JOSEPH swung another load onto the donkey’s back. Picture him looking around at the darkened village of Bethlehem and patting the flank of the sturdy little beast of burden. He was surely thinking of the long trip ahead. Egypt! A foreign people, a foreign tongue, foreign customs​—how would his little family adapt to so much change?

It was not easy to tell the bad news to his beloved wife, Mary, but Joseph braced himself and did it. He told her of the dream in which an angel delivered this message from God: The king, Herod, wanted their little son dead! They had to move right away. (Matthew 2:13, 14) Mary was deeply concerned. How could anyone want to kill her innocent, harmless child? Neither Mary nor Joseph could fathom it. But they trusted in Jehovah, so they readied themselves.

Unaware of the unfolding drama, Bethlehem slept as Joseph, Mary, and Jesus slipped out of the village in the darkness. Heading southward, with the sky beginning to lighten in the east, Joseph likely wondered about what lay ahead. How could a lowly carpenter protect his family against forces so powerful? Would he always be able to provide for his own? Would he manage to persevere in carrying out this heavy assignment that Jehovah God had given him, to care for and raise this unique child? Joseph faced daunting challenges.

Shortly after the astrologers left, Joseph received this warning from Jehovah’s angel: “Get up, take the young child and its mother and flee into Egypt, and stay there until I give you word; for Herod is about to search for the young child to destroy it.” (Matthew 2:13) So, as we noted at the outset, Joseph obeyed swiftly. He put his child’s safety above all else and took his family to Egypt. Because those pagan astrologers gave the family such costly gifts, they now had assets that might help them in the sojourn ahead.

Apocryphal myths and legends later romanticized the journey to Egypt, claiming that little Jesus miraculously shortened the trip, rendered bandits harmless, and even made date palms bend down to his mother to yield their fruit.c In truth, it was simply a long, arduous trek into the unknown.