The Wonder of Worship
Intro: WONDERSTRUCK
If the Magi came from the environs of Babylon, they would have traveled approximately nine hundred miles.
The term “Magi” (magos, “magician”) originally referred to a priestly caste in ancient Persia, perhaps followers of Zoroaster (c. 630?–550? B.C.), a Persian teacher and prophet. Babylonian elements were subsequently introduced, including astrology, demonology, wisdom, and magic. Magi were usually leading figures in the religious court life of their country of origin, employing a variety of scientific (astrology), diplomatic (wisdom), and religious (magical incantations) elements in their work. These practices were distinct from a more common type of “magician” found elsewhere (e.g., magos in Acts 13:6, 8).
Following Origen of Alexandria, I think that they were from Babylon. I say this because we know from the book of Daniel that the Chaldeans or Babylonians had “wise men” (Daniel 2:12–14, 24, 27, 48; 4:6, 18; 5:6–8, 15) and also because of the theological significance attached to Babylon. Matthew is possibly saying that the pilgrimage of the nations to the holy city, the flood of Gentiles entering into the people of God, has begun, as the prophets predicted (Isaiah 2:2, 3; cf. Isaiah 60:1–5; Micah 4:1, 2)
The three steps in the religious quest of the Wise Men are all significant: God took the initiative, meeting the Wise Men in their own context and communicating with them in a way they could understand (Matt. 2:2, 9). Once the Wise Men found Jesus, they spontaneously and freely worshiped him as the object of their religious quest. The offerings they gave to Jesus were likewise free and natural expressions of the overwhelming joy they experienced at finding someone worthy of their worship (vv. 10–11).
The wise men are, more correctly, ‘Magi’, originally the name of a Persian priestly caste, but later used widely for magicians and astrologers (cf. Acts 13:6), a numerous class in most countries in Western Asia at the time (see further, Brown, pp. 167–168). Astrology had been developed into a sophisticated science especially in Babylonia, and there is evidence for its influence also in Palestine (see AB, p. 14). From what part of the East these Magi came can only be guessed; their gifts (v. 11) are most likely of Arabian origin, but would be available to and used by the Magi of Babylonia, and this is perhaps their most likely place of origin. Their reference to ‘the king of the Jews’, and their need to enquire about the birthplace of the Messiah, imply that they were Gentiles, though with a limited knowledge of Judaism (which was well established in Babylonia).
Certainly such a prophecy excludes many potential messianic aspirants and refutes the argument that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah simply by setting out to fulfill all of the Scriptures relevant to the office. He scarcely could have chosen his place of birth.
(According to tradition three Magi traveled to Bethlehem. But the Bible does not say how many there were.)
The verb worship (proskyneō) need mean no more than to pay homage to a human dignitary, but Matthew frequently uses it in contexts where Jesus’ more-than-human status is recognized (e.g. 14:33; 28:9, 17), and the same implication may be present here.
Through the Jewish community in their homeland, the Magi would have become familiar with Balaam’s prophecy, “A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel” (Num. 24:17). In many quarters within Judaism this prophecy was understood to point to a messianic deliverer (e.g., CD 7:18–26; 4QTest. 9–13). In Revelation, Jesus refers to himself in similar language: “I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star” (Rev. 22:16; cf. 2:28; 2 Peter 1:19).
“Magi” (not “wise men”—KJV) were pagan astrologers whose divinatory skills were widely respected in the Greco-Roman world; astrology had become popular through the “science” of the East, and everyone agreed that the best astrologers lived in the East. The Old Testament explicitly forbade such prognostication from signs (Deut 18:11; cf. Is 2:6; 47:11–15), prescribing true prophecy instead (Deut 18:15).
2:2. Astronomers have offered various proposals for the appearance of this star in the first decade B.C. The ancients thought comets and falling stars predicted the fall of rulers; some emperors even banished from Rome astrologers who issued such predictions. By this period many Jewish people accepted the idea that the stars could accurately predict the future. Even though these Magi were pagans, God had chosen to reveal himself to them.
The Wise Men stand as a reminder that there is only one God, the Creator of the universe (Rom. 1:18–21; 3:30; 1 Cor. 8:6), and that he desires all people to worship him from the heart (John 4:23)
the house. Shows that the Magi did not visit the baby Jesus at the manger the night of his birth when the shepherds were present. The Magi would have come months later.
worshiped him. The Magi, unlike Herod, do worship the baby. Gentile pagans come to know the true king of the universe, whereas key leaders in Israel reject him.
These were not kings, but Magi, magicians or astrologers—possibly Zoroastrian wise men from Persia whose knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures could be traced back to the time of Daniel (cf. Dan. 5:11).
2:2 saying. This present participle conveys the idea of continuous action. It suggests they went around the city questioning everyone they met. star. This could not have been a supernova or a conjunction of planets, as some modern theories suggest, because of the way the star moved and settled over one place (cf. v. 9). It is more likely a supernatural reality similar to the Shekinah that guided the Israelites in the days of Moses (Ex. 13:21).
The “Magi” (magoi) are not easily identified with precision. Several centuries earlier the term was used for a priestly caste of Medes who enjoyed special power to interpret dreams. Daniel (Dan 1:20; 2:2; 4:7; 5:7) refers to magoi in the Babylonian Empire. In later centuries down to NT times, the term loosely covered a wide variety of men interested in dreams, astrology magic, books thought to contain mysterious references to the future, and the like. Some Magi honestly inquired after truth; many were rogues and charlatans
Apparently these men came to Bethlehem spurred on by astrological calculations. But they had probably built up their expectation of a kingly figure by working through assorted Jewish books
By the end of the sixth century, the wise men were named: Melkon (later Melchior), Balthasar, and Gasper. Matthew gives no names. His magoi come to Jerusalem (which, like Bethlehem, has strong Davidic connections [2 Sam 5:5–9]), arriving, apparently (cf. Note 5), from the east—possibly from Babylon, where a sizable Jewish settlement wielded considerable influence, but possibly from Persia or from the Arabian desert. The more distant Babylon may be supported by the travel time apparently required (see on 2:16).
1. Kepler (died 1630) pointed out that in the Roman year A.U.C. 747 (7 B.C.), there occurred a conjunction of the planets Jupiter and Saturn in the zodiacal constellation of Pisces, a sign sometimes connected in ancient astrology with the Hebrews. Many details can be fitted to this suggestion (Alf; R.E. Brown, Birth of Messiah, pp. 172–73; DNTT, 3:735; Maier), not least that medieval Jews saw messianic significance in the same planetary conjunction. Moreover the conjunction occurred in May, October, and November of 7 B.C. ; and one of the latter two appearances could account for 2:9. But there is no solid evidence that the ancients referred to such conjunctions as “stars”; and even at their closest proximity, Jupiter and Saturn would have been about one degree apart—a perceived distance about twice the diameter of the moon—and therefore never fused into one image.
2. Kepler himself preferred the suggestion that this was a supernova—a faint star that violently explodes and gives off enormous amounts of light for a few weeks or months. The suggestion is no more than guess: there is no confirming evidence, and it is difficult on this theory to account for 2:9.
3. Others have suggested comets, what some older writers refer to as “variable stars.” The most likely is Halley’s Comet (cf. Lagrange), which passed overhead in 12 B.C. ; but this seems impossibly early.
Matthew uses language almost certainly alluding to Numbers 24:17: “A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel.” This oracle, spoken by Balaam, who came “from the eastern mountains” (Num 23:7), was widely regarded as messianic
His kingly status was not conferred on him later on; it was his from birth. Jesus’ participation in the Davidic dynasty has already been established by the genealogy. The same title the Magi gave him found its place over the cross (27:37).
(3) Another plausible suggestion is that the supernatural phenomenon was actually an angel sent to the Magi to announce the birth of Messiah and to guide them to Jesus so that they would be a witness to his birth through their worship. Good angels are commonly referred to as stars (e.g., Job 38:7; Dan. 8:10; Rev. 1:16, 20; 2:1; 3:1), as are fallen angels (Rev. 8:10, 11; 9:1; perhaps Isa. 14:12–13). Angels guided and protected Israel to the Promised Land (Ex. 14:19; 23:20), and they often appear in Jewish and Christian literature as guides. New Testament scholar Dale Allison cites the apocryphal Arabic Gospel of the Infancy 7, which expands Matthew’s account of the Magi to say, “In the same hour there appeared to them an angel in the form of that star which had before guided them on their journey.”
This last view is consistent with the prominent place of the angel of the Lord in the overall infancy narrative: announcing to Joseph the virginal conception of Jesus (1:20), warning the Magi not to return to Herod (2:12), warning Joseph to flee with the family to Egypt (2:13), telling them to go back to Israel (2:19), and guiding them in a dream to Nazareth (2:22).
Herod the Great, he was an Idumean, unqualified by lineage for his position. But he was a shrewd diplomat, funding many public works in Judea, and began a dynasty that accounts for various descendants also called “Herod” later in the NT.
The final years of Herod’s reign were characterized by constant domestic problems. His ten wives had produced offspring who contended against each other for his throne. As he became older, he grew increasingly paranoid, and he had a number of his own family members imprisoned and executed—for example, his wife Miramne I and later her two sons, Alexander and Aristobulus. After several incidents of this sort, Caesar Augustus supposedly made the famous pun that he would rather be Herod’s pig (hys) than his son (huios)
A ruthless murderer, he had his own wife and her two brothers slain because he suspected them of treason. He was married at least nine times in order to fulfill his lusts and strengthen his political ties.
They were five miles from the very Son of God, yet they did not go to see Him!
The traditional manger scenes that assemble together the shepherds and wise men are not true to Scripture, since the magi arrived much later.
Bethlehem means “house of bread,” and this was where the “Bread of Life” came to earth (John 6:48ff). Bethlehem
The verb is proskyneo, “worship,” with the dative direct object auto, “him.” This dative is the case of personal interest, which normally lends itself to emphasize the worship of deity (cf. 14:33; Wallace, Greek Grammar, 172–73).
The word used to describe the Magi’s “worship” is one normally reserved for the veneration of deity. It is a clear principle in Scripture that God alone is to receive worship, never an intermediary, not even an angel (e.g., Acts 14:11–15; Rev. 19:10)
Bethlehem is about five miles south of Jerusalem. “Stars” (i.e., planets) naturally travel from east to west across the heavens, not from north to south. Could it be that “the star” which the Magi saw and which led them to a specific house was the Shekinah glory of God? That same glory had led the children of Israel through the wilderness for 40 years as a pillar of fire and cloud. Perhaps this was what they saw in the East, and for want of a better term they called it a “star.” All other efforts to explain this star are inadequate (such as a conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars; a supernova; a comet; etc.).
Herod was not the rightful king from the line of David. In fact he was not even a descendant of Jacob, but was descended from Esau and thus was an Edomite. (He reigned over Palestine from 37 B.C. to 4 B.C. See the chart on the Herods at Luke 1:5.) This fact caused most of the Jews to hate him and never truly to accept him as king, even though he did much for the country. If someone had been rightfully born king, then Herod’s job was in jeopardy. He therefore called the Jewish scholars together and inquired where the Christ was to be born (Matt. 2:4). Interestingly Herod connected the One “born king of the Jews” (v. 2) with “the Christ,” the Messiah. Obviously Israel had a messianic hope and believed that the Messiah would be born.
Though not all scholars agree on the timing of the arrival of the Magi from the East, they apparently came some time after the birth of Jesus. Jesus and Mary and Joseph, though still in Bethlehem, were now in a house (v. 11), and Jesus was called a Child (paidion, vv. 9, 11) rather than a newborn Infant (brephos, Luke 2:12).
Many rulers feared astrological signs of their demise; the Emperor Nero later reportedly slaughtered many nobles in the hope that their deaths (rather than his own) would fulfill the prediction of a comet. Jerusalem was an important trade center; the Magi must have come with quite an entourage for the whole city to notice them. Then again, many people resented Herod’s rule and rumors could have circulated quickly. King Herod, who was aware of broad currents of thought in the Roman Empire and sponsored pagan temples among Gentile cities in his realm, might have been especially apt to consider the Magi’s mission significant.
The chief priests belonged mainly to the wealthy aristocracy of Sadducees; “scribes” in the narrow sense in which the term is used here applies to experts in the Jewish law, most of whom were also teachers of the law. Herod exercised a great deal of influence over the prominent leaders of the people, having forcibly removed most of his political opponents.
2:5–6. Micah 5:2 predicted Bethlehem as the Messiah’s birthplace, because the Messiah was to be a descendant of David, and Bethlehem had been David’s hometown. It was a small town less than a ten-mile walk from Herod’s capital, Jerusalem. The Magi had come to Jerusalem because that was where they expected to find any Judean king—perhaps one of Herod’s sons. What is remarkable is that the scribes would know where the Messiah would be born yet not act on that knowledge either positively (Mt 2:11) or negatively (2:16). Because successors of these Jerusalem leaders later sought Jesus’ execution (26:3–4, 57), Matthew may be suggesting that the line between taking Jesus for granted and crucifying him is very thin.
Even had the object been close enough to earth to calculate its relation to Bethlehem, Bethlehem was so close to Jerusalem that any distance would have been negligible unless the object was only a mile high. But the description of God’s leading of the Magi by a moving, supernatural sign may recall how God had led his own people by the fire and cloud in the wilderness (Ex 13:21–22).
The Gr. word for “ruler” evokes the image of strong, even stern, leadership. “Shepherd” emphasizes tender care. Christ’s rule involves both (cf. Rev. 12:5).
Matthew informs his readers that even at Jesus’ birth, the religious teachers who knew the most (2:5) failed to act on the truth, while pagans whom one would never expect to come to the Jewish Messiah did just that.
Even before He grew up, the Messiah clearly was not just another Jewish nationalist. His genealogy includes five women, all of whom were shrouded, rightly or wrongly, in the suspicions of having given birth to illegitimate children. The Gentile magi who came to worship the Christ child (2:1–12) are most likely Persian astrologers. They responded properly, however, to God’s revelation to them, whereas the political and religious authorities of Jerusalem did not.
Second, Herod figures, directly or indirectly, in every passage in chapter 2. Matthew contrasted the one who is truly the King of the Jews by birth (2:2) with the one who actually rules but turns out to be a temporary intruder.
In his last years, suffering an illness that compounded his paranoia, he turned to cruelty and in fits of rage and jealousy killed close associates, his wife Mariamne (of Jewish descent from the Maccabeans), and at least two of his sons
Matthew neither condemns nor sanctions it; instead, he contrasts the eagerness of the Magi to worship Jesus, despite their limited knowledge, with the apathy of the Jewish leaders and the hostility of Herod’s court—all of whom had the Scriptures to inform them. Formal knowledge of the Scriptures, Matthew implies, does not in itself lead to knowing who Jesus is; just as God sovereignly worked through Caesar’s decree that a census be taken (Luke 2:1) to ensure Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem to fulfill prophecy, so God sovereignly used the Magi’s calculations to bring about the situation this pericope describes.
It is tempting to think that Matthew sees a pair of contrasts (1) between the false shepherds of Israel who have provided sound answers but no leadership (cf. 23:2–7) and Jesus who is the true Shepherd of his people Israel and (2) between a ruler like Herod and the one born to rule. The words “my people Israel” are included, not simply because they are found in 2 Samuel 5:2, but because Matthew, like Paul, faithfully records both the essential Jewish focus of the OT promises and the OT expectation of broader application to the Gentiles (cf. on Mt 1:1, 5, 21). Jesus is not only the promised Davidic king but also the promised hope of blessing to all the nations, the one who will claim their obeisance (cf. Ps 68:28–35; Isa 18:1–3, 7; 45:14; 60:6; Zeph 3:10). That same duality makes the desires of the Gentile Magi to worship the Messiah stand out against the apathy of the leaders who did not, apparently, take the trouble to go to Bethlehem. Of course, the Jewish leaders may have seen the arrival of the Magi in Jerusalem as one more false alarm.
Matthew does not say that the rising star the Magi had seen (cf. on 2:2) led them to Jerusalem. They went first to the capital city because they thought it the natural place for the King of the Jews to be born. But now the star reappeared ahead of them (v. 9) as they made their way to Bethlehem (it was not uncommon to travel at night). Taking this as confirming their purposes, the Magi were overjoyed (v. 10). The Greek text does not imply that the star pointed out the house where Jesus was; it may simply have hovered over Bethlehem as the Magi approached it. They would then have found the exact house through discreet inquiry since (Luke 2:17–18) the shepherds who came to worship the newborn Jesus did not keep silent about what they saw.
Human ambition, power, and strategy often cannot see the hand of God and unwittingly attempt to thwart his purposes. Herod and the religious leadership in Jerusalem were blinded to God’s plan of redemption because of the lust for their own plans and purposes. Their blindness then caused them to attempt to hinder God’s design.
Do you want a man who slaughtered the last remnants of the dynasty that ruled before him, put to death half of the Sanhedrin, killed 300 court officers, executed his wife and mother-in-law and three sons, and as he lay dying arranged for all the notable men of Jerusalem to be assembled in the Hippodrome and killed as soon as his own death was announced, so the people might weep instead of rejoice on the day of his death?
At first I was surprised by such hostility. I thought to myself, If God doesn’t exist or if Jesus wasn’t the Son of God, why make a big fuss? Why write a book against religion? People believe in far crazier things than our religion. Why attack Christianity? Why do these scientists, as many of them are, attack the faith that has thus far produced the world’s greatest scientists and mathematicians, the likes of Newton and Pascal? But then I remembered that an intelligent person only attacks what he knows to be a real threat to his way of thinking and, more importantly, his way of living. And Jesus is such a threat.
If Jesus is king—and you can almost hear in Herod’s dungeon the prophetic voice of John the Baptist before his beheading (cf. 14:4)—it means you’re not. It means your dethronement. It means your submission. It means you can’t lead your life any longer, as Herod did and as I suggest these new atheists do, by the dictates of your unrepresented immoral desires. If Jesus is who he says he is, you either love him or you hate him! Which is exactly what Jesus said: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth.10 I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (10:34). This is no nice Christmas story. This is a nasty conflict of kingdoms.
Because he was not Jewish, but Idumean (Edomite), Herod married Mariamne, heiress to the Jewish Hasmonean house, in order to make himself more acceptable to the Jews he now ruled. He was a clever and capable warrior, orator, and diplomat. In times of severe economic hardship he gave back some tax money collected from the people. During the great famine of 25 B.C. he melted down various gold objects in the palace to buy food for the poor. He built theaters, race tracks, and other structures to provide entertainment for the people, and in 19 B.C. he began the reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. He revived Samaria and built the beautiful port city of Caesarea in honor of his benefactor Caesar Augustus (Octavian’s title). He embellished the cities of Beirut, Damascus, Tyre, Sidon, and Rhodes, and even made contributions to rebuilding work in Athens. He built the remarkable and almost impregnable fortress of Masada, where in A.D. 73 nearly a thousand Jewish defenders committed suicide rather than be captured by the Roman general Flavius Silva.
But Herod was also cruel and merciless. He was incredibly jealous, suspicious, and afraid for his position and power. Fearing his potential threat, he had the high priest Aristobulus, who was his wife Mariamne’s brother, drowned—after which he provided a magnificent funeral where he pretended to weep. He then had Mariamne herself killed, and then her mother and two of his own sons. Five days before his death (about a year after Jesus was born) he had a third son executed. One of the greatest evidences of his bloodthirstiness and insane cruelty was having the most distinguished citizens of Jerusalem arrested and imprisoned shortly before his death. Because he knew no one would mourn his own death, he gave orders for those prisoners to be executed the moment he died—in order to guarantee that there would be mourning in Jerusalem. That barbaric act was exceeded in cruelty only by his slaughter of “all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its environs, from two years old and under” (Matt. 2:16) in hopes of killing any threat to his throne from the One the magi said had been born King of the Jews.
Not only were they true magi, but they surely had been strongly influenced by Judaism, quite possibly even by some of the prophetic writings, especially that of Daniel. They appear to be among the many God-fearing Gentiles who lived at the time of Christ, a number of whom—such as Cornelius and Lydia (Acts 10:1–2; 16:14)—are mentioned in the New Testament.
“Where is He who has been born King of the Jews?” The Greek construction (saying is a present participle emphasizing continual action) suggests that they went around the city questioning whomever they met. Because they, as foreigners, knew of the monumental birth, they apparently assumed that anyone in Judea, and certainly in Jerusalem, would know of this special baby’s whereabouts. They must have been more than a little shocked to discover that no one seemed to know what they were talking about.
During that time there was widespread expectation of the coming of a great king, a great deliverer. The Roman historian Suetonius, speaking of the time around the birth of Christ, wrote, “There had spread over all the Orient an old and established belief that it was fated at that time for men coming from Judea to rule the world.” Another Roman historian, Tacitus, wrote that “there was a firm persuasion that at this very time the east was to grow powerful and rulers coming from Judea were to acquire a universal empire.” The Jewish historian Josephus reports in his Jewish Wars that at about the time of Christ’s birth the Jews believed that one from their country would soon become ruler of the habitable earth.
Throughout the Old Testament we are told of God’s glory being manifested as light, God radiating His presence (Shekinah) in the form of ineffable light. The Lord guided the children of Israel through the wilderness by “a pillar of cloud by day … and in a pillar of fire by night” (Ex. 13:21). When Moses went up on Mount Sinai, “to the eyes of the sons of Israel the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire on the mountaintop” (Ex. 24:17). On a later occasion, after Moses had inscribed the Ten Commandments on stone tablets, His face still glowed with the light of God’s glory when he returned to the people (Ex. 34:30).
When Jesus was transfigured before Peter, James, and John, “His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light” (Matt. 17:2). On the Damascus road, just before Jesus spoke to him, Saul of Tarsus was surrounded by “a light from heaven” (Acts 9:3), which he later explained was “brighter than the sun” (26:13). In John’s first vision on the Island of Patmos, he saw Christ’s face “like the sun shining in its strength” (Rev. 1:16). In his vision of the New Jerusalem, the future heavenly dwelling of all believers, he reports that “the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb” (Rev. 21:23).
Incense and myrrh were treasures characteristic of the East that the Mediterranean world typically imported from there (cf. 1 Kings 10:10; Ps 72:10–11, 15).
Some believe the gifts had further significance by reflecting on the character of this Child’s life. Gold might represent His deity or purity, incense the fragrance of His life, and myrrh His sacrifice and death (myrrh was used for embalming). These gifts were obviously the means by which Joseph took his family to Egypt and sustained them there until Herod died.
The fact that Gentiles would offer such worship had prophetic significance as well (Ps. 72:10).
Bringing gifts was particularly important in the ancient East when approaching a superior (cf. Gen 43:11; 1 Sam 9:7–8; 1 Kings 10:2). Usually such gifts were reciprocated (Derrett, NT Studies, 2:28). That is not mentioned here, but a first-century reader might have assumed it and seen the Great Commission (Mt 28:18–20) as leading to its abundant fruition.
Frankincense is a glittering, odorous gum obtained by making incisions in the bark of several trees; myrrh exudes from a tree found in Arabia and a few other places and was a much-valued spice and perfume (Ps 45:8; Song of Songs 3:6) used in embalming (John 19:39). Commentators, ancient (Origen, Contra Celsum 1. 60) and modern (Hendriksen), have found symbolic value in the three gifts—gold suggesting royalty, incense divinity, and myrrh the Passion and burial. This interpretation demands too much insight from the Magi. The three gifts were simply expensive and not uncommon presents and may have helped finance the trip to Egypt. The word “treasures” probably means “coffers” or “treasure-boxes” in this context.
“Gold” is the most-often mentioned valued metal in Scripture; as in modern times, it was prized throughout the ancient world as a medium of exchange as well as for making jewelry, ornaments, and dining instruments for royalty. “Incense” (or “frankincense”; cf. Lev. 2:1; 14:7; Neh. 13:9) is derived from the gummy resin of the tree Boswellia. The gum produced a sweet odor when burned. Frankincense was used for secular purposes as a perfume (Song 3:6; 4:6, 14), but in Israel it was used ceremonially as part of a recipe for the only incense permitted on the altar (Ex. 30:9, 34–38). “Myrrh” is the sap that exudes from a small tree found in Arabia, Abyssinia, and India. It consists of a mixture of resin, gum, and the oil myrrhol, which produces its characteristic odor. Sold in either liquid or solid form, myrrh was used in incense (Ex. 30:23), as a perfume for garments (Ps. 45:8; Song 3:6) or for a lover’s couch (Est. 2:13; Prov. 7:17), and as a stimulant tonic (cf. Mark 15:23). The Jews did not practice full embalming of corpses, but a dead body was prepared for burial by washing, dressing it in special garments, and packing it with fragrant myrrh and other spices to stifle the smell of a body as it decayed (John 19:39).
e.g., gold represents his kingship, incense his deity, myrrh his sacrificial death and burial. But this reads too much into the Magi’s understanding of who Jesus is. Rather, these three gifts indicate the esteem with which the Magi revere the child and represent giving him the honor due him as king of the Jews. More than the Magi know or intend, these gifts are likely used to providentially support the family in their flight to and stay in Egypt.
GOD’S LOVE—AND OURS. “She had a habit of saying little silent prayers about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: ‘Please God, make him think I am still pretty.’ ” What heart-wrenching words! Della’s knee-length, cascading, beautiful brown hair was her most prized possession, but she has just cut it off to sell to a wigmaker. She does it so she will have money to buy her beloved husband, Jim, a Christmas present. With the money from the sale of her hair she will be able to buy a gold watch chain on which Jim can hang his most prized possession, the gold watch that had been his father’s and grandfather’s.
Della and Jim are a newly wed young couple who subsist in near poverty. They have little money for finery in their hovel of an apartment, let alone for extravagant Christmas gifts. Without knowing what she has done, Jim will be coming home on Christmas Eve to find Della shorn of her beautiful hair, all to buy the gold chain for him that he cannot possibly afford to buy for himself. Will he still think her to be pretty?
But in a tear-jerking twist in this classic story told by O. Henry, we learn that Jim has sold his cherished watch to buy a set of tortoise shell combs with jeweled rims for his beloved young wife’s beautiful hair—the very set she has yearned over for so long but can never hope to buy for herself.
Della now has cropped hair, but with the finest gift her young husband could sacrifice to buy. And Jim, now has no watch, but with the most precious gift his young bride could sacrifice to bring to him for Christmas. O. Henry muses at the end of the story:
Here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these are the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.
Jesus is not only the “king of the Jews,” but he is also One who provides the hope of salvation for the entire world. If these Gentile Magi
Thus one born in obscurity is recognized by unlikely devotees as the future King of Israel. The child whose birth is shrouded in suspicions of illegitimacy (chap. 1) is in fact God’s legitimate appointee. On the other hand, the legal rulers, both political and religious, by their clinging to positions of power and prestige, prove themselves to be illegitimate in God’s eyes. Sadly, the church in many ages has perpetuated this pattern. Meanwhile, God often chooses to reveal himself to pagans, at times even in the midst of their religious practices, to lead them on to the full truth found only in Christ.
When read in the context of all that has come before (the long months of travel, the persistence in finding the child, etc.), I am very close to agreeing with J. C. Ryle who said concerning this verse, “We read of no greater faith than this in the whole volume of the Bible.”
I picture them as a mix between Gandalf, David Copperfield, and Jeane Dixon.
When our Lord Jesus was on trial before Pontius Pilate, that Roman governor asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered,
“My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” (John 18:33–37)