Matthew said near the end of the last chapter that he was going to tell us about the birth of Jesus. But, compared to Luke, he told us little about the actual birth. However, he does set the stage for events that occurred after the birth of Jesus. These are stories about power, who desires power above all else, and what those near power will do to keep their privilege.
2: 1-6. In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, magi from the east came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star in the east and have come to pay him homage.” When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him, and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it has been written by the prophet:
‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel’.”
First, let’s begin with King Herod. He was indeed “that ill-tempered tyrant,”[1] and not as great as his name implies.[2] We have a full description of his political schemes and machinations written by Josephus.[3] Herod was not a Jew, but an Idumean (Edomite) who tried all his life to be accepted as the ‘King of the Jews’. The Jews knew better. His lack of knowledge is revealed when he convenes the council to ask where the king is to be born; because he didn’t know.
Herod had connived and bribed his way to being declared King of the Jews by Marc Anthony and the Roman Senate, and later to be confirmed by Augustus Caesar. He tried to please both the Jews (by rebuilding the temple) and the Romans (by supporting the winners in their politics); but he was very paranoid and quick to retaliate for any perceived disloyalty or threat. Among other things, at different times, he had his wife and three of his sons executed. He expected complete loyalty and saw conspiracies everywhere. He executed opposing Jewish council members and replaced them with people loyal to him.[4] “So protective was Herod of his power and so jealous of potential rivals that his more popular brother-in-law, a very young high priest, had a drowning ‘accident’—in a pool that archaeology shows was very shallow.”[5] Such was the political figure to whom loyalty meant everything and morality meant nothing.
Second, who were these visitors? The Greek word is magoi, which referred to astrologers who often served as consultants for kings. Did they come from the east? Probably. The Greek word in question, anatolas, means ‘at the rising’, as in the rising of the sun, which is in the east. Since astrologers were common as counsellors in Persia, both ideas have stuck for these ‘wise men’. The word for ‘east’ comes down to us as ‘Anatolia’, which is another name for modern-day Turkey. From a Greek perspective, Turkey and Persia are in the east. Persian astronomers were familiar with Jewish texts, so it is no surprise that they linked the new star with the birth of a Jewish king. Of course, this was shocking news for Herod. And when Herod gets paranoid, then all Jerusalem shutters.
Third, what about Bethlehem? Matthew says nothing about how Joseph and Mary got there. Bethlehem was indeed the ‘city of David’, not Jerusalem. Matthew provides a loose quote from Micah 5:3. If you compare the two, you will notice that Matthew left “Ephrathah” out and inserted “of Judea.” Then Matthew changed the prophet’s next line, “who are one of the little clans of Judah.” Perhaps Matthew meant that, now that Jesus the King was born there, Bethlehem would be “by no means least among the rulers of Judah.” Notice also that Matthew changed ‘clans’ to ‘rulers’. We have seen this before, the rephrasing of a prophecy to make it fit a new application. All perfectly legal under the interpretation rules of the time.
Finally, Matthew changed the quotation from “to rule his people” to “to shepherd his people,” perhaps he did this to highlight the difference in leadership style between Herod and Jesus.
So, we have here the ‘when’: In the time of King Herod who died in 4 B.C. and ‘after’ Jesus had been born. We have the ‘who’: Herod, Jesus, the wise men (astrologers, not kings), and the Jewish council. Now ‘what’ should we expect from a leader who counts loyalty as of first importance and see a conspiracy around every corner?
2: 7-12. Then Herod secretly called for the magi and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” When they had heard the king, they set out, and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen in the east, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.
Herod is already thinking ahead. What if the magi don’t find the child, or what if they don’t report what they found? Wily in his ways, Herod needs a back-up plan. He has to know the exact time of the baby’s birth in order to narrow down the age of the child.
Apparently, the star had pointed them toward Jerusalem, which the wise men would have expected to be the location of the King of the Jews. But, as with modern GPS instructions, “You know the nearer your destination, the more you're slip slidin' away.”[6] The star was vague or maybe disappeared and could not direct them specifically to Bethlehem which is six miles south of Jerusalem. However, either a new star appeared or the old one reappeared over the village. They arrive ‘after Jesus was born’, so they enter a house. Jesus is said to be a child, not a baby, which is a different word in Greek. The text never mentions an ‘inn’ or a ‘manger’. It is Luke who says that there was no place for them in the ‘guest room’ of a house (not an inn) and so the family had to stay just outside the house and use a feeding trough (a manger) for a crib.
Though the magi give gifts fit for a king, they also seem to worship Jesus. Perhaps that was the practice in Persia where a king was often identified as a divine figure. The main point is the contrast; Jesus is a king, but not a king like Herod. Much has been made of the gifts, but that commentary arose centuries after this text. They were expensive, and mainly come from Arabia. Perhaps they became useful to the family because they are about to go on a journey.
2: 13-15. Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet,
“Out of Egypt I have called my son.”
Joseph, as with his namesake, continues to be guided by dreams. Why Egypt? Keener and Walton note that: “A large Jewish community already lived in Egypt. Alexandria, a Greek-founded city in the northern delta region of Egypt, included perhaps the largest Jewish community outside Judea and Galilee.”[7] I have already located Bethlehem south of Jerusalem, so it would be natural for Joseph to lead his family farther south, not north toward Jerusalem, and to choose a place outside Judea where Jews were welcome.
The OT quote is from Hosea 11:1 tends to link Jesus with the nation of Israel: “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” However, the analogy cannot be pushed too far because the next verse says: “The more I called them, the more they went from me, … they kept offering incense to idols.” Perhaps Jesus represents Israel as it should be, obedient to God.
2: 16-18. When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the magi. Then what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
“A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”
That’s the kind of ruler Herod is: he demands total loyalty, and he quickly punishes any perceived deviation or threat. That’s not a godly leader. By the way, soon after this incident, Herod died a painful death. When he saw it coming, he ordered the slaughter of members of the Jewish council so that people would be grieving all over Jerusalem, even if not for him. However, his orders were not carried out, according to Josephus.
The prophet Jeremiah, in chapter 31: 15, is talking about the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. when many were killed and the rest marched away to captivity in Babylon. Ramah is six miles north of Jerusalem and Rachel, the ideal mother in Judaism who died giving birth to Benjamin, was weeping for all Israel from her tomb is in Ramah. Matthew repurposes this prophecy, as he does with others, to apply it to the current situation, that is, ‘the slaughter of the innocents’.
If one reads further in the same chapter of Jeremiah, as was suggested when quotes were made in the First Century, Rachel is told to keep her voice from weeping because “there is hope in your future, says the Lord: your children shall come back to their own country” (31: 17). Further, God promises that, “the days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah” (31: 31).
2: 19-21. When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel.
Another dream, another move. Notice in the text that Jesus, ‘the child’, is taking center stage, even over his mother and father.
2: 22-23. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He will be called a Nazarene.”
Herod Archelaus was just as nasty and brutal as his father, but he did not last long because he did not have the organizational skills; Rome removed and exiled him in 6 A.D. Galilee was under the rule of another son, Herod Antipas who had John the Baptist beheaded and kept a close eye on Jesus when he was preaching and healing. Only a little safer place than Judea.
Nazareth was a small town, not mentioned at all in the Old Testament. Ancient Greek does not have quotation marks, and so it might be questioned whether or not Matthew meant this last statement to be a direct quote or just a summation of prophetic ideas. The root word, remembering that Hebrew has only consonants, is nzr. Methods of the time for providing commentary on Scripture often involved word play, and there are two possibilities here. It could be a reference to a person who makes a vow to God that includes not cutting his hair nor drinking wine. Such people are called Nazirites. However, there is no indication that Jesus took this vow, and he did drink wine (we don’t know about the hair, except from modern pictures).
The other possibility is the word ‘branch’, whose root is also nzr. Isaiah says, “a shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, and the spirit of wisdom and understanding. … His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. … with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth” (11: 1-4). Now, this is easily applied to Jesus, as does a similar passage in Jeremiah 23: 5. That brings together the meanings of “He shall be called a Nazarene.”
After playing a prominent role in the story to now, this is the last that we hear of Joseph the husband of Mary in the Gospel According to Matthew.
In these first two chapters, Matthew has established the Jewish pedigree of Jesus and shown how his birth fulfilled Jewish prophecy, both the specific prophets and the more generic ‘the prophets’. Jesus will be a wise king, like King Solomon, more like a shepherd to his people Israel than most kings. Jesus will be a contrast to and in conflict with earthly kings and powers. Yet, the nations, represented by the magi, will recognize him and treat him with respect. All of this firmly fixes his place as an exemplary Jew, and works to convince Jewish readers that this is the prophetic outcome of years of Jewish genealogy and prophecy.
Matthew next skips over the years of the young Jesus, as is common in ancient biography. Birth is one thing, what about living out the expectations? In Chapter 3, Matthew takes us to the encounter with John the Baptizer to establish Jesus’ righteousness, and then switches to his encounter with the Devil to establish the spiritual strength that this Messiah has.
[1] Tasker, The Gospel According to Matthew, page 37.
[2] Ben Witherington, in his commentary Matthew, calls him “Herod the not-so-great.” Page 62.
[3] The Works of Jsephus, translated by William Whiston, (1987), originally written in the 70s and 80s as separate works: The Antiquities of the Jews, The Wars of the Jews, and Against Apion.
[4] Keener and Walton, The NRSV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, (2019). Page 1624.
[5] Keener and Walton, page 1624.
[6] Thanks to Paul Simon, the singer.
[7] Keener and Walton, Page 1626.