Hosea 11:1 And Matthew 2:15

by John H. Sailhamer

John Sailhamer is Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

I. Introduction

All agree that Matthew’s understanding of Hos 11:1 is eschatological and messianic. He applies Hosea’s words to Jesus literally and realistically. Jesus was taken to Egypt as a child (Matt 2:14) so the prophet’s words might be fulfilled, “Out of Egypt I called my son” (Matt 2:15).[1]

The chief difficulty lies in Matthew’s applying Hosea’s words to an individual, eschatological “son of God” figure, rather than to Israel in the historical exodus. Erasmus cites Julian the Apostate as the first to take issue against Christianity with Matthew’s use of Hosea. But already in the LXX, the Targum,[2] and the commentaries of Rashi[3] and Kimchi[4] it is possible to see a line of interpretation that goes counter to Matthew’s eschatological-messianic view.

Modern commentaries take Hos 11:1 to refer to Israel and the historical exodus. The most common approach to the meaning of the verse in Hosea is to view the fragmented sayings of the book in light of a reconstructed life and message of the prophet. Such an approach has led to a deepening of the division between the OT and NT.

The common evangelical solution has been to adopt the earlier view of Surenhusius[5] that Matthew’s understanding of Hos 11:1 was grounded in a typological, or sensus plenior, reading that was characteristic of the first century. Carson offers a helpful mediating position in seeing Hosea’s use of the term “son” as part of a larger “messianic matrix” of images in previous revelation that pointed to Jesus.[6]

II. A Solution Offered by Brevard Childs

In his own words, Childs “seeks to do justice to the logic of the material in its canonical context.” His focus is on how Hosea’s words were preserved and shaped to serve as Scripture. “Hosea’s words were recorded in some form and gathered into a collection. This process of collection in itself involved a critical activity of selecting, shaping, and ordering of the material.”[7] The guiding principle behind this selection and ordering of material, according to Childs, was a metaphorical application to Judah of Hosea’s prophetic words to the Northern Kingdom. The express statement of this principle is found in Hos 12:10, where the Lord says, “By means of the prophets, I spoke in parables.”

For Childs, of course, such a metaphorical understanding of Hosea’s words represented a new direction in meaning. Originally, Hosea would not have intended to speak of Judah, nor would he have understood his words metaphorically. Such a reading of Hosea’s words is found only in a later stage in the composition history of the book.[8] Crucial to the message of the book as we now have it says Childs, is the promise of 3:5, “[after many days] the sons of Israel will seek Yahweh their God and David, their king, and they will fear Yahweh and his goodness in the last days.” Chapters 1–3 thus provide the necessary context for understanding Hosea’s words of judgment in chapters 4–14. Though Israel has acted the harlot, Yahweh will remain faithful and return to her in the eschatological future.

Childs’s canonical interpretation of the book of Hosea bears directly on our question of Matthew’s use of Hos 11:1. If Childs is correct in his reading of Hosea, then the sensus literalis (historicus) of Hos 11:1 is precisely that of Matthew’s Gospel. Hos 11:1 speaks of the future, not the past. The book, in fact, provides its own clue to the meaning of 11:1 in verse 11:5, “[Israel] will not return to Egypt, but Assyria will be their king because they have refused to repent.” In Hos 11:1–4, then, the historical exodus is understood as a metaphor.

It is an image of future redemption. Egypt is Assyria, the enemy oppressor. Matthew was simply following the compositional (canonical) clues within the book itself by applying the picture of the exodus in 11:1 to the eschatological salvation in Matt 2:15. The messianic sense that Matthew saw in the words of Hos 11:1, “out of Egypt I have called my son,” was already there in the book of Hosea. Matthew did not invent it. He, better than we, understood the sensus literalis intended by the historical author of the book of Hosea.

The approach of Brevard Childs is, by now, well known. It has not, however, been widely accepted within critical OT studies because its focus is on an authoritative canonical text. There is little place for such a text in critical scholarship. Ironically Childs’s approach has also not been widely accepted within the evangelical community—largely, I think, for a similar reason. His exclusive focus is on the authoritative text and not on reconstructed historical events. I say “ironically” because, of all people, evangelicals have a major stake in the meaning of the canonical text. It is that text which evangelicals hold to be the inspired Word of God. One would think evangelicals would by now have warmed up to Childs and his canonical approach. That, of course, has not happened.

What troubles evangelicals about Childs is the fact that he shows so little interest in the apologetic task of demonstrating the historical reliability of the canonical text. It is not enough for the evangelical to say, with Childs, that the canonical meaning of the text is the meaning that the NT writers understood. Evangelical apologetics rightfully insists that the canonical meaning also conform to the original meaning of Hosea’s words. There must be a connection between what Hosea’s words mean in the book of Hosea and what Hosea originally intended by those words. If we could find that connection, there would, in my judgment, be no real objection to Childs’s approach to Hosea. It would, in fact, provide a helpful step in linking the OT and the New.

It is to that question I now want to turn. In doing so, I want to make it clear that I accept Childs’s exegesis of the sensus literalis of the book of Hosea and its implication for 11:1. My intent is to pick up the thread laid down by Childs and push the question further back to Hosea himself. Is it possible to establish the historical point that the eighth-century prophet Hosea himself already understood his words in 11:1 metaphorically and messianically?

Since at least the eighteenth century, the historical meaning of the prophetic Scriptures has been identified by many with the meaning intended by the individual prophet within his own particular historical context. In our case, the historical meaning of the expression “out of Egypt I have called my son” is that sense which the prophet Hosea would likely have attached to it within his particular historical context. Our question is thus, how would Hosea have understood the event of the exodus?

It is axiomatic among most OT scholars that the metaphorical meaning of the exodus, as an event, would not likely be a part of the historical prophet Hosea’s understanding. I believe I am right in saying such a view holds true for both evangelical and non-evangelical biblical scholars. It is, in fact, precisely for that reason that Matthew’s use of Hos 11:1 is problematic.[9]

Franz Delitzsch, obviously aware of Matthew’s use of this verse, provides the brief, but complicated, explanation that by pointing to a past event in Israel’s history the prophet was acknowledging that it was through that history that a way was paved for the incarnation of the Son.[10] Israel’s history, rather than Hosea’s words, was a “material prophecy” of the coming Christ.[11] Hosea’s words do not point to Christ, but to an historical event that contained within itself the same significance as the life of Christ.[12]

What seems clear from Delitzsch’s comment is that evangelicals and non-evangelicals share considerable common ground when it comes to understanding what the historical prophet Hosea meant by the words in 11:1. He was, clear and simple, referring to Israel’s historical exodus and he did not likely have any directly messianic sense in mind. What messianic significance may ultimately have been attached to his words is grounded in a larger understanding of the meaning of Israel’s own unique history.

What immediately strikes one is just how similar such approaches also are to Brevard Childs’s canon criticism. What Childs attributes to a later redactional stage in the composition of the book of Hosea, evangelicals see in the work of Matthew and the broader process of sensus plenior. What few, on any side of the question, are willing to concede is that Hosea himself may have actually understood his reference to the historical exodus as a metaphor or symbol of the coming messianic kingdom.

There is a second area of commonality in these various approaches to Hosea’s words. Evangelicals and non-evangelicals alike have addressed the question of the historical meaning of Hosea in a way that is entirely exterior to the meaning of the exodus as it is portrayed in the Pentateuch itself. The “exodus” they see Hosea making reference to is the historical event itself, apart from its narrative construal within the Pentateuch. It is hard to see Hosea’s words as messianic because we see him referring only to the “brute (uninterpreted) fact” of the exodus event. We too easily fail to see, or appreciate, the obvious: that in referring to the exodus event, Hosea was making a reference not to the event itself but to the event as construed in the Pentateuch. Hosea approached the exodus as an exegete. Hosea was engaged in what we today call “intertextuality” He referred to the meaning of the exodus, not from his own historical understanding of that event, but rather from the viewpoint of the canonical Pentateuch. Hosea’s words in 11:1 are grounded in an exegesis of Scripture and in a studied interpretation of the Pentateuch.

III. An Evangelical View

Non-evangelicals, of course, do not believe there was a Pentateuch in Hosea’s day, so the question for them simply does not exist. For evangelicals, however, a key to the meaning of Hos 11:1 must lie in two important and related questions: 1) Are Hosea’s words, in fact, grounded in an exegesis of Scripture—the Pentateuch? 2) What is the meaning of the exodus-event within the compositional strategy of the Pentateuch?

It is to these questions I now turn. The points I will attempt to make are the following:

1. Hosea’s entire message throughout the book of Hosea is grounded in a careful and conscious exegesis of the pentateuchal text.
2. Within the compositional strategy of the Pentateuch, the exodus-event is used as a key messianic metaphor or image.
3. When Hosea recalled the exodus event in the words of 11:1, he likely did so because of its central messianic meaning within the Pentateuch.
4. The meaning which Childs described in the final canonical text conforms to both the Pentateuch’s own understanding of the exodus, as well as the sense Hosea himself would have likely held if he read the Pentateuch.
5. When Matthew quoted Hos 11:1 as fulfilled in the life of Christ, he was not resorting to a typological interpretation. Rather, he was drawing the sensus literalis from the book of Hosea and it, in turn, was drawn from Hosea’s exegesis of the sensus literalis of the Pentateuch. As Hosea himself put it, God speaks through his prophets in parables (Hos 12:11). If a messianic eschatology is already thematized by the exodus-event in the Pentateuch, then in drawing on that image, the prophet Hosea most likely had a future event in mind, much like that of Matt 2. What is crucial to this line of thought is the notion that lying behind the composition of the canonical Pentateuch is a fully developed messianic eschatology in which the exodus is an intentional and deliberate metaphor.

1. Are Hosea’s words grounded in an exegesis of the Pentateuch?

There are two parts to this question. The first is whether there was a Pentateuch already in the eighth century and whether it looked like the one we now have. For the sake of length, and within the present context, I will assume this part of the question needs no further discussion within our present context.[13]

The second part of our question is whether Hosea’s prophecies were, in fact, grounded in an exegesis of earlier biblical texts. While most of us would readily concede that the prophets were informed by the theology of the Torah, for our purposes we need to take a closer look at that unique fact.

As I have already mentioned, a recurring feature of Hosea’s prophecies (in chapters 4–12) is his constant and continual reference to earlier biblical texts. In today’s technical jargon this is called “intertextuality.”[14] Put in terms of the prophet Hosea, intertextuality means that Hosea’s message assumes an informed knowledge of the Pentateuch on the part of his hearers.

The frequent dependence of Hosea’s prophecies (in 4–14) on the exegesis of earlier texts can hardly be disputed. No one, for example, would dispute that Hos 12:4–5 is based on a careful reading and verbal exegesis of Gen 32:23–33. In 12:4, for example, Hosea draws on the verbal root of the name Jacob (יעקב) and Israel (ישׁראל) to describe Jacob’s wrestling (עקב) with his brothers and contending (שׂרה) with God. In 12:5, Hosea interprets Genesis 32:29, “you (Jacob) strove with God” (שׂרית עם־אלהים < שׂרה) to mean “he (Jacob) ruled over an angel” (וישׂר אל־מלאך < שׂרר or שׂור). One can easily see that Hosea has pondered the words of the Genesis text and from those words themselves he has derived a specific meaning. He even appears to have resorted to the technique of gezera shewa (שׂרה / שׂרר). What we see in this one example is repeated throughout chapters 4–14 and provides the structural framework for the whole of his prophecies. In his opening words of judgment against Israel in 4:2, for example, Hosea summarizes nearly the whole of the 10 commandments in a series of 5 infinitive absolutes (אלה וכחשׂ ורצח וגנב ונאף). Since chapters 1–3 focused on Israel’s violation of the first (or first two) commandment(s), Hosea begins in chapter 4 with the enumeration of the other commandments. His treatment reveals a careful exegesis of Exod 20. The word אלה (swearing), for example, refers commonly to calling down a curse on someone. Hence it is a particular application of the second (or third) commandment that prohibits the misuse of God’s name: “Thou shalt not curse.” The word כחשׂ means to “lie and deceive.” Hence it is an exegetical extension of the eighth commandment that only appears to speak of bearing a false testimony in court. The next three infinitives summarize the 5th (רצח), 7th (גנב), and 6th (נאף) commandments, but rearrange their order so as to express more clearly the protection of life and property.[15] The rearrangement also allows Hosea to conclude with “adultery,” which was the theme of the first three chapters. Both the attempt to summarize by means of the infinitive absolutes and to interpret by choosing new vocabulary are evidence that behind Hosea’s words lies a careful and profound exegesis of earlier biblical (pentateuchal) texts.

One of the most striking examples of Hosea’s exegesis of the Pentateuch is found in Hos 6:7. Hosea says that Israel has broken God’s covenant “like Adam” (כאדם). Hosea has identified the fall in Gen 3 as a breach of God’s covenant (עברו ברית). Since there is no specific mention of such a covenant in the Pentateuch, Hosea’s argument appears to rest on a broadly based exegesis of the Genesis narratives. The history of biblical interpretation provides ample witness to the many ways the notion of covenant can be derived from the Genesis narratives. It is even possible that Hosea himself resorted to the use of the expression הקמתי את־בריתי in Gen 6:18 to establish his point. It is hard to reconstruct Hosea’s exact exegesis because it apparently rested on a much broader line of argument. The central role of the “covenant” in the final composition of the Pentateuch lends exegetical support to Hosea’s conclusion, particularly the role of Gen 15 within the overall structure of the Pentateuch.[16] It suggests that Hosea did read the Pentateuch with larger theological questions in mind and that he sought a basis for those questions within what we today would call the compositional seams. This leads us to raise the question of Hosea’s possible messianic understanding of the exodus.

2. Within the compositional strategy of the Pentateuch, the exodus-event is used as a key messianic metaphor or image.

Elsewhere I have suggested that an intentional compositional strategy lies behind the Pentateuch.[17] One way to see this is to look at the way poetic texts have been fitted into the continuous narrative texts. At three macrostructural junctures in the Pentateuch, the author has attached an important poetic discourse onto the end of a large unit of narrative (Gen 49; Num 24; Deut 32). A close look at the seams of these junctures reveals a good deal of homogeneous composition. In each of these seams, the central narrative figure (Jacob, Balaam, Moses) calls together God’s people (imperatives) and proclaims (cohortatives) “what will happen”[18] “in the last days” (באחרית הימים). At the heart of each of these poems lies a clearly defined messianic hope, centered on the promise of a king from the tribe of Judah.

For the sake of time, I want to go immediately to the poetic texts of the Balaam oracles, Num 24, which is the point of reference in Hos 11:1. I want to emphasize that, in my opinion, Num 24 is a central part of the major compositional links uniting the whole of the Pentateuch. It represents the “last word” of the author of the canonical Pentateuch; and it represents his view of the “last days” (אחרית הימים).

The Balaam oracles as a whole offer a complex view of the composition of the Pentateuch.[19] In Num 24:5, Balaam begins his oracle with a vision of the restoration of the garden planted by Yahweh (24:5–7a) and the rise of a future king in Israel (24:7b–9). The poems continue in 24:17–20 to speak of Israel’s future defeat of their historical enemies. Balaam’s oracles conclude by casting a broad vision of the future in which the later prophetic events of Daniel and Ezekiel are portrayed. In these oracles, there are many examples of intertextuality between Num 24 and earlier parts of the Pentateuch, particularly Gen 1–11. For our purposes I want to look at one such example which I think sheds light on Hosea’s reference to Num 24, namely, the way Balaam’s oracles in Num 24 look back to his oracle in Num 23.

The most conspicuous link between Balaam’s oracles in Num 23 and 24 is the reference to the exodus in both 23:22 and 24:8. So clearly are these two texts related that they are the basis for most source-critical analyses of these chapters. According to Karl Marti the similarities between these two texts can only be adequately explained as literary “doublets.”[20] Most interpreters and translators have followed a similar logic. They have rendered both as virtually identical references to the exodus event. That event, Marti argues, is taken as the grounds for hope in the future: “The God who delivered His people out of Egypt, will himself bring about the great act of salvation in the future.”[21] In my opinion, Marti is correct about the meaning only of Num 23:22f Not only does the participle have a plural suffix which denotes the nation of Israel (ממערים אל מוציאם), but also in 23:24 the addition of the words “behold the people” (הן־עם) makes it unmistakable that the plural suffix in 23:22 refers, not to an individual, but to the people.

Where I think commentaries such as Marti and modern English translations have gone astray, however, is in treating the similar text in Num 24:8ff as if it were identical in meaning to 23:22. Clearly the two texts are not grammatically identical. Not only are they not identical, but their differences are semantically dense and clearly intentional. In the reference to the exodus in 24:8, the singular suffix is used, not the plural (as in 23:22). In 24:8 Balaam says “God brings him out of Egypt,” whereas in 23:22 he says, “God brings them out of Egypt.” In the context of Num 24, the singular clearly refers to the “king” of the preceding verse (Num 24:7). It is that “king” who will rise up to defeat Agag (Masoretic Text) or Gog (the early versions) in the “last days.” God will bring him out of Egypt (אל מוציאו ממצרים). Thus, within the context of Num 24, that king will come in the eschatological future—“the last days.”

There is a further indication within the texts of these two passages that Num 24 was meant to be read differently than Num 23. As many commentaries have noted, all other pronouns in Num 23:21–22 are singular. Balaam’s oracle in Num 23 thus takes up the lead of the narrative framework in Num 22:5 ((הנה עם יאו ממצרים) by treating the people (עם) as a collective singular. The plural in 23:8 thus uniquely renders the image ad sensum, making it explicit that the oracle has the whole of the people of Israel in view. As an even further clarification, the addition (הן־עם) has been inserted into Num 23:24a. The meaning of the plural in 23:8 (“God brought them out of Egypt”) is therefore beyond doubt. It is about the people and their exodus from Egypt.

The fact that so much care was taken to mark Balaam’s words in Num 23 as a reference to Israel’s exodus in the past has important implications for the singulars in Num 24:8f, The fact they are left as singulars and not, as in the preceding chapter, intentionally identified as plurals implies they were not intended as collectives. They rather were understood to refer to the eschatological “king” in the immediate context of Num 24. It is therefore in the contrast between these two texts, not in their similarity, that the meaning of the author of the Pentateuch can best be seen.

What do such contrasts between Balaam’s oracles in Num 23 and 24 suggest about the larger meaning of the Balaam oracles? Are they merely the accidental result of two variant sources? Or, whatever their origin, are they to be read as two aspects of Balaam’s future vision? Taking the text as we now have it, it appears that Num 23 and 24 were intended to be read as two distinct parts of Balaam’s vision. In the first, Num 23, Balaam looked back at the exodus as the grounds for God’s future salvation of his people Israel. In the second, Num 24, Balaam viewed the coming of a future “king” as a new exodus—“God will bring him up from Egypt.” The later vision, Num 24, is patterned after the earlier, Num 23. Unlike Num 23, the singulars that follow in Num 24:9 refer to the victorious work of a coming king. The past exodus is presented as a picture of the exodus of the future. Internally; within the Pentateuch, Num 24 is deliberately linked to Gen 49 in the statement, “He crouches down. He lies down like a lion; and like a lion who will raise him” (cf. Gen 49:9b and Num 24:9a). This further establishes the notion that the singulars in Num 24 refer to an individual. It is the future king from the tribe of Judah whom God will call out of Egypt.

3. Hosea’s use of the Pentateuch

This leads me to the third point. How would Hosea have understood the exodus from within the pentateuchal texts we have been considering? From what we have just suggested, it is clear that there would have been ample grounds for him to draw a messianic meaning. In contrast to Num 23, Num 24 isolates and focuses on an individual king from Judah and specifically identifies him as a “new Moses,”[22] whom God will bring up out of Egypt. A particularly interesting feature of the Balaam oracles is their identification as “parables” (Num 24:3, 15), hence “images” by which God speaks through the prophets. This fits the expectation of Hos 12:11, that God speaks in parables through the prophets.[23]

4. Hosea’s understanding of the Pentateuch

The above observations lead to the conclusion that the meaning which Childs ascribed to the final canonical text conforms both to the Pentateuch’s own understanding of the exodus, as well as to the sense Hosea himself would likely have derived from the Pentateuch. If the Pentateuch existed in Hosea’s day which is likely there was ample reason for him to understand the exodus in the Pentateuch as an eschatological image of a future messiah.

5. Matthew did not resort to typology

When Matthew quoted Hos 11:1 as fulfilled in the life of Christ, we needn’t understand him to be resorting to a typological interpretation. He was, rather, as Childs has suggested, drawing the sensus literalis from the book of Hosea. That sense could itself have been drawn from Hosea’s exegesis of the sensus literalis of the Pentateuch. As Hosea himself recognized, God speaks through his prophets in parables (Hos 12:11).[24]

Notes

1. The quotation comes directly from the Hebrew text of Hos 11:1, Num 23:22, Num 24:8, as noted in the 27th Edition of the Nestle-Aland text. The LXX of Hos 11:1 pluralizes “my sons,” making the verse refer explicitly to Israel as a people, and making it conform to the plurals of verses 2f[. Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, as well as the first column of the Hexapla, follow the Hebrew text in reading “my son” as singular (also Coptic, Ethiopic, and Armenian).
2. ממצרים קריתי להון בנין
3. על יד נביאי להדבק בתורתי
4. כמו שׁאמר בני בכורי ישׂראל
5. William Surenhusius, סטר המשׁוה sive βιβλος Καταλλαγης in quo secundum velentm theologorum Hebraeorum Formulas allegandi, el Modos interpretandi conciliantur loca ex V in N.T. allegata (Amsterdam: Johannem Boom, 1713).
6. Hosea understood the exodus in 11:1 only as “a pictorial representative of divine, redeeming love,” but “building on existing revelation, [Hosea] grasped the messianic nuances of the ‘son’ language already applied to Israel and David’s promised heir in previous revelation so that had he been able to see Matthew’s use of 11:1, he would not have disapproved, even if messianic nuances were not in his mind when he wrote that verse” (D. A. Carson, Matthew [Expositor’s Bible Commentary 8; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984], 92).
7. Brevard S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament As Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979), 377–78.
8. According to Childs, there is at least one additional compositional stage to reckon with in the book of Hosea. At that level, the book of Hosea contains additional material that is decidedly positive, not negative, towards Judah. In the first three chapters, for example, “Judah is the recipient of promise, Israel of judgment (1:7; 2:2; 3:5)” (Ibid., 380). It is by means of these new words of hope for Judah that the negative message of Hosea can, and should, be read as the backdrop for a new divine promise to Israel. It is a promise that is grounded in the Davidic Covenant (Ibid., 381).
9. In commenting on Hos 11:1, Leon Wood wrote simply, “once more Hosea reverted to the earlier history of Israel” (Hosea [Expositor’s Bible Commentary 7; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1985], 212). Wood saw no other purpose in Hosea’s prophecy than to point to a past event, the exodus. Though he mentioned Matthew’s use of this verse, Wood doesn’t even hint at an explanation.
10. Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament. The Twelve Minor Prophets (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1971), 1:137.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. The line of argument I would take to defend this view is as follows: the most revealing feature of Hosea’s prophecies is the way he continually refers to past and present events. He opens the book, for example, with a reference to the “bloodshed of Jezreel” which God will visit “upon the house of Jehu.” Similar to such historical references, Hosea also grounds his words in references to pentateuchal material. What is striking about these various kinds of references is that only the ones that relate to the pentateuchal material are otherwise known to us biblically. The others, such as the reference to the “bloodshed of Jezreel” (1:4) or Shalman’s destruction of Beth-Arbel (10:14), are not known in any previous biblical texts. This suggests that, in Hosea’s day, the book of Kings had not yet been written but that Hosea did have a copy of the Pentateuch much like ours today—at least in those texts he cites.
14. Dressier defines “intertextuality” as one of the factors of textuality that makes “the utilization of one text dependent upon knowledge of one or more previously encountered texts” (Robert de Beaugrande and Wolfgang Dressier, Introduction to Text Linguistics [London: Longman, 1981], 10).
15. Wilhelm Rudolph, Hosea, Kommentar zum Alten Testament (Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1966), 100.
16. John Ha, Genesis 15, A Theological Compendium of Pentateuchal History (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1989).
17. See John H. Sailhamer, The Pentateuch as Narrative (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 34–59.
18. קרא (Gen 49:1; Deut 31:29)/ עשׂה (Num 24:14). There is an interesting progression in the use of קרא and עשׂה in the three seams. Gen 49:1 uses only קרא, “What will happen (קרא) to you (Israel);” Num 24:14 uses עשׂה, “What this people (Israel) will do (עשׂה) to your people;” Deut 31:29 uses both קרא and עשׂה, “The trouble will happen (קרא) to you because you did (עשׂה) the bad “ Such an inclusion of both קרא and עשׂה in Deut 31:29 suggests a conscious awareness of the need to merge the terminology of the other seams.
19. A part of that strategy can be seen in the fact that the poems in Num 24 are introduced as divinely inspired (ותהי עליו רוח אלהים) oracles (v. 2).
20. “[S]olche Dubletten zu produzieren, wird man der gewiss nicht geistlosen Erweiterungsarbeit in diesem Abschnitt nicht wohl zutrauen; sic sind als etwas quellenmässig Gegebenes verständlicher.” Karl Marti, Numeri erklärt (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1903, 111.
21. Ibid., 117.
22. Cf. Hos 2:2.
23. It is also possible that the expression ממצרים had its influence on Hosea’s own exodus language (ממצרים).
24. Several features of Matt 2 support the conclusion that he was reading Hosea in light of the Balaam oracles in the Pentateuch. It is well known that Matthew patterned his portrayal of the wisemen seeking the messianic star in the heavens (Matt 2:16–18) after Balaam’s vision of “the star” in Num 24:17. The wisemen themselves are patterned after Balaam. The story of Herod and the slaying of Jewish children at Christ’s birth (Matt 2:16–18) are modeled after the story of the Pharaoh slaying the Jewish children in Egypt at the birth of Moses. Viewing Christ as a “new Moses” therefore builds directly on Num 24:8.