The ‘predictions’ of the Hebrew Scriptures read retrospectively

A common view in churches goes as follows:

• The Hebrew Scriptures has prophets that make predictions about the future.
• They predict Jesus.
• The New Testament fulfills these predictions and verifies the accuracy of the predictive claims.

Let’s observe carefully the intertextual relationship between the NT and the Hebrew Scriptures before we evaluate the view above. Matthew 2:15 claims that a prophecy is ‘fulfilled’ when the Son (Jesus) is called out of Egypt. This is quoted from Hosea 11.1. The reader will notice two things about the text in Hosea:

1. Hosea is referring, in its literary context, to Israel. Not a person, let alone Jesus.
2. The way it is written is clearly not a prediction of the future, rather it is speaking about the past: namely God’s saving grace towards Israel as He led them out of Egypt.

If one expects Matthew to interpret the Hebrew Scriptures as the historical-grammatical prescribes, then one would have little recourse but to accuse Matthew of ‘not reading the Bible in context’. What is happening here then?

Bible scholar Richard Hays, in his book Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness, points out that Matthew wasn’t so much as telling us about a ‘predictive prophecy’ being fulfilled. Rather the Gospel writers were doing something far more interesting.

When Matthew 2 quotes Hosea 11 (which in turn alludes to the saving of Israel from Egypt by God in Exodus), he is treating the Exodus story as a template that can be applied to subsequent historical circumstances that mirror that episode. The Exodus story of God rescuing His people is now read into the story of God rescuing Israel in the person of Messiah Jesus. (p.41). The earlier text does not predict, like a fortune-teller, future events of Jesus the Messiah. It is not necessary for the original author to know that his words would be used in such a manner.

To further explore this, we can turn to Matthew 2:17-18, which subtly quotes Jeremiah 31:15-17:

17 Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
18 “A voice is heard in Ramah,     
weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children     
and refusing to be comforted,     
because they are no more.”

Notice the parallels in the two accounts: Herod’s killing of babies is juxtaposed with Pharoah’s decree to slaughter all Hebrew boy babies (Exodus 1:15-22). Likewise, Rachel, the wife of Jacob (Israel), and thus the metaphorical mother of the Jewish people, weep over the repeated cycles of violence against God’s people.

What is perhaps more remarkable is when we attend to the full context of Jeremiah 31:15-17:

16 This is what the Lord says:
“Restrain your voice from weeping     
and your eyes from tears,
for your work will be rewarded,”
declares the Lord.     
“They will return from the land of the enemy.
17 So there is hope for your descendants,”
declares the Lord.     
“Your children will return to their own land.

This is a poetic device called metalepsis: citing a fragment of a text that encourages the reader to uncover the rest of the original text, so that the newer text that quotes it can be illuminated with greater significance. Although Matthew quotes a fragment of Jeremiah 31, his listeners would be familiar with the larger context of that passage, and allow this context to unveil more layers of significance within the Gospel text. By recognizing that Jeremiah hints at hope of restoration for Israel, likewise, Matthew 2 gains greater meaning: that Jesus will be a hope of restoration for all humanity.

Hays calls this figural interpretation. Such an interpretative strategy involves 3 features:

Firstly, there is an unexpected correspondence between an older and newer text (p.93). Hosea did not know of Jesus when he wrote Hosea 11, much less predicted it. Rather, Matthew makes a link about Jesus to Hosea, without Hosea intending it.

Secondly, both texts give meaning to each other. By using Jeremiah as a quotation, Matthew subtly evokes a sense of hope to the reader of the Gospel. Likewise, Jeremiah’s text gains new significance: it is not just hope of restoration for Jeremiah’s contemporary situation, but also a hope for humanity in the future (p.93).

Thirdly, this relationship between older and newer texts can only be done retrospectively, by reading backwards. Hosea and Jeremiah would never have intended their texts to be predictions about a future Messiah called Jesus. It is only when we allow Matthew to read into those two prophet’s texts, then do the older texts of Jeremiah/Hosea gain more meaning (p.94).