Egypt · The Symbolism of Scripture
Egypt
The one symbol in Scripture defined by a direction rather than a quality. It is the place you were brought out of — so the sin the name carries is always the sin of going back.
What This Page Is
the picture, not the empire
Egypt in Scripture is a real country with real records, and it is also a name the Bible uses to mean something. This page carries the second one. The empire — its dynasties, its gods, its archaeology, and what its own documents say — belongs to a separate study, and neither page is a substitute for the other.
Which Way You Are Facing
- OutThe Decalogue opens by naming the exit
“which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage”
Exodus 20:2 - BackThe wilderness complaint — a menu, with the slavery left out
“We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons”
Numbers 11:5 - BackLooking there for military help
“Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help; and stay on horses”
Isaiah 31:1 - InAnd then the direction reverses — the child is taken there to be kept alive
“flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word”
Matthew 2:13 - OutOut of it again, in a sentence that was written about Israel
“Out of Egypt have I called my son”
Matthew 2:15
“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.The place is named twice in one sentence — once as a country, once as a condition.
I am the Lord thy God--This is a preface to the ten commandments--the latter clause being specially applicable to the case of the Israelites, while the former brings it home to all mankind; showing that the reasonableness of the law is founded in their eternal relation as creatures to their Creator, and their mutual relations to each other.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Scottish, nineteenth century
Exodus 20:2
The commandments are addressed to people who are already out. That is the grammar of the whole symbol. Everything the name later carries — the temptation, the rebuke, the reversal — depends on there having been a door, and on which side of it a person now stands.
The Fish, and What Was Left Out
Numbers 11, and a memory doing editorial work
We remember the fish we ate freely in Egypt, along with the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic.Six items, listed with real precision — and one adverb carrying the lie: freely.
They remember the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick (precious stuff indeed to be fond of!), but they do not remember the brick-kilns and the task-masters, the voice of the oppressor and the smart of the whip. No, these are forgotten by these ungrateful people.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710Nonconformist
Numbers 11:5
Henry’s sentence is the page’s second spine. The memory is accurate about the food and silent about everything else. Nothing on that list is invented. What has gone missing is the brick-kiln, the taskmaster and the whip — and the word freely, in a sentence spoken by former slaves, is the giveaway.
We remember, etc. - The choice aliments which those murmurers complained of having lost by their leaving Egypt, were the following: fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic. A European may smile at such delicacies; but delicacies they were in that country. Their fish is excellent; their cucumbers and water melons highly salubrious and refreshing; and their onions, garlic, etc., exquisitely flavoured, differing as much from vegetables of the same species in these northern climes as a bad turnip does from a good apple. In short, this enumeration takes in almost all the commonly attainable delicacies in those countries.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Numbers 11:5
Adam Clarke does the honest thing and defends the list. A European may smile at such delicacies; but delicacies they were. The complaint is not absurd, which is what makes it dangerous — and Albert Barnes notices that the detail bespeaks personal experience. Somebody wrote this who had eaten that food.
But after all their experience of the bounty and care of God, their vehement longing for the luxuries of Egypt was an impeachment of the divine arrangements; and if it was the sin that beset them in the desert, it became them more strenuously to repress a rebellious spirit, as dishonoring to God and unbecoming their relation to Him as a chosen people.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Scottish, nineteenth century
Numbers 11:5
We would be censured along with those who dwelled in the desert and who desired the disgusting food of vice and filthiness after having eaten the heavenly manna, and we would seem to complain like them: "It was well with us in Egypt, when we sat over pots of flesh and ate onions and garlic and cucumbers and melons." Although this manner of speaking first referred to that people, nonetheless we see it now daily fulfilled in our life and profession.
John Cassian· Conference 3.7, 435Latin, fifth century
Numbers 11:5
Cassian’s phrase is the one that keeps the symbol alive past its century: we see it now daily fulfilled in our life and profession. He is writing to monks, about monks.
The Wrong Direction to Look
Isaiah 31, and the reason given
Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in their abundance of chariots and in their multitude of horsemen. They do not look to the Holy One of Israel; they do not seek the LORD.Read the verbs of motion and sight: go down, stay on, trust in — but look not unto.
But the Egyptians are men, not God; their horses are flesh, not spirit. When the LORD stretches out His hand, the helper will stumble, and the one he helps will fall; both will perish together.Two categories stated flatly. Neither of them is an accusation.
In hilly Palestine horses were not so easily had or available. The Jews were therefore the more eager to get Egyptian chariots as allies against the Assyrian cavalry. In Assyrian sculptures chariots are represented drawn by three horses, and with three men in them
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Scottish, nineteenth century
Isaiah 31:1
That is the practical reason Egypt and horses arrive in the same sentence. Judah’s hills were poor cavalry country and Egypt was the supplier. So the temptation is not abstract: there was a country, a road, and a price. And Isaiah’s objection is not that the horses were bad horses.
Now the Egyptians are men - They are nothing but people; they have no power but such as other people possess. The idea here is, that the case in reference to which they sought aid was one in which divine help was indispensable, and that, therefore, they relied on the aid of the Egyptians in vain. And their horses flesh, and not spirit - There is need, not merely of physical strength, but of wisdom, and intelligence, and it is in vain to look for that in mere brutes.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1851Presbyterian
Isaiah 31:3
Every one knows this, that the Egyptians are not God and their horses are not spirit; but those that seek to them for help do not consider it, else they would not put such confidence in them. Sinners may be convicted of folly by the plainest and most self-evident truths, which they cannot deny, but will not believe.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710Nonconformist
Isaiah 31:3
Henry has caught what is strange about the verse. Nobody in Jerusalem thought the Egyptians were gods. Isaiah is not correcting an error of fact; he is stating something everyone already knew and nobody was acting on. Ambrose, preaching on the same verse, keeps the direction in view and refuses to make the country the villain:
Let our course take us to regions above, because it is better to ascend. Finally, as was read today, "Woe to them that go down to Egypt." Surely it is not wrong to go to Egypt, but to change to the ways of the Egyptians, to change to the violence of their treachery and to the ugliness of their wantonness—this is wrong. He that changes in this way descends, and one who descends falls.
Ambrose of Milan· Letter 28.8, 397Latin, fourth century
Isaiah 31:1
Surely it is not wrong to go to Egypt— Ambrose says it outright, and then names what is: changing to its ways. The symbol is about a movement of trust, and Jerome’s rendering of the whole oracle keeps that in the foreground.
Where It Points
the direction reversed, for one child
When the Magi had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up!” he said. “Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the Child to kill Him.”Of all the places on earth, the one named as safe is the house of bondage.
When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son.And the verse Matthew reaches for — which, read in Hosea, is plainly about the exodus.
To "the house of bondage?" Well, it once was that. But Egypt was a house of refuge before it was a house of bondage, and now it has but returned to its first use.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Scottish, nineteenth century
Matthew 2:13
A house of refuge before it was a house of bondage, and now returned to its first use. Abraham went down there in a famine; so did Jacob’s sons, and Joseph before them. The symbol has a longer memory than the Exodus, and Matthew 2 is reaching back past it.
How Matthew uses a verse that was about Israelthe honest range, from a man who admits he is not sure
Hosea 11:1 is, in Hosea, a statement about the exodus. John Calvin says so without hedging:
The Prophet therefore enhances the sin and baseness of the people by this circumstance, that the Lord had loved them even from childhood; when yet, he says, Israel was a child, I loved him The nativity of the people was their coming out of Egypt.
John Calvin· Commentaries, 1554Reformed
Hosea 11:1
Adam Clarke, faced with Matthew’s use of it, does something unusual for a commentator and says he cannot see how it works:
Out of Egypt have I called my son - This is quoted from Hos 11:1, where the deliverance of Israel, and that only, is referred to. But as that deliverance was extraordinary, it is very likely that it had passed into a proverb, so that Out of Egypt have I called my son, might have been used to express any signal deliverance. I confess, I can see no other reference it can have to the case in hand, unless we suppose, which is possible, that God might have referred to this future bringing up of his son Jesus from Egypt, under the type of the past deliverance of Israel from the same land.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Matthew 2:15
Two things are worth knowing before deciding. First, Matthew went to the Hebrew for it rather than the Greek translation everyone was using — and the difference is exactly the one that matters:
Out of Egypt have I called my son--Our Evangelist here quotes directly from the Hebrew, warily departing from the Septuagint, which renders the words, "From Egypt have I recalled his children," meaning Israel's children.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Scottish, nineteenth century
Matthew 2:15
This is not in the LXX; but in Osee according to the genuine Hebrew text we read; Israel is my child, and I have loved him, and, from Egypt have I called my Son; where the LXX render, Israel is my child, and I have loved him, and called my sons out of Egypt. (In Osee 11:2.) The Evangelist cites this text, because it refers to Christ typically.
Jerome· Catena Aurea (Aquinas), on Matthew 2:15, 420Latin, fifth century
Matthew 2:15
Second, Chrysostom sets out the principle he thinks is operating, and gives two Old Testament examples of it working the same way:
we would tell them, This is a law of prophecy, that in many cases much that is spoken of one set of persons is fulfilled in another; of which kind is that which is said touching Simeon and Levi, "I will divide them," saith He, "in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel." And yet not in themselves did this come to pass, but in their descendants; and Noah's saying again about Canaan, came to pass in the Gibeonites, Canaan's descendants.
John Chrysostom· Homily on the Gospel of Matthew 8, 407Greek, fourth century
Matthew 2:15
Called my son - Adopted him to be my son, and as my son, provided for him, and brought him out of servitude. Out of Egypt - But Israel, the first adopted son was a type of Christ the first-born. And the history of Israel's coming out was a type of Christ's future coming out of Egypt.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765Methodist
Hosea 11:1
where he stayed until the death of Herod. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called My Son.”The exodus repeated at the scale of one family, and the same sentence used for it.
Rather, however, both the people and the patriarch, going down thither, and coming up thence, were together completing the type of this His return. Thus, as they went down to avoid death by famine, so He death by conspiracy.
John Chrysostom· Homily on the Gospel of Matthew 8, 407Greek, fourth century
Matthew 2:15
The Lord, who keepeth not His anger for ever, remembered the woes He had brought upon Egypt, and therefore sent His Son thither, and gives it this sign of great reconciliation, that with this one remedy He might heal the ten plagues of Egypt, and the nation that had been the persecutor of this first-born people, might be the guardian of His first-born Son.
Pseudo-Chrysostom· Catena Aurea (Aquinas), on Matthew 2:14, 500Greek, sixth century
Matthew 2:14
The line worth carrying away is the one about the persecutor becoming the guardian. The country that killed the firstborn of Israel is where God hides His own firstborn from a king who is killing children. And Hilary of Poitiers keeps it from becoming sentimental — Egypt is still Egypt, and still full of idols, while it shelters Him.
Egypt full of idols; for after this enquiry for Him among the Jews, Christ leaving Judæa goes to be cherished among nations given to the vainest superstitions.
Hilary of Poitiers· Catena Aurea (Aquinas), on Matthew 2:14, 367Latin, fourth century
Matthew 2:14
Their bodies will lie in the street of the great city—figuratively called Sodom and Egypt—where their Lord was also crucified.The name used one last time, and the verse marks its own usage: spiritually.
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown gloss the name in the epithet by pointing straight back to Isaiah 31 — Egypt as “Egypt--the nation which the Jews' besetting sin was to lean upon.” Which city the verse means has been answered several ways since the second century, and MannaFest does not adjudicate it here.
What Scripture says outright
- Exodus 20:2
The law is prefaced by the exit, and Egypt is named twice — as a land and as a house of bondage.
- Isaiah 31:3
The reason for the woe is stated as two categories: men and not God, flesh and not spirit. No moral charge is brought.
- Matthew 2:15
Matthew names his source and quotes it. Whatever is going on interpretively, the evangelist is not hiding the move.
- Revelation 11:8
The verse says the names are being used spiritually, which is the Bible marking its own symbolism out loud.
What readers have heard in it
Readings and identifications, named as such.
- Matthew 2:15
That Hosea 11:1 was a direct prediction of the flight to Egypt. Calvin reads it as being about the exodus; Clarke admits he cannot see the connection; Chrysostom and Jerome argue it is typical fulfilment. The honest position is that this is a real interpretive question and it has more than one serious answer.
- Revelation 11:8
Every identification of “the great city” with a named place. Jerusalem and Rome have both been argued since the patristic period; the verse names neither.
- Numbers 11:5
That the complaint was about hunger. They had food — the chapter is about wanting a different one, and the verse says what they wanted by name.
Its Presentation Through Scripture
the name, in the order the Bible uses it
“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
Before a single commandment, the exit is named — and the name of the place is given twice, once as geography and once as a condition.
We remember the fish we ate freely in Egypt, along with the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic.
Six foods remembered exactly, and one word doing all the damage: freely.
Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in their abundance of chariots and in their multitude of horsemen. They do not look to the Holy One of Israel; they do not seek the LORD.
The complaint is not about Egypt's character. It is about which way the eyes are turned.
But the Egyptians are men, not God; their horses are flesh, not spirit. When the LORD stretches out His hand, the helper will stumble, and the one he helps will fall; both will perish together.
And the reason, given as two flat statements of category rather than as an accusation.
When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son.
A verse about the exodus, plainly and in its own context — which is what makes Matthew's use of it worth thinking about.
When the Magi had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up!” he said. “Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the Child to kill Him.”
The direction reverses. The house of bondage is where the child is sent to be kept alive.
where he stayed until the death of Herod. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called My Son.”
And out again — with Hosea's sentence about a nation applied to one child.
Their bodies will lie in the street of the great city—figuratively called Sodom and Egypt—where their Lord was also crucified.
The last use of the name, and the verse says out loud that it is being used spiritually rather than geographically.
The Voices
with the work named
Matthew Henry gives the page its sharpest sentence — the list of what they did notremember — and, on Isaiah 31, the observation that nobody actually disputed the prophet’s point. Adam Clarke defends the vegetables, which makes the temptation real rather than ridiculous, and then, on Matthew 2:15, does something braver: he says he cannot see how the quotation works.
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown supply the two facts the page needs most — why Judah wanted Egyptian chariots, and that Egypt was a refuge before it was a prison. Ambrose insists the country is not the problem, the descent is. Chrysostom sets out the principle behind Matthew’s quotation and pairs Jacob’s going down with Christ’s. And Hilary of Poitiers refuses to let the refuge be sentimentalised.
Where to Go Next
The event it is measured from
The direction reversed
Nearby in the index
Its neighbours in the index
The Symbolism of Scripture gathers every picture the Bible thinks in. This one sits with: