Chapter 2 - Wise Men Visit Jesus 2:1-12
v1 Jesus was born in the town called Bethlehem. This was in Judea district. At this time, Herod was the king there. Wise men came from the east to the capital city called Jerusalem. v2 ‘Where is the child who was born as the king of the Jews?’ they asked. ‘We saw his star in the east. So we have come to worship him.’ v3 When Herod heard this, he was very worried. Everyone in Jerusalem was worried as well. v4 Herod called together all the chief priests and the men who taught the law. He asked them where the Christ would be born.
v5 ‘He will be born in Bethlehem, which is in Judea’, they replied. ‘This is what God’s servant wrote about long ago:
v6 “But you, Bethlehem in the land of Judah,
you are certainly not the least important among Judah’s towns.
Because a ruler will come out from you,
and he will guide my people Israel.” ’
v7 Then Herod secretly called for the wise men. He found out from them the exact time that the star had appeared. v8 So he sent them to Bethlehem. ‘Go and search with great care for the child’, he said. ‘As soon as you find him, come and tell me. Then I shall be able to go and worship him as well’, Herod said to them.
v9 After the wise men had listened to the king, they left. The star that they had seen in the east went ahead of them. Then it stopped over the place where the child was. v10 When they saw the star again, they were very happy. v11 The wise men went into the house. There they saw the child with his mother Mary. Then they bowed down and worshipped him. They had brought valuable gifts for him too. They gave him gold, frankincense and myrrh. v12 But God warned them in a dream that they must not go back to Herod. So they returned to their country by a different way.
Commentary
Verses 1
‘Bethlehem’ means ‘house of bread’. It is a small town six miles from Jerusalem. It was the home of David (1 Samuel 16). The Jews were expecting a king who would come from David’s town.
The ‘wise men’ studied the stars. The Greek word for them is ‘magi.’ They probably came from Persia. Christians often call them ‘kings.’ God’s servant Isaiah wrote about this long before this time. He said that other nations and ‘kings’ would come to give honor to God’s light in Jerusalem (Isaiah 60:3). Psalm 72:10-11 describes ‘kings’ who bring their gifts to a great ruler.
Verse 3
The Romans allowed Herod to rule as Judea’s king. But he was very afraid that he would lose his power. Herod suspected that some men wanted to be the ruler instead of him. So he killed anyone whom he suspected. He even murdered three of his own sons. He thought that they were plotting against him. The great Roman king Augustus said that it was not safe to be Herod’s son. The people in Jerusalem were worried. They knew that Herod would remove the child.
Verses 4-6
The ‘chief priests’ were those who had been high priests. The chief priests came from a few special families. The men who taught the law were experts. They explained the Old Testament. They reminded Herod of what God’s servant Micah wrote long ago (Micah 5:2). God had promised that the ruler would come from Bethlehem. They gave the right answer, but they did not go to Bethlehem. They did not go to see whether Micah’s words had come true or not.
Verses 7-8
Herod pretended that he wanted to show respect to the new king. Instead, Herod was making plans to kill him. He wanted to know when the wise men first saw the star. Then he would know how old the child was.
Verses 9-11
The wise men arrived in Bethlehem a long time after the birth of Jesus. The men who look after sheep had seen the ‘baby’ at the beginning. He was in a box where they usually put animal food (Luke 2:16).
Matthew says that the wise men went into the house. They saw the ‘child’ with his mother. The wise men may have traveled for nearly two years to find this new king. People think that there were three wise men because there were three gifts.
‘Gold’ showed that Jesus was a king. ‘Frankincense’ showed that Jesus was a priest. The priests offered it to God when they worshipped him in the Temple. Because of Jesus, people would be able to come near to God. People used to put ‘myrrh’ on dead bodies. This gift showed that Jesus would die to rescue people from their sins.
Verse 12
The wise men did not tell King Herod where Jesus was.
Joseph, Mary and Jesus Escaped into Egypt 2:13-18
v13 When the wise men had left, a messenger from the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. ‘Get up! Take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt’, he said to Joseph. ‘Stay there until I tell you to return. Herod is going to search for the child because Herod wants to kill him.’
v14 Then Joseph got up. During the night, he took the child and his mother to Egypt. v15 They stayed there until king Herod died. So the words that God had spoken by means of his servant came true:
‘I called my son out of Egypt’, he had said.
v16 Herod realized that the wise men had not obeyed him. So he became very angry. He sent his soldiers to kill all the boys in and round Bethlehem. He remembered when the wise men had first seen the star. So he told the soldiers to kill all the boys who were two years old or younger. v17 In this way the words came true that Jeremiah had spoken long before.
v18 ‘People hear a voice in Ramah.
Someone is crying and is very sad.
Rachel is crying for her children.
She refuses to let anyone comfort her.
Her children are dead.’ (Jeremiah 31:15).
Commentary
Verses 13-14
Many Jews had gone to Egypt in the centuries before Christ. Egypt was far away from Judea. They found that they could live there safely. So there were many groups of Jews in the towns there. In the city called Alexandria, there were more than a million Jews. So Joseph and Mary would not be among strangers. They would find Jews with whom they could live and work.
Verse 15
God called Israel’s people his ‘son’ (Exodus 4:22). God’s servant Hosea said that God greatly loved his ‘son’. He had helped Moses to bring his son, all Israel’s people, out of Egypt (Hosea 11:1). Jesus, God’s Son, had the same experience as the people of Israel. God had called him to return from Egypt.
Verses 16-17
Herod did not know which little boy was the new king. So he killed all those boys that could have been the king. But Jesus had escaped.
Verse 18
Rachel lived long ago. She was the wife of Jacob, who was also called Israel. Therefore, she was the mother of Israel’s people. God’s servant Jeremiah imagined that she was sitting by her grave near Bethlehem (Genesis 35:19). She was weeping for her children as their enemies took them away to Babylon (Jeremiah 31:15). Now Rachel was weeping for the children in Bethlehem whom Herod had killed.
The Family Returned to Nazareth 2:19-23
v19 When Herod died, Joseph had a dream. The Lord’s messenger appeared to him in Egypt. v20 ‘Get up’, the messenger said. ‘Take the child and his mother, and go back to the land called Israel. The people who were trying to kill the child are dead now.’
v21 So Joseph got up and took the child and his mother with him. He returned to the country called Israel. v22 But then, he heard that Archelaus was ruling Judea. Archelaus was Herod’s son, so Joseph was afraid to go there. In another dream, God had warned Joseph about this. So he went back to the land called Galilee instead. v23 He went to live in a town called Nazareth. So what God had said about Jesus long ago came true.
‘People will call him a Nazarene’, God’s servants had said.
Commentary
Verses 19-22
After Herod died, the Romans divided his land among three of his sons. One of his sons was called Archelaus, and he became Judea’s ruler. He was like his father. He was a very cruel man. But God warned Joseph in a dream so that he did not go back to Judea.
Verse 23
Herod Antipas was Galilee’s ruler. He was a better ruler than his brother Archelaus. So Joseph returned to Nazareth, where he and Mary had come from first. The word ‘Nazarene’ means ‘someone who comes from Nazareth’.
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