Day 2: Matthew 2

Jesus is the true David & the true Israel who will be rejected

As the wise men come from the East we see the gentiles coming in, but not to Israel or Solomon, but to Jesus. He is the True David king as we see from quote from Micah, the last shepherd king from Bethlehem being King David himself. We also see here in the other quotes Israel being referred to as the Son of God (if you read the Jeremiah passage you see it there too) but here it is applied to Jesus, the True Israel (as we shall see in coming days).

It's also significant to note that the quotes all come from passages that refer to the end of the exile, but word it in an exodus-like way. This fits with the Exodus parallels in this section such as the murder of the babies and the return from Egypt. It could be that Matthew is showing is that the true end to the exile is here as Jesus enters 'Israel' (which no longer exists at this point). What will happen next?

The Nazarene reference is probably referring to his despisedness and rejection as John hints to us that Nazareth does not have a good reputation, we've already seen this as Jesus is forced to flee from the land and cannot return to the place of his birth.