Have you ever noticed how much movement there is in Matthew’s account of Christ’s birth? And not just action sequences or scene changes, but literal removal from one country to another. Compared to Luke’s “orderly account” (Luke 1:3) of the events in and around Bethlehem, Matthew yanks the reader from Galilee to Bethlehem to Egypt and back to Galilee again as he follows the earthly parents of Jesus Christ on their unlikely sojourn. Have you ever wondered why Matthew does this? What is he trying to accomplish?

On the surface, Matthew appears to be compiling a list of prophecies fulfilled by Jesus’s birth, an improbably coherent list that could be explained in no other way — and therefore fulfilled by no one else. Four times in Matthew 1:18-2:23 (at 1:22, 2:15, 2:27, and 2:23), Matthew mentions that something took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet. And each of these fulfillments required supernatural intervention, as each one occurs after a divinely-sent dream.

However, on closer reading, an important question emerges: what does it mean that these prophecies are “fulfilled” at the birth of Christ? This question may not be obvious at first. After all, our ears are used to hearing about the virgin birth (Matthew 1:23), and the Egypt connection doesn’t seem that far-fetched (2:15), but what is the connection to Ramah and Rachel weeping (2:18)?

When we start to investigate the Old Testament origins of these prophecies, Matthew’s choices appear even stranger. Isaiah’s virgin prophecy (Isaiah 7:14) comes as a sign that the Lord will rescue Judah from the invading Syro-Ephraimite alliance. Hosea’s line, “out of Egypt I called my son” (Hosea 11:1) reflects on the exodus and Israel’s subsequent idolatry. Jeremiah’s prophecy (Jeremiah 31:15) reflected on the Babylonian exile amid a prophecy of future restoration. And the fourth prophecy, which Matthew claims Christ fulfilled, “that he would be called a Nazarene” (Matthew 2:23), has no Old Testament corollary.

In fact, in his narrative of Christ’s birth, Matthew invokes only one Old Testament prophecy that is clearly associated with the Messiah in its original context, Micah 5:2, “O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah …” (Matthew 2:6). Surprisingly, this is the only Old Testament quotation in the narrative not paired with the word “fulfill.”

Either Matthew is a terrible student of Scripture, or he uses the word “fulfill” to mean something other than, “this Old Testament prophecy came true.” Perhaps the key to this riddle is the question: what, exactly, is being fulfilled?

If we expect words to be fulfilled, Matthew’s choices seem to be a poor fit. But what if we considered the texts in light of the expectations engaged by the prophecies? What if Matthew means to communicate that Jesus fulfilled not only the words of Scripture, but also its expectations and patterns?

Let’s consider Matthew’s fulfillment statements again.

First, Jesus’s birth by the virgin Mary “took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: ‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel’ (which means, God with us)” (Matthew 1:22-23).

As mentioned before, Isaiah gives this sign to King Ahaz as a promise that God would defeat Judah’s enemies, in a context that suggests it would come to pass in Isaiah’s own time. Isaiah never clearly explains how it happened, but that should not lead us to doubt that the incarnate God-Man Jesus was the only human being born of a virgin (perhaps someone who was a virgin at the time of Isaiah’s prophecy subsequently married and conceived).

If taken as a standalone promise, Isaiah’s sign is not very compelling, but it carries far more significance if it propels forward a larger scriptural pattern. In fact, it does. Throughout Scripture (Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Samson, Samuel), we see God bringing about miraculous births of individuals who save his people and defeat his enemies. This pattern can be traced all the way back to the garden, when God tells the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15).

Isaiah’s virgin prophecy invokes this “seed of the woman” pattern — which counters expectations, since seed normally comes from the man. The pattern grows throughout Scripture, gaining momentum and significance with each iteration until, finally, its fullness is seen in Jesus, the one true seed of the woman. Jesus saved his people more completely than any previous hero of miraculous birth. He did this by crushing the serpent, although at Calvary the serpent also wounded Jesus in the heel.

Second, consider Joseph’s flight to Egypt, which Matthew said “was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I called my son’” (Matthew 2:15). In Hosea 11:1, the prophet contemplated God’s relationship with the nation of Israel from its infancy in Egypt and lamented their sinful rejection of him as their king. In Egypt, a wicked king sought to murder the boys of Israel in their infancy (Exodus 1:22), another expression of the conflict between the seed of the serpent (represented by Pharaoh, whose crown featured a serpent) and the seed of the woman (represented by the boy-children of Israel, in particular Moses).

Once we travel backward from Hosea to Exodus, we begin to notice the parallels to Jesus all over the place. Like Israel, Jesus was also called out of the land of Egypt. Like Israel, he also endured 40 days (instead of 40 years) in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11) and went down into the Jordan River (Matthew 3:13-17). Unlike Israel, Jesus never rebelled against his heavenly Father. By walking the same road as Israel, Jesus fulfilled the obedience they were supposed to model; Jesus is the fulfillment of the pattern Israel was supposed to represent among the nations.

Third, Matthew records Herod’s slaughter of the innocents (much like Pharoah’s murder of Hebrew boys), which he said, “fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: ‘A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more’” (Matthew 2:17-18).

In context, this verse contrasts starkly with the surrounding material. While promising a new covenant to come, Jeremiah pauses to insert this gloomy reminder of the Babylonian invasion and Judah’s subsequent exile (Jeremiah 31:15). He then reverses it in the next verse, “Keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears, for there is a reward for your work, declares the Lord, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy” (Jeremiah 31:16).

It’s more challenging to identify a pattern for this verse that stretches through the whole Old Testament. However, we can say that Jesus’s coming perfectly fits the expectations of this passage. Jesus did come to establish a new covenant under which God would dwell with his people. Yet, amid the joyful proclamations of angels and visitations of foreign magi that greeted the newborn Messiah, there is this one sour note. Jesus came into a world filled with death and weeping, the very things he has promised to put an end to for those who trust in him (Revelation 21:4).

Jesus fulfilled Jeremiah’s prophesy by coming into a world full of death and suffering and defeating death and suffering, that he might establish a new covenant with his people.

Finally, Matthew informs his readers that Joseph took his family and “lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene” (Matthew 2:23). This statement is the most difficult to interpret because there is little biblical evidence to go on; Nazareth is never mentioned in the Old Testament, and Matthew does not specify which prophets make this prediction.

Some have suggested that Nazareth was a small and despised place (see John 1:46), and that may be the connection Matthew intended. If so, he could be alluding to passages like Isaiah 53 that foretell how the Messiah would be despised and rejected. The significance of such a connection is that Jesus grew up as an ordinary human person, just like us, even though he was “God with us.”

Thus, Matthew masterfully weaves throughout his story of Jesus a tale of Old Testament expectations, patterns, promises, and struggles. Jesus came as the ultimate seed of the woman who would deliver his people by crushing Satan’s head, the perfect Israel of God who fulfilled the law by perfect obedience, the inaugurator of a New Covenant who would destroy death and suffering, among human beings beset by weakness and temptation “that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God” on our behalf (Hebrews 2:17). Matthew’s gospel proclaims all this before Jesus even grows up.