GS 013 Joseph Dreaming, Rachel Weeping

The angel warns Joseph, “Get up, take the boy and his mother, and escape to Egypt. Stay there till I bring you word: Herod’s looking for the child to destroy him.” Joseph gets up, takes Jesus and Mary, and escapes during the night to Egypt, where they remain until Herod’s death; in this way he makes true Hosea’s prophecy, “When Israel was a child I loved him, and called by son out of Egypt.” When Herod is told that the astrologers have left Judea he’s enraged. Deciding from his talk with them that the child must be less than two years old, he sends his men into Bethlehem and the surrounding country and orders them to kill every boy two years old or younger; thus he makes true Jeremiah’s prophecy, “A voice was heard in Ramah—lamenting, bitter weeping; Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted, for her children were no more.”