Matthew 2:20 Meaning Arise and Take the Young Child

The command to arise comes only after the threat has ended, and it ends not because an enemy was beaten but because it was seen at last to have no life of its own. The fear that hunts innocence feels real to the mind that believes in it, yet it was always a figure in a dream, and a dream cannot kill what God created.

So the mind is told to gather up its innocence and carry it home. The way back opens the moment guilt is recognized as the empty thing it is, for what seemed to seek the child's life is simply gone, and nothing bars the return to peace.

The young child: the innocence at the center of every mind, the Christ Self that fear cannot reach; his mother: the part of the mind that shelters and carries that innocence until it can stand on its own; the land of Israel: the mind's true home, the state of peace it left in fear and is now free to return to; they which sought the child's life: the ego's murderous guilt, the fear that would destroy innocence, now seen to have had no life at all.

When the men who hunted the child die, the dark forces set against the new life finally run out of power.

Egypt has been the hidden shelter where this holy new life could grow safe from harm. The child stands for the true self just beginning to form, like the old Egyptian image of the rising young sun set against the setting one: fresh life taking over from what is fading. The angel's call to go home means the danger of falling back is over. Powers that had lain still spring awake again through this rescue, and the slow movement toward becoming whole picks up once more.