Matthew 2

It’s unclear exactly what they saw. One theory is that they saw a conjunction of planets that appeared like stars. In 7–6 BC the planets of Jupiter and Saturn came close together and appeared beside the constellation of Pisces. If the magi were stargazers, as many theorize, they interpreted the meaning of what they saw in the sky. Jupiter, the largest of the planets, represented kings, which suggested a king had been born. Saturn represented the Jews because they worshiped on the day that honored the god Saturn: Saturday. Pisces means “fish,” and it represented the lands around the Mediterranean Sea, where Israel is located. So the wise men did the math: king plus Jews plus Jewish homeland. They figured a king of the Jews had been born. They went to the Jewish capital of Jerusalem to introduce themselves and pay their respects.

Herod (reigned 37–4 BC) did not have a newborn son. But he did have a reputation for paranoia and for killing people he thought threatened his right to rule. By this time, Herod had already executed two of his own sons, one wife, and one mother-in-law.

Scribes specialized in the Jewish laws. Each of the major groups of Jews had their own scribes. These included the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. But in the time of Jesus, most scribes were Pharisees. This was the branch of the Jewish faith well-known for its meticulous devotion to observing the Law as they interpreted it and for insisting that everyone else do the same. In the Gospel of Mark, scribes represent the moral opposite of Jesus. If the Gospel of Mark were a cowboy movie produced in the early 1900s, the scribes would be wearing black hats and starting fistfights in the saloon.

The Greek word hēgeomai, used twice in this sentence, can mean a leader, such as a ruler, prince, or king.

Micah 5:2

The Greek word describing what the magi did is proskyneō. It’s often translated “worship.” But many scholars seem to agree that the magi were probably not worshiping Jesus in the way Christians do today. Instead, they were more likely showing the kind of respect they would show to a king or anyone else with a rank higher than their own. Kneeling like this is a way of gratefully acknowledging the authority someone else has over them. Some people in Eastern lands, such as the Persians in what is now Iran, would bow low, touching their foreheads to the ground as a show of profound reverence.

Hosea 11:1. Hosea was talking about the Jews who were enslaved in Egypt during the time of Moses. Matthew applies that same statement to Jesus, comparing him to the Jewish nation and perhaps to Moses, who led the Jews to freedom.

Apparently, the wise men told Herod they saw the star or the astrological event, for the first time about two years earlier. If the event they saw was the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn lining up with the Pisces constellation in 7–6 BC, the slaughter of baby boys in Bethlehem may have taken place right around the time King Herod died at around age 70, in 4 BC.

Jeremiah 31:15. Rachel was the favorite wife of Jacob, whose sons produced the extended families that became known as the 12 tribes of Israel. This prophecy was originally talking about Jews who had been deported to Babylon, in what is now Iraq, after the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem around 586 BC. Matthew borrowed that prophecy and applied it also to Herod’s slaughter of the children of Bethlehem.

Judea was a Roman province in what is now central Israel. Jerusalem was the main city in Judea.

Scholars say there is no such statement in the Old Testament or in any other Jewish writings before the time of the New Testament. Some scholars say Matthew was identifying Jesus as a Nazirite, a Jewish group known for living a no-frills, ascetic lifestyle. Others say Matthew may have been referring to a prophecy about the Messiah: “From the stump of King David’s family tree, from the roots of his father Jesse, a twig will sprout” (Isaiah 11:1). The Hebrew word for “twig” or “Branch,” Neser, is quite close to the word for Nazareth, Nasrat. They skipped vowels when they wrote. So we end up with nsr compared to nsrt. Matthew may have been presenting Jesus as the promised Branch from David’s family—the Neserite.