John Lightfoot on Matthew 2:16

[From two years old, and under.] It was now two years ago, or thereabouts, since the star had shone, and Christ was born. The reason of the tarrying of Joseph and Mary in Beth-lehem was this; that they believed that the Messias, who, according to the prophet was born there, should have been brought up nowhere but there also; nor dared they to carry him elsewhere, before they had leave to do so by an angel from heaven.

The Jewish nation are very purblind, how and whence the Messias shall arise; and "Nemo novit, no man knows whence the Son of man is," John 7:27; that is, from what original. It was doubted whether he should come from the living or from the dead. Only it was confessed by all without controversy, that he should first make some show of himself from Beth-lehem, which the priests and scribes of the people assert, verse 4. Hence you have Christ now in his second year at Beth-lehem, whither Joseph and Mary had again betaken themselves with him, when they had now presented him in the Temple, according to the law, being forty days old, Luke 2:22. And they had taken care for his education in this place, and not elsewhere, until he himself, going forth from hence, might show himself openly the Messias, if they had not been sent away somewhere else by permission from heaven.