarily predictions at all. The “Immanuel” prophecy was a sign given to King Ahaz in his own historical context, not (originally) a long-range prediction. In any case it would be odd as a straight prediction, since the child was actually given the name Jesus, not Immanuel—a fact that hardly escaped Matthew’s notice, so he cannot have regarded his story as a neat prediction-fulfillment. Hosea 11:1 was not a prediction but a past reference to the exodus, when God had brought his son Israel out of Egypt. Jeremiah 31:15 is a figurative picture of the mourning of Rachel at the time of the exile of her descendants in 587 B.C. after the fall of Jerusalem. It was not predictive and had nothing to do with the Messiah in its context. The concluding comment related to Nazareth is so obscure that no one is completely sure what texts Matthew had in mind. That is hardly compatible with the view that Matthew was making up stories to fulfill well-known Messianic predictions.

It seems altogether much more probable that Matthew is doing exactly what he says—working back from actual events that happened in the early life of Jesus to certain Hebrew Scriptures in which he now sees a deeper significance than they could have had before. It was the events in the life of infant Jesus that suggested the Scriptures, not the other way around. And since the Scriptures are not obvious predictions of the events recorded, Matthew must have meant more by his affirmation that the Scriptures were being fulfilled by Jesus than just that predictions had come true. But then, a promise is much more than a prediction, as we shall discuss shortly.

Geography and history. So then, what was Matthew’s intention in his choice of Scriptures to punctuate his narrative? Probably there is more than one level of meaning in his mind. On the surface, the passages “accompany” Jesus in a geographical sense. That is, they are linked up to the fact that the Messiah, born in Bethlehem, ended up in Nazareth after a stay in Egypt. This in itself was probably a form of explanation as to why the person whom Christians claimed was the Messiah had come from Nazareth (not a good place to come from). This was a point of conflict between Christians and Jews that went back to the days of Jesus himself (cf. Jn 1:46; 7:41-43). Matthew is pointing out that Jesus was actually born in Bethlehem and that this fact fitted in with the Scriptures. So his point is that the prophet Jesus of Nazareth could legitimately be claimed as the Messiah because not only had he actually been born in Bethlehem (as the Scriptures foretold), but also the movements by which he ended up a resident of Galilee were also consistent with the fulfillment of Scripture. This Scripture-fulfillment motif in the infancy narratives serves the same purpose as the genealogy in Matthew 1:1-17. They both portray Jesus as the Messiah, the completion of a story and the fulfillment of a promise.

But even in this geographical dimension there lies a deeper significance to be picked up by those with a little more awareness of the Scriptures. There is, in fact, rather a lot of geography in Matthew 2–4. Either by his travels or by his reputation Jesus had an effective ministry that spans the whole of the classical area of ancient Israel—particularly the boundaries of the old Davidic kingdom (note especially the places referred to in Dan 4:24-25). The one who was the son of King David has a ministry as wide as the kingdom of David itself. The focal point of that ministry in the region of Galilee is further vindicated by Scripture when Matthew quotes from Isaiah 9:1-2 (Mt 4:13-16). Isaiah 9:1-7 is one of the outstanding Messianic and Davidic prophecies in the whole Old Testament. And it begins with referring to Galilee:

So, the point of the history lesson in the genealogy of chapter 1 is corroborated by the geography lesson in chapters 2–4. “Great David’s greater Son” is claiming his kingdom.

The genealogy, however, has a wider scope than David, as we saw in our first chapter. There is the universal scope connected with Abraham, and the inclusion of Gentiles among the female ancestors of Jesus. This historical dimension also has its geographical counterpart in what follows. Foreigners enter the story.

After the birth of Jesus, the first story Matthew recounts is the visit of “Magi from the east”; and the second is the visit of Jesus himself to Egypt, in the west. The stories thus...