Saturday, September 16, 2023

G. K. Beale on the Use of Hosea 11:1 in Matthew 2:15

  

There is another rationale for understanding how Matthew can take what applied to the nation in Hosea 11:1 and apply it to the individual Messiah Duane Garrett analyzed the use of Genesis in Hosea and found that repeatedly the prophet alludes to descriptions in Genesis of the individual patriarchs and other significant individuals in Israel’s history. Sometimes these are good portrayals, and sometimes bad. The prophet applies these descriptions to the nation of his day. For example, the iniquity of Israel in the present involves its following the same patterns of disobedience as that of Adam (6:7) or Jacob (12:2-5), and the promise made to the individual Jacob to “make [his] seed as the sand of the sea, which is too great to be numbered” (Gen. 32:12 AT [cf. Gen. 15:5; 22:17, addressed to Abraham]) is not reapplied and addressed directly to the nation Israel:

 

Yet the number of the sons of Israel
Will be like the sand of the sea,
Which cannot be measured or numbered. (Hosea 1:10)

 

Similarly, the valley of Achor, where Achan and his family were taken to be executed for his sin (Josh. 7:24-26), is taken by Hosea and reversed to indicate that God will reverse Israel’s judgment of defeat and exile, and Israel will not be exterminated for its sin but rather will have a hope of redemption (Hosea 2:15). Instead of going from one to the many, as Hosea did, Matthew goes from the many (Israel) to the one (Jesus), but he utilizes the same kind of “one and many” corporate hermeneutical approach to interpreting and applying prior Scripture as did Hosea. (See Garrett, “Ways of God.” See also Bass, “Hosea’s Use of Scripture.”)

 

Therefore, Matthew contrasts Jesus as the “Son” (2:15) with the “son” in Hosea (11:1). The latter, who came out of Egypt, was not obedient and was judged but would be restored (11:2011), whereas the former did what Israel should have done: Jesus came out of Egypt, was perfectly obedient, and did not deserve judgment but suffered it anyway for guilty Israel. Jesus’ obedience and restoration to the land of Israel as God’s Son, the true Israel, meant that those he corporately represented were also considered to be obedient sons, true Israel, and were being restored. Jesus’s work was true Israel began during his ministry and was consummated at this cross and ascension, at which time he became the escalated “true Israel” in glory. However, Matthew 2:15 has focused on Jesus as true Israel during his earthly ministry and not on his ascended status as Israel. (G. K. Beale, Union with the Resurrected Christ: Eschatological New Creation and New Testament Biblical Theology [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2023], 156)