Where did you grow up?

Environment isn’t everything; but it means a lot in the development of a child. Tarzan is proof of that. Whether you lived in a city or the country is significant. In today’s reading, we learn about the early childhood of Jesus.

Matthew 2:19-23

• Herod died (v. 19).

Josephus (Wars of the Jews, Book 1, Chapter 33, Section 5) describes his last days thus:

the distemper seized upon his whole body, and greatly disordered all its parts with various symptoms; for there was a gentle fever upon him, and an intolerable itching over all the surface of his body, and continual pains in his colon, and dropsical turnouts about his feet, and an inflammation of the abdomen, and a putrefaction of his privy member, that produced worms. Besides which he had a difficulty of breathing upon him, and could not breathe but when he sat upright, and had a convulsion of all his members

Not many would say that such a cruel man deserved a less painful death.

• After Herod’s death, Joseph returned to Israel. But because Herod’s son became king (v. 22), Joseph did not return to Judea; instead he moved back to Nazareth in Galilee (v. 23).
• Does Judges 13:5 apply here?

Luke 2:39-40

• Nazareth was their home town. Joseph and Mary settled there (v. 39).
• The child grew, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. God was with him (v. 40).

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