Matthew 2:12

The wise men are mágos in Greek, the word that gives us “Magi”. They belonged to a priestly and learned class in Persia or Babylonia, men known for studying the stars and ancient wisdom and for interpreting dreams, and they often served kings as advisors. Popular tradition has often made them kings, but Matthew describes men of learning and standing who came “from the east”, a Gentile land far from Israel. So the first people in Matthew’s Gospel to come and worship Jesus are foreigners.

They may have learned to look for a King of the Jews through the Jewish communities that remained in the east after the Babylonian exile, who kept the prophecy that “there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel” (Numbers 24:17). Among the nations of that day a new star was often taken as the sign of an important birth, especially a king’s. The journey ran to hundreds of miles and may have taken months, and men who made it at such cost were deeply convinced of what the star meant.

They went first to Jerusalem, the capital and the centre of Judaea’s religious and political life, because that is where anyone would expect a newborn king to be found. Matthew marks their arrival with “behold”, idoú, a word that means “see!” and calls attention to something surprising and important.

Their coming begins to fulfil what God promised about the nations. Isaiah wrote, “And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising” (Isaiah 60:3), and God said to his servant, “I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6). Long before, he had told Abraham that in him all families of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:3). Matthew’s Gospel opens with men of the nations bowing before Jesus and closes with Jesus sending his disciples to teach all nations (Matthew 28:19–20). He is King of the Jews, and he is also, as the Samaritans later confessed, “the Saviour of the world” (John 4:42).

The wise men call it “his star”, astḗr, a sign that belongs to this one child. They first saw it “in the east”, anatolḗ, in their own homeland, and it set them on their journey.

In verse 9 the star moves in a way beyond any ordinary star. It “went before them”, proágō, leading them on like a guide, and it “stood over”, hístēmi, the very place where the young child was. Comets, a supernova and a meeting of planets have all been proposed, but each of these stays fixed in the sky as seen from the earth, while this star led travellers along a road and then marked a single house in Bethlehem. It was a miracle, a sign God gave to bring these seekers to his Son, as he once went before Israel in a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night (Exodus 13:21). It belongs with the other wonders around Jesus’ birth: his conception by the Holy Ghost (Matthew 1:18–25) and the angels who appeared to the shepherds (Luke 2:8–14).

When the wise men leave Jerusalem, “lo, the star” is before them again, and their great joy at the sight suggests it had been hidden from them for a while. Perhaps God let them come to Jerusalem first so that their question would be asked there, Herod’s heart would be laid bare, and the Scriptures would be opened on where the Christ was to be born.

The light that led them points to a greater Light. Zacharias sang that “the dayspring from on high hath visited us”, to give light to those in darkness and “to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:78–79), and Jesus calls himself “the bright and morning star” (Revelation 22:16). The star’s work ended when it reached him, and that is where all of God’s guiding leads.

The wise men ask their question openly, and Matthew introduces it with the everyday verb for speaking, légō. They seek the one “born King of the Jews”. The word for king, basileús, is the ordinary word for a sovereign, and this child holds the title by birth. Herod held the same title by Roman appointment, so from the first moment the question set two kings against each other. The title stays with Jesus to the end of his earthly life, when Pilate wrote over the cross, “JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS” (John 19:19). He is the Son of David whose throne God promised to establish for ever (2 Samuel 7:12–16).

They give their reason with the word “for”, gár: they have seen his star. And their purpose is plain, because they “are come to worship him”. The verb proskynéō means to bow down or fall prostrate in homage. It was used for honour paid to a great ruler and for the worship of God, and the wise men use it of a newborn child. In verse 11 they do as they said. Their worship is a first glimpse of heaven’s worship, where the redeemed of every kindred, tongue, people and nation sing to the Lamb (Revelation 5:9–14), “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing” (Revelation 5:12). God has given his Son the name above every name, that at it every knee should bow (Philippians 2:9–11).

The king of verse 1 is Herod I, called Herod the Great, who ruled Judaea as a client king under Rome from 37 to 4 BC. He was an Idumean, of Edomite descent, and in the eyes of many Jews his claim to the throne was always weak. He built on a grand scale, including the expansion of the temple in Jerusalem, and he was violently suspicious. He had his own wife, his mother-in-law and several of his sons put to death because he suspected them of plotting against him. His name, Hērṓdēs, comes from a word meaning heroic.

So when Herod “had heard”, akoúō, what the wise men were asking, he grasped at once what it meant for him, and he “was troubled”. The verb tarássō means to stir up or agitate, as water is churned, and it describes alarm that shakes a person inside. In Herod that alarm quickly became schemes against the child.

“All Jerusalem with him” (Hierosólyma, the Greek name of the city) is a broad way of saying that the unrest spread through the city. The people had reasons of their own. They had felt Herod’s cruelty and knew that talk of a rival king could bring his reprisals down on them, or unrest that would draw in Roman soldiers. Their fear was of what Herod would do. Even so, it is a sorrowful thing that the coming of the promised King first brought alarm to the very city that should have welcomed him.

This is the first of a long opposition. “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed”, says the psalm, and “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh” (Psalm 2:1–4). Jesus later said that he came to send a sword on the earth (Matthew 10:34) and division (Luke 12:51), and that the world which hated him would hate his followers too (John 15:18). Herod feared a rival for his throne, yet Jesus told Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36).

Herod “gathered”, synágō, all the chief priests and scribes. The word means to bring together or convene, and here it is a formal summons of the highest religious authorities in the land. The chief priests (archiereús) were the heads of the priestly families, mostly Sadducees, with the high priest at their head, and they ran the temple and its great wealth. The scribes, grammateús, from a word for writing, were the trained students and teachers of the Law and the prophets, often linked with the Pharisees. Between them they were the people to ask about the Messiah.

Herod “demanded of them”, pynthánomai, a verb for finding something out by asking. He wanted a fact he could use, and he asked “where Christ should be born”. Christós means anointed and is the Greek for the Hebrew Messiah, so Herod understood that the wise men’s question concerned the long-promised Deliverer and King of Israel.

Herod then “privily called the wise men”. Láthra comes from a verb meaning to escape notice, so this was a hidden meeting, kept from the court and the city, and it hid his purpose from the wise men themselves. He “enquired of them diligently”, akribóō, which means to find out exactly, and what he wanted to know exactly was “what time the star appeared”. The date of the star would give him the child’s age. Later, when the wise men failed to return, he killed the children of Bethlehem “from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men” (Matthew 2:16–18).

Then he sent them to Bethlehem with orders that sounded helpful: “Go and search diligently for the young child”. The verb exetázō means to examine thoroughly, and akribōs means exactly, so Herod wanted a careful search. The “young child”, paidíon, is a little child, and that makes Herod’s plan the more terrible. “Bring me word again”, apangéllō, means to report back, and he needed that report in order to strike. Last came the lie: “that I may come and worship him also”. Herod took the very word the wise men had used, proskynéō, and made it a cover for murder.

God saw through him. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the LORD search the heart” (Jeremiah 17:9–10). Herod’s plan was clever, but “The LORD bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought... The counsel of the LORD standeth for ever” (Psalm 33:10–11), and “There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the LORD” (Proverbs 21:30). God declares “the end from the beginning” and says, “My counsel shall stand” (Isaiah 46:10). When the rulers later gathered against Jesus, the apostles prayed that they had done “whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done” (Acts 4:27–28). The Father seeks worship “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23–24), and Herod’s worship was a mask.

“When they had heard the king, they departed”, leaving Herod and going on with their search. Then the star went before them again, and “when they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.” The verb for seeing, eídō, often carries the sense of seeing and knowing, and they knew at once what the sign meant. Matthew piles up the words for their gladness. In Greek they “rejoiced a joy”, echarēsan charan, the verb (from chaírō) and the noun chará sharing one root, and the noun is made larger still with megalēn sphódra, “great, exceedingly”. Together the words describe overwhelming delight.

Their joy had good reasons. After the uncertainty of Herod’s court, God was plainly leading them again, and their long journey was about to end in the presence of the King. The angel had brought the shepherds “good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people” (Luke 2:10), and the psalmist says to God, “in thy presence is fulness of joy” (Psalm 16:11). The same news that troubled Herod in verse 3 filled these seekers with joy.

“When they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother”. The wise men’s eyes go to the child, paidíon, with his mother beside him, and they “fell down, and worshipped him”, proskynéō. The word is traced to a root meaning to kiss, like a dog licking its master’s hand, and it describes bowing to the ground in homage. Before this child, honoured men of the east lay face down and gave him the worship due to God.

Then they “opened their treasures”. A thēsaurós, from títhēmi, to put or place, is a deposit or store of valuables, and here it means the stores that held their wealth. They “presented”, prosphérō, the word for bringing an offering, especially to a superior or to God. These gifts were tribute.

Each gift is costly, and each fits who he is.

• Gold, chrysós, is the gift for a king. It honours Jesus as the King whose reign is over all, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS” (Revelation 19:16).
• Frankincense, líbanos, is a fragrant resin burned in the worship of the temple and used in perfume. It speaks of his deity and of his work as our great High Priest (Hebrews 4:14), through whom we may draw near to God with boldness (Hebrews 10:19–22).
• Myrrh, smýrna, is a bitter gum used in perfumes and medicines and to prepare the dead for burial, and it points ahead to his suffering and death. When he was buried, Nicodemus brought “a mixture of myrrh and aloes” (John 19:39). He was “wounded for our transgressions” (Isaiah 53:5) as the Lamb of God (John 1:29).

The wise men may have understood what their gifts meant, or God may have led them to bring more than they knew. Either way, the gifts answer the prophets. “The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him” (Psalm 72:10–11). “They shall bring gold and incense; and they shall shew forth the praises of the LORD” (Isaiah 60:6).

The wise men were “warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod”. The verb chrēmatízō is used for a divine message or instruction, an oracle from God himself, and ónar is a dream. God spoke in dreams to Jacob, to Joseph and to Daniel, and in these chapters he speaks to Joseph by dreams again and again (Matthew 1:20, 2:13). For Gentile men from far away, a dream was a fitting way to receive God’s word, and it was also discreet. It overturned Herod’s command without a public confrontation and kept the child’s whereabouts from him.

So “they departed”, anachōréō, to withdraw or go aside, “into their own country another way”, by another (állos) road (hodós). It was a quiet act of obedience and a bold one, because they set God’s warning above the order of a powerful and cruel king. Their going home another way left Herod waiting in vain, and soon an angel would send Joseph with the child and his mother into Egypt (Matthew 2:13–15).

Herod tried to cut the promised King off as a child, and God kept him. Jesus grew up to give his life freely, as “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). The angel had said before his birth, “he shall save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). The King whom Herod feared is the Son of man shown to Daniel, whose “dominion is an everlasting dominion” (Daniel 7:13–14), and on the cross he triumphed over principalities and powers (Colossians 2:15).

The wise men followed the light God gave them, and when they found the child they fell down before him and opened their treasures. God has given you a clearer light than a star in the same Scriptures the scribes quoted, which tell you plainly who Jesus is and where he is found. The scribes knew the place and stayed home. The wise men went. You can come to him as they did, bow before him as your King and your God, and give him what is yours to give: your time, your gifts, your possessions and your life.

This passage also shows whose plans stand. A king with soldiers and spies set himself against a little child, and God turned his scheme aside with one dream in the night. God’s counsel still stands, and the Lord who guided the wise men to Jesus and sent them safely home watches over all who come to him.