NOTES for Mat 2:13-23
The Angel addressed the warning about danger not to Mary, but to Joseph, to the man and head of the family responsible for making the decision. One often hears the question: why were the other parents in Bethlehem not warned about the coming massacre of the infants? We cannot now find a reliable explanation for this. Perhaps, unlike Joseph, the other fathers of families were unable to hear the warning or dismissed it?
Many centuries earlier Joseph, the son of Jacob, after coming to Egypt, was able to save his family, and with it the whole people, from death by famine. And now a new Joseph goes to Egypt in order to save from terror the One who will become the Savior of humanity. As Moses had to leave Egypt, Joseph had to flee hastily into Egypt, saving himself from a likeness of Pharaoh who had come to reign in the Promised Land.
From the very moment of His birth in a world poisoned by cruelty, and then from the flight into Egypt, Jesus had to share the trials of the earthly path of both the people of Israel and all humanity. And from these first days on earth His way of the cross toward Golgotha begins.