Genesis 4-6 - wherein Cain kills Abel, the genealogy of Adam and Eve is rehashed twice, and Noah learns to be a shipwright/gamekeeper in a hurry
Psalm 2 - wherein David, presumably, asserts his authority as a king with divine favor
Matthew 2 - wherein Herod slaughters the children of Bethlehem, and the Holy Family is on the run.
The thing about Matthew is that he's very intent on making sure we understand that what is happening in the story is a fulfillment of what the prophets have said. So when Jesus is born in Bethlehem, it is fulfillment of scripture; when the Holy Family flees to Egypt, it is to fulfill a scriptural reference suggesting that the Messiah will come from Egypt; when Herod kills the children of Bethlehem, it is so a scripture foretelling great sorrow at the loss of children would be fulfilled, and when the Holy Family decamps from Egypt back to the Holy Land, it is so Jesus "will be called a Nazorean."
This is fine as far as it goes, but if you're really trying to place yourself in the story, to understand its wonder, violence, desperation, and displacement, the constant references to prophecy are a distraction. They impose an order on the story that Joseph and Mary could not at the time perceive.
It is easy for us to gloss over these early passages because they're so familiar that we know everything will be ok; Jesus will escape death (for now). But Joseph and Mary didn't know that. They chose homelessness and itinerancy just to keep their child alive.
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