When George Bailey shops for a suitcase in It’s a Wonderful Life, he tells the man at the counter that he wants a “big one” before stretching his arms out wide. We make the same motion when we tell children how much we love them: “I love you thiiiiis much!” If we understand that our arms cannot contain our love, how much more must the Father love his Son, Jesus? Their relationship is prominent in Matthew’s infancy narrative and points us to the prophet Hosea to understand the depth of the Father’s love for his Son. We’ll look at Hosea 11:1–9 to get a fuller picture.

Matthew Quotes a Prophet

In Matthew 2:13–15 we read about Joseph, Mary, and Jesus fleeing to Egypt from Herod the Great. As Matthew points out, this episode fulfills a somewhat obscure Old Testament prophecy: “Out of Egypt I called my son” (Hos. 11:1). We recognize the parallels between the Old and New Testaments: Jesus’s earthly father wasn’t the first Joseph to shelter his family in Egypt. Jesus wasn’t the first Hebrew baby boy to hide from a murderous king. But Jesus’s story is not a list of coincidences with the Old Testament. The Holy Scriptures give us one, interconnected story that revolves around one, holy Son. Matthew’s quotation of Hosea 11:1 raises two questions: 1) Who was this son in the Old Testament context? and 2) How does Matthew show us God’s Son, Jesus, as the fulfillment?

An Abundant Love

Hosea 11:1 reads, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” Hosea is writing in the 700s BC and reflecting on the Exodus some seven hundred years earlier. In verse 1, God reveals how much he loves his son, Israel. George Bailey’s arms cannot contain this kind of love. God’s love is unqualified, or unconditional. Verse 1 doesn’t say, “When Israel was an obedient child, I loved him.” Verse 1 simply says, “I loved him.” When I was a kid, it didn’t matter how many times I struck out (which was a lot). At the end of the game, my dad put his arm around me and said, “I love you.”

What’s more, God doesn’t just say he loves his son, Israel—he demonstrates his love. Talk is cheap; love is costly. Look how much I love him, God says, “out of Egypt I called my son.” God called Israel out of Egypt in power. He destroyed Pharaoh before Israel’s eyes. It doesn’t matter that Hosea speaks to Israel some seven hundred years after this event. Mention Lexington and Concord to an American. Foundational events have significance. We cannot underestimate the lasting power of the Exodus in the hearts and minds of Israel. The Ten Commandments begin with a preface: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt” (Ex. 20:2). This call from Egypt is at the root of God’s relationship with Israel. God is there from his birth. See how in verse 3 he “taught Ephraim [Israel] how to walk; I took them up by their arms” (Hosea 11:3). It’s as if God is showing Israel a home video of his childhood. See the Lord walking behind Israel, holding his little hands above his head as he takes his first steps. Look at this fatherly love!

How wrong it is to characterize God’s electing love as cold or calculated. Read verse 4 and see how he leads Israel and swaddles him in the bands of his love. See how he breaks the yoke of Israel’s oppressors and stoops down to feed him with manna and quail, milk and honey. He gave Israel his holy law to guide him; he gave Moses and Aaron to lead him; he gave Joshua and Deborah, Barak and Gideon, Samson and Samuel to deliver him; he gave David and Solomon to rule him; he gave Elijah and Elisha, Isaiah, Micah, and Hosea to prophesy to him; he gave him everything he needed to be the royal son of God. But it wasn’t enough for Israel.

Rebellion

Verse 2 says the “more they were called, the more they went away.” The more the Father talked to Israel, the more Israel rebelled. Dad says, “Go right,” but the son goes left. Dad says, “Don’t go out tonight,” but the son goes out. Israel’s dad said, “Worship me,” but Israel worships Baal. God repeatedly tells Israel to love him and keep his commandments. And repeatedly Israel offered himself to useless idols. Sure, these idols couldn’t love him, but at least they didn’t demand anything from him. Sure, these idols didn’t call him out of Egypt, but at least they let Israel do what he wanted with his time, his body, and his money. If bad times came, he could always call out to his dad in a pinch, and God would heal him. But herein lies the tragedy of verse 5: “They have refused to return to me.” It wasn’t a matter of knowledge, but a matter of will. We may know that God is the Lord, but will we turn to him?

See, Israel’s refusal was no one-off. Israel stubbornly and defiantly refused to return to the Lord. Moses had told Israel that if they refused to obey the Lord in the Promised land, then the Lord will cast them out. They will go to Assyria as captives (verse 5); the sword will devour them (verse 6); though they call out to God, he will not “raise them up at all” (verse 7). There will be no resurrection to the glory days of David and Solomon; they are done. This is what happens in 722 BC. The Father kicks Israel the son out of the house and sends him packing to Assyria.

Maybe you think, “Good! It’s about time! It only took God seven hundred years to punish his son who had disobeyed him.” We want the prodigal son to receive his just deserts. But the Lord says, “Not so fast!” In verse 8 he cries, “How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How could I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim?”—these cities destroyed with Sodom and Gomorrah. In verses 8–9 the Lord says in effect: “These peoples I had not loved, but you I have. My heart melts at the thought of teaching you to walk. My compassion swells as I recall taking you up in my arms. How can I destroy my baby boy? I will not execute my burning anger. Exile will come, but my wrath will not endure forever! Though my son deserves a permanent disinheritance, I will show him mercy.”

The Good Son

But how? How can God do this? How can God seemingly let his wayward son off the hook? “I’m God!” he says, “that’s how!” In verse 9 we read: “For I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst.” His mercy exceeds human comprehension. We marvel at God’s perfect justice for sinners, but do our jaws hit the floor at God’s mercy for sinners? For as the Lord spoke through Hosea to his disobedient son, Israel, he was preparing to send his obedient son, Jesus Christ.

How can God be justified in showing mercy to a disobedient son like Israel? Because he raises up in his place an obedient son like Jesus. The Father says, “When Jesus was a child, I loved him. I saved him from Herod and hid him in Egypt and brought him back home: ‘Out of Egypt I called my Son.’” In this brief citation, Matthew 2:15 shows us so much more than a neat Old Testament connection. Matthew shows us the obedient Son of God who loves his Dad like his Dad loves him.

Jesus was the one Son of God who always obeyed his Father. The more the Father called, the closer Jesus came in prayer, worship, and adoration. You’ve seen tears in the eyes of flawed fathers proud of their flawed sons. How much prouder must God the Father be of Jesus?

Jesus deserved nothing of the curses promised in Hosea 11:5–7: exile, persecution, devouring by enemies. And yet God so loved us, his prodigal sons and daughters, that he exiled his faithful Son to Egypt to be persecuted by Herod, and raised him to be devoured by Roman steel. God can show mercy to Israel in Hosea’s day, and God can show mercy to sinners like you today, for one reason and one reason only—because on another day, he visited his Son in wrath on a cross.

Recall this: In Hosea the Lord said that if Israel rebelled, even “though they call out to the Most High, he shall not raise them up at all” (v. 7). Wretched thought! Truly, “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). But thanks be to God that he shunned the hoarse cry of my Savior and shut him in a tomb for me. Oh, thanks be to my Father that he does hear my cry and that he will raise me up, for he gave up his obedient Son to be raised up for me. Thanks be to God that he called his baby boy out of Egypt to die for my sins outside Jerusalem. Thanks be to God that the arms of the good Son stretch out wide on the cross to proclaim, “I love you this much!”

The author is pastor of Providence OPC in Mantua, New Jersey. New Horizons, December 2025.