What does Matthew 2:19 mean?

Joseph experiences some of the most direct revelations from God of any character in the Gospels. Each revelation came with specific instructions for what he should do and how he should do it. Each involved the appearance of an angel of the Lord in a dream. This is the third of four such experiences.

This dream came after the death of Herod in Israel. Joseph, Mary, and Jesus were living in Egypt, perhaps among one of the Jewish settlements in the region. Judea was a Roman province, ruled by Herod and his family. Egypt, likewise, was Roman territory, under different local governors. God had sent them outside the reach of Herod through the message of an angel in an earlier dream. Though part of the Roman empire, Egypt was far outside of Herod's jurisdiction, and too far for him to discover that someone had survived his massacre of infants (Matthew 2:16).