Matthew 2:15 is the fifteenth verse of the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew

Gospel of Matthew

The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...

 in the New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

. Joseph

Saint Joseph

Saint Joseph is a figure in the Gospels, the husband of the Virgin Mary and the earthly father of Jesus Christ ....

 has taken Jesus and his family to Egypt to flee the wrath of King Herod

Herod the Great

Herod , also known as Herod the Great , was a Roman client king of Judea. His epithet of "the Great" is widely disputed as he is described as "a madman who murdered his own family and a great many rabbis." He is also known for his colossal building projects in Jerusalem and elsewhere, including his...

.

In the King James Version of the Bible the text reads:

And was there until the death

of Herod: that it might be

fulfilled which was spoken of

the Lord by the prophet, saying,

Out of Egypt have I called my son.

The World English Bible

World English Bible

The World English Bible is a public domain translation of the Bible that is currently in draft form. Work on the World English Bible began in 1997 and was known as the American Standard Version 1997...

 translates the passage as:

and was there until the death of

Herod; that it might be fulfilled

which was spoken by the Lord

through the prophet, saying,

"Out of Egypt I called my son."

For a collection of other versions see BibRef Matthew 2:15

Herod is believed to have died in March or April of 4 BC

4 BC

Year 4 BC was a common year starting on Tuesday or Wednesday of the Julian calendar and a common year starting on Monday of the Proleptic Julian calendar...

. The Gospel gives little detail about the Holy Family's time in Egypt, but there are a number of apocryphal tales filling in this period. These stories of the time in Egypt have been especially important to the Coptic Church, which is based in that country. Throughout Egypt there are a number of churches and shrines that claim to mark an area where the Holy Family stayed. The most important of these is the church of Abu Serghis that claims to be built on the place the family had its home.

This verse contains Matthew's third direct quote from the Old Testament

Old Testament

The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...

. This brief line is from Hosea 11:1. It is not a direct copy from any extant version of Hosea. The most important change is that the author of Matthew replaces "my children" with "my son". This verse in Hosea is fairly clearly a description of the events in the Exodus, and not a piece of prophecy. Why Matthew seems to take this brief quote out of context and away from its original meaning has been long disputed by scholars. A number of theories have been advanced to explain this discrepancy. Some scholars have argued that the traditional view of Hosea is wrong and that the piece is actually a prophecy. According to those who support the doctrine of sensus plenior

Sensus plenior

In Latin, the phrase sensus plenior means "a fuller sense of.". This phrase in Biblical exegesis, is used to describe the deeper meaning intended by God but not intended by the human author. Walter C. Kaiser notes that F. Andre Fernandez coined the term in 1927, but it was popularized by Raymond E....

 the author of Hosea may not have been aware that he was writing a prophecy, but only because he did not fully understand that the divine spirit ensured this secondary meaning was included. Others support the controversial view that the author of Matthew made significant use of midrash

Midrash

The Hebrew term Midrash is a homiletic method of biblical exegesis. The term also refers to the whole compilation of homiletic teachings on the Bible....

ic techniques in his gospel.