TRAVELLING CHILDREN

It is easy to forget that the infant Jesus was taken by His parents to stay for a time in Egypt. The journey must have been a perilous one but Joseph had divine cause to undertake it. The distance would seem to be about two hundred miles and the family would not have travelled in a well-appointed chariot such as the Ethiopian eunuch had when travelling on the same road years later. It is not easy to say how old the child Jesus was when the family returned to Israel, but the arch-enemy Herod had died. The family returned by heavenly direction to Nazareth so that Jesus should be called the Nazaraean.

In the scriptural account of the later life of Paul there is much of interest in his travels. Indeed there is a great deal of prophecy of the testimony of the Lord hidden in them. It is quite likely that there were children in the same voyages which the apostle undertook. At a place called Tyre where Paul and his company, and indeed all the passengers, had to wait seven days before continuing their course to Palestine, the local Christians cared for the hindered travellers, and on the departure of the ship the children with their parents knelt down on the seashore and prayed.

As to the journeys of the Israelites in the wilderness, there was a special word, through Moses, that the children should go with their parents and elders. Many of them would, in the course of time, remember only the manna to eat and only the water from the rock to drink. These were types of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you feast on Him?

J.C.Evershed