Two Reactions to Baby Jesus

Matthew 2:1-18

The Gospel of Matthew is filled with evidence of fulfilled prophecies surrounding the life of Jesus. The early years of Jesus are no exception. Several of them are fulfilled in the visit by the Wisemen and Jesus being taken to Egypt. In addition, this section of the Gospel permits the reader to see the different reactions to the coming of the Messiah.

Veneration of Jesus by Wisemen, 2:1-12

Who were these wise men seeking to worship the young King of the Jews? First of all, many legends are to be debunked by the facts before understanding who they were. We do not know specifically where they were from. Legends has it from the Middle Ages that they were from India, Persia and Arabia and named Dasper, Balthazar, and Melchior. Their bones are said to be buried in Cologne, Germany. We do not know how many of them came. All we know is that they were bringing three types of expensive gifts: gold (a valuable metal), frankincense (burned with the grain offerings and used in embalming the dead) and myrrh (a resin made into perfume and used for anointing at burials).

They were not kings. Only two kings appear in chapter two: Herod and Jesus. They were called Magoi or Magi. These were not necessary pagan astrologers. Daniel himself was made the leader of the magi by King Nebuchadnezzar. They could have been Jews of the Diaspora. Coming from the area of Babylon or Persia where many settlements of Jews were still known to exist. They believed and followed God. God communicated with them, and they obeyed Him. This explains how they would have known about the coming of the “King”. They were following a “star”. Many think this could not have been an actual star, because it had recently appeared in the heavens (2:7); moved in the sky (2:9); and settled over the town of Bethlehem. In historical records found in China there as a “comet” which appeared for several weeks in about the year 5 B.C. Others look to Balaam’s prophecy in Numbers 24:17 being fulfilled with this cosmic sighting by the Magi: “A Star shall come out of Jacob; a Scepter shall rise out of Israel,”

Calling upon the Chief Priests and scribes to help locate this little king, Herod is informed of the prophecy found in Micah 5:2: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.” “Ephrathah” is an older term for the area and by including it Micah distinguishes this Bethlehem from the one in Zebulun (Josh. 19:15). Bethlehem had been the place Jacob buried Rachel. Ruth met Boaz here. David grew up and tended sheep in this town near Jerusalem.

The wise men found the house where Jesus lived with his parents. It is to be noted that regardless of how they set up modern day nativity scenes, they did not go to a manger to see a newborn baby.

Herod the Great was not willing to give up the title “King of the Jews” without a fight. A religious/political party of the Jews (known as the Herodians) looked to him and later his son Antipas to be the Messiah. He asked the wise men to find Jesus and return, so he too could worship Jesus. But God warned them to return home instead.

Violence Against Jesus by Herod, 2:13-18

When the magi did not return, Herod felt mocked. Although that was not the intention of the wise men. They are simply obeying God. Yet Herod was enraged. He lost control of his emotions over this young rival. Herod was an Idumean (from Edom) and had no real claim to the Jewish throne.

The reaction of Herod the Great was just the opposite of that of the wise men. He did not want to worship Jesus; he wanted to wipe Him out. Having the children two and under killed in Bethlehem was in keeping with Herod’s violent, murderous ways fueled by paranoia. He had his wife’s brother the high priest, Aristobluos, drowned. He had his sons, Aristobulous and Alexander, strangled. He killed his wife, Mariamne, and her mother, Alexandra. Some three hundred members of his government were stoned to death at his command. Even five days before his death Herod had Antipater, the oldest of his sons, executed. As he lay dying, he called for all the nobles of Jerusalem to be shut up in the Hippodrome and killed upon his death, so there would be great mourning at the time of his death. This dying request was not honored.

The slaughter of innocent babes in the Matthew narrative is hard to take when God spared His own Son. But “the infants of Bethlehem died for the safety of him who was destined to die for the safety of all” (McGarvey). The genocide of the Bethlehem babies also fulfilled another Messianic prophecy in Jeremiah 31:15: “A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.” Ramah was the gathering point of Jews by the Babylonians as they planned to carry them off into exile. Rachel is figuratively seen as the mother representing all those mothers who sons were being carried off into Babylonian captivity.

Matthew records a second proof of Jesus’ being the promised Messiah in verse thirteen. Joseph and Mary fleeing with Jesus to Egypt from Herod fulfills Hosea 11:1: “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son.” It is believed that they may have settled for a time in the city of Alexandria where there were an estimated one million Jews living by AD 40. The gifts from the magi would have helped finance this trip to Egypt and back.

In fleeing to Egypt, they would have to live as fugitives (flee come from pheugo from which we get the English term “fugitive”). In a few months to a year, God sent yet another dream to command Joseph to return home. Herod the Great had died in 4 B.C. Archelaus took his father place. Yet, he was fashioned in the same mold as his father. So Joseph moved back home to Nazareth (Luke 2:4). This was also a proof of Jesus identity. He would be called a Nazarene. However, there is no such specific prophecy in the Old Testament.

Nazarene is close to the Hebrew word netzer, which means “a branch or shoot.” Several prophets apply this title to Jesus (see Isa. 4:2; 11:1; Jer. 23:5; 33:15; Zech. 3:8; 6:12–13). Perhaps, these are the prophets Matthew has in mind. Some Jews sarcastically questioned Jesus coming from Galilee: “Will the Christ come out of Galilee?” (John 7:41b). Even Nathaniel said, “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46). The term “Nazarene” was applied both to Jesus and His followers (“sect of the Nazarene”, Acts 24:5), and He was often called “Jesus of Nazareth” (Matt. 21:11; Mark 14:67; John 18:5, 7). This was not done as a compliment. In subsequent centuries Christians were mocked as Nazarenes in the prayers offered by Jews in their synagogues.

“Matthew focuses on two features through all of this narrative: (1) divine revelation as indicated by angelic instruction for every move, and (2) the fulfillment of a divine plan revealed in the Old Testament” prophecies (MacArthur 47).

– Daniel R. Vess