Joseph’s Second Dream: The Slaughter of the Innocents

After the Birth of the Messiah, a second angelic dream warns Joseph to flee to Egypt with Mary and the Christ Child as Herod orders a slaughter of the Innocents.

December 28, 2022 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

Editor’s Note: The following is the second of a special two-part Biblical Christmas Season post. Part one, which appeared here two weeks ago was “Joseph’s Dream and the Birth of the Messiah.”

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In the proclamation of the Gospel Matthew (2:13-18) on the day this is posted, the Church recalls in just six verses an account of the Visit of the Magi, Joseph’s second dream of an Angel of the Lord, the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt, and the wrath of Herod as he orders the slaughter of all male children under two years of age in and around Bethlehem. As a priest, I have read this account over forty-one consecutive Christmas seasons, but never before was it overshadowed by such tragic realism.

Our safe, emotional buffer zone from that 2,000 year old account is gone now. The sense of personal distance is lost. A dark cloud still hangs over America since the shocking and senseless deaths of 19 young children in a small Texas city called Uvalde. I first wrote of this midway through the year in June, 2022 in “Tragedy at Uvalde, Texas: When God and Men Were Missing.”

A lot of soul searching has gone into a quest for what could have spawned such a horrific event, how it developed, how it might have been prevented, and what should have been done differently by responding police. The tragedy was devastating. I can only imagine the heartache of the parents of Uvalde as they faced this Christmas with broken hearts and shattered dreams.

Then it happened again — this time in Thailand, and this time the killer was not a crazed teenager, but a drug addicted police officer. The story devastated the Kingdom of Thailand. On October 6, 2022 the recently fired police officer brought a 9mm handgun and a knife into a preschool daycare center in the village of Uthai Sawan. It was near where Pornchai Moontri lived as a small child. With no known motive, the former officer murdered 24 children ages two to five. Then he killed his wife and his own child before turning his gun on himself.

I could not bring myself to write that story, but Pornchai Moontri bravely took it up. Several readers told me that they did not read it because they knew it would be terribly painful. It was and still is. But there is much more to it than sorrow. There is hope there as well. “Elephants and Men and Tragedy in Thailand” was Pornchai’s faith-filled gift to his Homeland and to us. It is a most unusual post that I highly recommend. We will link to it again at the end of this one.

The Magi Take the Long Way Home

I am painfully aware that on the day this is posted, the Church honors those first Christian Martyrs, the innocent male children of Bethlehem who were subjected to the selfish wrath of King Herod. They became collateral damage in the first demonic attempt to rid the world of Christ. The explosive account is told with blunt force in the Gospel According to Matthew:

“Now when the Wise Men had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Rise! Take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him.’

“And Joseph arose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the Prophet: ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.’ When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the Wise Men, he was in a furious rage. He sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and all that region who were two years old and under according to the time which he had ascertained from the Wise Men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the Prophet Jeremiah:

“‘A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children, she refused to be consoled, because they were no more.’”

— Matthew 2:13-20

In the first installment of this two-part post, I described the unique attributes of Joseph’s three dreams in Matthew’s account of the Birth of the Messiah. Dreams are an important element of the story. As I wrote in “Joseph’s Dream and the Birth of the Messiah”:

“There are 126 references to dreams among the characters of Sacred Scripture. Some of the pivotal moments in Salvation History were set in motion through dreams. But the dreams of Joseph are unique in the Biblical literature. In the original Greek of St. Matthew’s Gospel, the term used for Joseph’s three dreams about the birth of Jesus is ‘onar,’ and it is used nowhere else in Sacred Scripture but here.

“‘Onar’ in Greek refers not just to a dream, but to a divine intervention in human affairs. Coupled with the fact that the dream is induced by an “Angel of the Lord,” then the scene takes on a sense of great urgency when compared with a multitude of other angelic messages conveyed through dreams.”

In this second of Joseph’s dreams, the urgent intervention is God’s foresight that Herod is enraged, believing that he was tricked by the Magi. Herod plots to kill the child. He had asked the Magi to return from Bethlehem to reveal the location of this Christ-child with a false promise that he, too, would pay him homage. After a dream premonition not to return to Herod, the Magi left by another route. I wrote about the Magi in a popular Christmas post linked again at the end of this one: “Upon a Midnight Not So Clear, Some Wise Men from the East Appear.”

There is an important element of the Magi story that I omitted when I first wrote that post. The Magi were traditionally associated with astrologers and astral religion, a fact seen as scandalous to some early Christians who did not want to accept this aspect of Matthew’s account. In later Christian tradition, they became not Magi, but kings, a likely reflection on Psalm 72:10 — “May the kings of Tarshish and of the Isles bring him tribute, may the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts.”

The Star of Bethlehem is a popular element of the story, but it, too, was a scandal among some in the early Church. Some of the people of the Ancient Near East were drawn to astral religion because it brought a sense of surety in the midst of social chaos. But over time, astrology became oppressive, making people feel hopeless against the tyranny of “fate” when their destinies seemed dictated by the cold movement of the stars.

In contrast, however, the Star of Bethlehem served only God’s purpose. That, and the presence of astrologers who came to worship Christ, broke the power of astral religion and its belief in fate. But history repeats itself. As our culture again becomes socially chaotic, many are once again drawn into nature religions such as astrology, Wicca, and druidism for a false sense of determinism guided by practitioners claiming to interpret and control destiny. I recently saw a TV commercial selling fifteen minute intervals with a California seer. G.K. Chesterton once famously said that people without faith do not believe in nothing. They believe in anything.

Tragedy in Thailand | Photo courtesy of Reuters

Herod and the Slaughter of the Innocents

There are four rulers named Herod appearing in New Testament Scripture: Herod the Great reigned in Palestine from 37 B.C. until shortly after the Birth of Jesus. His son, Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee, ordered the beheading of John the Baptist (Matthew 14) and sent Jesus to trial before Pilate (Luke 23:7-15). His son, Herod Agrippa, imprisoned the Apostle Peter (Acts 12); and his son, Herod Agrippa II, attended the trial of Saint Paul (Acts 25:13).

Herod the Great was part of a non-Jewish Edomite family from a territory east and south of the Dead Sea. They were descendants of Esau, the elder brother of Jacob (Genesis 25:30). Herod was given the title, “King of the Jews” by the Roman Senate and ruled Palestine from 37 to 4 B.C. as a vassal king appointed by Caesar Augustus. Centuries-old adjustments to the Roman calendar place the birth of Jesus near the end of Herod’s life between six and four B.C.

Herod the Great (“Great” by Roman standards only) appears in Scripture only during the events surrounding the birth of Jesus (Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1:5). He ruled Palestine with brutality and paranoia. It is ironic that Herod took such violent steps to end the life of Jesus just prior to the undocumented end of his own life. He took great umbrage at the Magi’s revelation that the Star of Bethlehem was an omen for one who is born King of the Jews, a title Rome had bestowed upon Herod.

But Herod’s paranoia ran deeper than that. The Star of Bethlehem innocently described by the Magi recalled for Herod and his Hebrew advisors the ancient Fourth Oracle of Balaam in the Book of Numbers. The oracle predicted a future messiah and the end of Edom’s power. From the Oracle of Balaam (Numbers 24:17-19):

“I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel. It shall crush the borderlands of Moab, and the territory of all the Shethites. Edom will become a possession of its enemies, while Israel thrives valiantly. One out of Jacob shall rule.”

Being a descendant of the Edomites, Herod “was greatly troubled” (Matthew 2:3). So he summoned the Magi to ascertain exactly when the Star appeared. He sent them on to Bethlehem after securing a promise that they would return with the exact location of this newborn Child-King. When the Magi failed to return, Herod flew into a rage. He ordered his forces to find and kill all male children under two years of age in Bethlehem.

This event also has an echo from a much older time in Salvation History. Jesus is presented as the New Moses, one who will lead God’s people out of bondage. The first Moses led Israel from the bondage of slavery in Egypt, but Pharaoh was immovable until the Tenth Plague struck down the firstborn sons of Pharaoh and all of Egypt (Exodus 12:29-31).

The Evangelist, Matthew, captures with a quote from the Prophet Jeremiah the devastation that Herod left behind. In the Eighth Century B.C. the Assyrians devastated Northern Israel when their army swept through the city of Ramah about five miles north of Jerusalem. Ramah became equated with Israel’s great depth of sorrow left behind by the evil of tyranny. So it is of Ramah that is recalled in the face of Herod’s evil:

“A voice heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children. She refused to be consoled because her children were no more.”

— Matthew 2:18 and Jeremiah 3:15

Jesus, the New Moses would lead God’s People from the bondage of sin and death. Herod believed that the murder of the Children of Bethlehem was the last word, but it was not the last word. Then Herod the Great somehow became Herod the Dead. Scripture does not describe how, when, or where. God knows. The narrative of the Birth of the Messiah ends with the third dream of Joseph from an Angel of the Lord:

“Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s life are dead. And [Joseph] rose and took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Herod’s son reigned in his place, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee. And he went and dwelt in a city called Nazareth.”

— Matthew 2:19-23

Thus concludes Matthew’s account of the Birth of the Messiah. It was not the end of tyranny, but it was the beginning of all hope.

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Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae: Please share this post. You may also like these related posts cited here:

Joseph’s Dream and the Birth of the Messiah

Tragedy at Uvalde, Texas: When God and Men were Missing

Elephants and Men and Tragedy in Thailand

Upon a Midnight Not So Clear, Some Wise Men from the East Appear

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One of our Patron Saints, Saint Maximilian Kolbe, founded a religious site in his native Poland called Niepokalanowa. Today the Chapel has a real-time live feed for a most beautiful adoration chapel where people around the world can spend time in Eucharistic Adoration. We invite you to come and spend some quiet time this Christmas celebrating the rebirth of the Messiah in your own life.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

As you can see the monstrance for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is most unusual. It is an irony that all of you can see it but I cannot. So please remember me while you are there. For an understanding of the theology behind this particular monstrance of the Immaculata, see my post “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Joseph’s Dream and the Birth of the Messiah

Saint Joseph is silent in the Gospel account of the Birth of the Messiah, but his actions reveal him as a paradigm of spiritual fatherhood and sacrificial love.

At Christmas by Fr. Gordon MacRae

I wrote a post similar to this one during Advent in 2016. At the time I wrote it, I had been living in dire straits with eight prisoners to a cell. Daily life there was chaotic and draconian. The word “draconian” refers to a set of punishing conditions notorious for their severity and heavy-handed oppression. The word was derived from Draco, a Seventh Century B.C. politician who codified the laws of Athens to severely oppress the rights and liberties of its citizens.

Pornchai Moontri was living in that same setting with me, though neither of us had said or done anything to bring it about. It was simply a bureaucratic development that we were told would last for only a few weeks. One year later, we were both still there. Later in 2017 we were finally moved to a saner, safer place, but that Advent and Christmas in 2016 are etched in my mind as a painful trial, with but one bright exception.

Many of our friends were also thrust into that same situation, living eight to a cell in a block of 96 men seemingly always on the verge of rage. I was recently talking with a friend who was there with us then. He said that what he recalls most from the experience was how Pornchai and I went from cell to cell on our first night there to be sure our friends were okay. And what he recalled most about Christmas Eve in that awful setting was Pornchai setting up a makeshift workspace in our cell to make Thai wraps for all the other prisoners on the block.

Over the previous week in visits to the commissary, I stocked up extra tortilla wraps and ingredients. Our friends helped with distribution as Pornchai undertook his first-ever fast food job. The hardcore “lifers” around us were amazed. Nothing like this had ever happened here before. Just weeks earlier, Donald Trump was elected President. He announced a policy that foreign migrants seeking to stay in the United States would first be sent to Mexico to await processing. While the entire cellblock was eating Thai wraps, Pornchai announced to loud cheers that they are henceforth to be called “Thai Burritos.”

It was in that inhumane setting that I first wrote the story of Joseph’s Dream and the Birth of the Messiah described in the Gospel according to St. Matthew (1:18-24). It was the Gospel for the Fourth Sunday of Advent in 2016. When I went back to look at my 2016 post on that Gospel passage about Joseph’s dream, I thought it reflected too much the conditions in which it was written. So instead of restoring it, I decided to write it anew.

The People Who Walked in Darkness

The Gospel of Matthew begins with “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham.” (Matthew 1:1). Many have pointed out some differences between the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew’s account and that found in the Gospel of Luke (3:23-38). They are remarkably similar in the generations from Abraham to King David, but from David to Jesus they diverge. This is because Matthew traces the genealogy of Jesus forward from Abraham through King David to Jesus in the line of Joseph who connects to Jesus by adoption, the same manner in which we now call God “Our Father.”

The genealogy in Luke, on the other hand, begins with Mary and runs backward through David to Abraham and then to Adam. It is a fine point that I have made in several reflections on Sacred Scripture that we today find ourselves in a unique time in Salvation History. Abraham first encountered God in the 21st Century before the Birth of Christ. We encounter God in the 21st Century after. At the center of all things stands Jesus whose Cross shattered a barrier to “To the Kingdom of Heaven through a Narrow Gate.”

That both genealogies pass through David is highly significant. This is expressed in the first reading from Isaiah (9:1-6) in the Vigil Mass for the Nativity of the Lord on Christmas Eve:

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom, a light has shone. You have brought them abundant joy and great rejoicing... For the yoke that burdened them, the pole on their shoulder, and the rod of their taskmaster you have smashed as on the day of Midian.... For a child is born to us, a son is given us; upon his shoulder dominion rests. They call him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father Forever, Prince of Peace. His dominion is vast and ever peaceful from David’s throne and over his kingdom which he confirms and sustains by judgment and justice now and forever.”

— Isaiah 9:1-6

The differences in the genealogy accounts are a testament to their authenticity. Matthew stresses the Davidic kingship of Jesus over Israel by adoption through Joseph mirroring our adoption as heirs to the Kingdom. Luke, by tracing the ancestry of Jesus through Mary all the way back to Adam, stresses a theological rather than historical truth: the Lordship of Jesus over sin and grace and our redemption from the Fall of Man — a Savior born to us through Mary.

The Birth of the Messiah

What initially struck me in Saint Matthew’s account of the Birth of Jesus is its language inferring the sanctity of life. Having just passed though a disappointing national election in America in which the right to life was center stage, we heard a lot of talk about fetal heartbeats, viability, and reproductive rights. Our culture’s turning away from life is also a turning away from God. The fact that many nominally Catholic politicians lend their voices and votes to that turning away is a betrayal of Biblical proportions. In the Story of God and human beings, we have been here before. Planned Parenthood is our culture’s Temple to Baal.

The Gospel passages about the Birth of the Messiah clearly establish a framework for the value Sacred Scripture places on human life. Mary is never described as simply pregnant, or in a pre-natal state, or carrying a fetus. She is, without exception from the moment of the Annunciation, declared to be “with child.” But it was not all without politics, obstacles, and suspicions, and fears of finger-pointing to discredit her fidelity. The story begins with Matthew 1:18-19 and Joseph pondering how best to protect Mary from the scandal that was surely to come.

“Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit. Her husband, Joseph, being a just man unwilling to expose her to disgrace, resolved to send her away quietly.”

— Matthew 1:18-19

I am struck by the fact that in the Gospel, Mary never attempted to explain any of this to Joseph. What would she have said? “An angel appeared to me, said some very strange things, and when he left I was with child?” Would Joseph have just accepted that without question? Would you? The story’s authenticity is in its human response: “Joseph being a just man unwilling to expose her to disgrace, resolved to send her away quietly.” (Matthew 1:19)

It is important to understand the nuance here. What made Joseph and any Jewish man, a “just” man in the eyes of the Jews — and in the eyes of the Jewish-Christian Evangelist, Matthew — is his obedience to the Law of Moses which required a quiet divorce. Early Church traditions proposed three theories about why Joseph became resolved to send Mary away quietly.

The first is the “suspicion” theory, the weakest argument of the three but one held by no less than Saint Augustine himself in the early Fourth Century. The theory presents that Joseph, like what most men of his time (or any time) might do, initially suspected Mary of being unfaithful in their betrothal, and thus felt compelled to invoke the law of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 to impose a bill of divorce because he had found something objectionable about her.

In that theory, Joseph clings to his decision until an Angel of the Lord sets him straight in a dream. However the theory entirely overlooks the first motive ascribed to Joseph in the Gospel: that of being a just man “unwilling to expose her to disgrace.” (Matthew 1:19)

The second theory is the “perplexity” theory proposed by Saint Jerome also in the early Fourth Century. In this, Joseph could not bring himself to suspect Mary of infidelity so the matter left him in perplexity. He thus decided to quietly send her away to protect her. According to this theory, his dream from the Angel of the Lord redirected his path with confirmation of what he might already have suspected. This theory was widely held in medieval times.

The third is the “reverence” theory. It proposed that Joseph knew all along of the divine origin of the child in Mary’s womb, but considered himself to be unworthy of her and of having any role in the life of this child. He thus decided to send her away to protect the divine secret from any exposure to the letter of the law. This theory was held by Saint Thomas Aquinas in the Thirteenth Century.

But I have a fourth theory of my own. It is called Love. Sacrificial Love. But first, back to Joseph’s dream.

The Angel of the Lord

“As [Joseph] considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: ‘Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called, Emmanuel (which means ‘God with us’). When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him. He took Mary as his wife, but he knew her not until she had borne a son, and he called his name Jesus.”

— Matthew 1:18-24

There is a lot to be unpacked from this passage. This account represents the first of three dreams experienced by Joseph in which he was instructed by an “Angel of the Lord” to undertake specific action relative to his pivotal role in the lives of Mary and Jesus. The method of delivery for each message is not just some rank and file angel — though that would certainly have sufficed — but rather an “Angel of the Lord.” The title appears only a rare few times in the Hebrew Scriptures and only four times in the New Testament: Once in Acts of the Apostles and three times in the Gospel of Matthew, and only in reference to Joseph’s dreams about the Birth of the Messiah.

There are 126 references to dreams among the characters of Sacred Scripture. Some of the pivotal moments in Salvation History were set in motion through dreams. In the original Greek of St. Matthew’s Gospel, the term used for Joseph’s three dreams about the birth of Jesus is ‘onar,’ and it is used nowhere else in Sacred Scripture but here. It refers not just to a dream, but to a divine intervention in human affairs.

Coupled with the fact that the dream is induced by an “Angel of the Lord,” the scene takes on a sense of great urgency when compared with other angelic messages. The urgency is related to Joseph’s pondering about what is best for Mary, a pondering that could unintentionally thwart God’s redemptive plan for the souls of all humankind.

There are many parallels in this account with events in the life of the Old Testament Joseph. Both had the same name. Both were essential to Salvation History. Both were in the line of King David — one looking forward and the other backward. Both were the sons of a father named Jacob. Both brought their families to safety in a flight to Egypt. God spoke to both through dreams.

The task of the Angel of the Lord is to redirect Joseph’s decision regardless of what motivated it. The divine urgency is to preserve the symbolic value of King David’s lineage being passed on to Jesus by Joseph’s adoption. The symbolism is immensely powerful. This adoption, and the establishment of kingship in the line of David in the human realm, also reflects the establishment of God’s adoption of us in the spiritual realm.

Remember that the title, “King of the Jews” is one of the charges for which Jesus faced the rejection of Israel and the merciless justice of Rome. There is great irony in this. Through the Cross, Jesus ratifies the adoption between God and us. Mocked as “King of the Jews,” He becomes for all eternity Christ the King and we become the adopted heirs of His Kingdom. It is difficult to imagine the Child born in Bethlehem impaled upon the Cross at Golgotha, but He left this world as innocent as when he entered it. His crucified innocence won for us an inheritance beyond measure.

And Saint Joseph won for us an eternal model for the sacrificial love of fatherhood.

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Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae: This was Part 1 of a special two-part Christmas post based on Sacred Scripture. Part 2 is:

Joseph’s Second Dream: The Slaughter of the Innocents.

Thank you for reading and sharing this post which is now added to our Library Category, Sacred Scripture.

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