It’s quite easy to recognize the connection between the First Reading (Isaiah 8:23-9:3) and the Gospel for today (Matthew 4:12-23) because Matthew uses a direct quote from Isaiah as a fulfillment prophecy: “The people who sit in darkness have seen a great light, on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death light has arisen.”
In this passage Jesus has moved his ministry from his hometown Nazareth to the town of Capernaum near the Sea of Galilee where he encounters his fisherman disciples, Peter, Andrew, James and John. This move has occurred for two reasons. First, he has been rejected by his own people in Nazareth (Luke 4:16-30) and second he has a better chance of expanding his ministry with proximity to the sea and the ability to travel to surrounding areas readily by boat. On numerous occasions throughout the gospels we read about Jesus getting in the boat with his disciples to cross to the “other side.”
Matthew equates Capernaum with the “land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali” also mentioned in the Book of Isaiah. These regions had once been territories of the Northern Kingdom of Israel which was conquered by the Assyrians during the Syro-Ephraimite War of 735–732 B.C. as recorded in the Book of 2Kings (2 Kings 15:29). Matthew suggests that the gloom of their defeat has been lifted by the ministry of Jesus, as a light to overcome the darkness.
Along these lines, Matthew, having written for a largely Jewish-Christian community, deemed it important to legitimize their faith in Jesus by having him be the fulfillment of many of the Old Testament passages which refer to the expected Messiah. If we look at the opening chapters of his narrative, we can see how he expertly weaves together his fulfillment passages.
In the Genealogy of Chapter One (Mt 1:1-17) Matthew lists fourteen generations of figures from the Old Testament from the time of Abraham to the time of the monarchy of Israel. As the ancestors of Jesus these connect Jesus to Abraham, the Jewish man chosen specifically by God to bring salvation to the world. He then lists fourteen more historical figures of ancient Israel to connect Jesus to David, the king from whom the expected messiah would descend.
In the passage of the Birth of Jesus (Mt 1:18-25) Matthew tells the story from the perspective of Joseph who receives a message from God in a dream that he should not divorce, but rather take a pregnant Mary as his wife because she is carrying a child who is the fulfillment of a prophecy from Isaiah (7:14): “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means “God is with us.”
Once their child is born, the Holy Family receives a visit from the Magi from the East (Mt 2:1-12), astrologers following the star which points to the location of the birth of the anticipated messiah from the Book of Micah (Mi 5:1): “And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; since from you shall come a ruler, who is to shepherd my people Israel.”
Following this event Joseph is instructed in another dream to evade the threat of Herod to his child (Mt 2:13-15). He is to take Mary and Jesus and flee to Egypt until they are safe of persecution and notified that they can return to Israel. This occurs so that Jesus might be the “son called out of Egypt” as the fulfillment of the prophet Hosea (Hos 11:1) and a type of new Moses from the time of the Exodus.
The carnage that Joseph and his family have escaped is the Massacre of the Infants (Mt 2:16-18) by a threatened and jealous Herod the Great who has murdered all children under the age of two in the area of Bethlehem. This occurs yet as another fulfillment, this time from the Book of Jeremiah. “Rachel weeping for her children…” (Jer. 31:15). This is a reference to Rachel, the wife of Jacob, weeping for her descendants (incidentally those of “land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali”) taken into captivity by the Assyrians.
Finally, Joseph is notified that it is safe to return home (in another dream), but having learned that Archelaus, more severe than his father Herod the Great, has become ruler of his hometown, he travels to live in Nazareth. This is to ensure that another prophecy might be fulfilled describing Jesus: “He shall be called a Nazorean.” Incidentally, there is no such prophecy in the Old Testament.
As we continue through the subsequent chapters of Matthew we encounter additional fulfillment passages in the stories of The Preaching of John the Baptist (Mt 3:1-12), The Baptism of Jesus (Mt 3:13-17), and The Temptation of Jesus (Mt 4:1-11). And then we get to today’s Gospel reading. If Matthew’s audience, nor us, are not convinced that Jesus is the fulfillment of the expectations of the Old Testament for the coming messiah by now, we only need read further throughout his gospel to find more evidence from the myriad of prophecy fulfillment passages which Matthew includes.
For Christians today, brought through the nation of Israel, Jesus is the chosen one of God who brings forth justice to all nations (Isa 42:1, cf. Mt 12:16).
