Joseph and Mary Flee to Egypt
Life of Jesus · Draft · BSB
Content revision: 91b87975c5534d9f · No editorial review date recorded
Date: Birth and childhood. A guided comparison of Gospel accounts, not a measured calendar or a claim that every parallel follows the same sequence.
Warned that Herod intends to kill the child, Joseph takes Jesus and Mary to Egypt by night. Matthew relates their stay and eventual departure to Hosea’s language about God’s son.
The family is fleeing violence. Matthew does not identify their Egyptian settlement or route. Hosea originally recalls Israel’s exodus; Matthew applies that scriptural pattern to Jesus.
Primary Scripture
2:13 When the Magi had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up!” he said. “Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the Child to kill Him.”
2:14 So he got up, took the Child and His mother by night, and withdrew to Egypt,
2:15 where he stayed until the death of Herod. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called My Son.”
Related Scripture
Hosea speaks of God’s love for Israel and the calling of his son out of Egypt.
Location evidence
Matthew names Egypt as the refuge but no Egyptian town. The broad shaded area is illustrative and does not certify a traditional itinerary or destination.
Event map marker: Approximate region; [longitude, latitude] = [31, 29.5]. This is a teaching marker, not an exact event venue.
Bethlehem: Identified site. Coordinates [longitude, latitude]: [35.21027, 31.70536]. Classification source: rule.
Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire
Egypt · illustrative region: Approximate region. Coordinates [longitude, latitude]: [31, 29.5]. Classification source: editorial.
Illustrative regional extent: [[29,27],[32.5,31.5]]; not a measured confidence interval.
Gospel setting; extent is an editorial illustration, not a boundary
Gospel setting; extent is an editorial illustration, not a boundary
For the class
What is gained by reading Hosea’s original context alongside Matthew’s use of it?
Interpretation and reuse
Narrative order is a reading arrangement, not a proven chronology. Dates retain their stated uncertainty. An identified locality does not establish the exact venue or prove an event. Region extents and routes are illustrative, not surveyed boundaries or ancient roads. Draft material has not completed editorial review.
Record source: theographic (257)
Record source: editorial
Events and places adapted from Theographic Bible Metadata (github.com/robertrouse/theographic-bible-metadata), CC BY-SA 4.0. This adapted data is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Place coordinates from OpenBible.info Bible Geocoding Data, CC BY 4.0.
Teaching stops, summaries and regional extents are original editorial content of this atlas.
Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain. https://berean.bible/licensing.htm