Matthew's account of the birth of Jesus
Matthew 2:1-23; Luke 2:40. About 3350 words.
The stories about the birth of Jesus are placed in appendices because they are not at all essential to the message of salvation. There are a number of questions as to their authenticity. The remainder of the gospel accounts clearly are recollections of words spoken and actions taken by Jesus, though the writers were not always certain of where, when, or in what order, events occurred.
After Joseph had established himself in Bethlehem and his little family had been living there for some time,
1 three magi (astrologers)
2 showed up in Jerusalem, wanting to know where the new king of the Jews was. They said they had seen his "star rise in the east,"
z1 and wished to worship him. Everybody was very interested in this news, which could easily spell trouble from the Romans, who would brook no challenge to their rule. King Herod was especially worried. He was well known for getting rid of anyone who might present a rival claim.
Herod summoned a meeting of the leading priests and experts in scripture and demanded that they tell him where the Messiah was to be born. (The Hebrew word
Messiah and the Greek word
Christ both mean
Anointed. Every proper king of Israel was anointed with oil as a sign that he had been chosen by Jehovah. Many hoped that God would send a man anointed by God as the king chosen to save the Jews and Israel. This then implied that such a "son of man" would have been born a descendant of David, since it was believed that only David's descendants had a right to be king.)
After consulting one another, they told Herod, "In the Bethlehem that is in Judaea. We refer you to the scripture that says,
And you Bethlehem, in Judah,
are not in any way the least among the clans of Judah
for out of you will come a governor
who will be the shepherd of my people, Israel.
(Matthew quotes what we know as Micah 5:2.3)
English translations of Matthew vary on this passage. The Matthean version came across something like this: Bethlehem is not to be counted as insignificant with respect to Israel's rulers because out of Bethlehem is to come a good ruler who will shepherd God's people, Israel.
Once the room had cleared, Herod had the three brought in secret to his court, where he questioned them carefully as to exactly when they first saw the star. This permitted him to calculate the child's age. The king then sent them to Bethlehem to locate (and identify) the child. He told them to let him know when they had found him so that he might also go to worship the child.
Having obtained the information they needed, the three traveled to Bethlehem, which was only five miles away. Once there, they were able to locate the child.
Matthew says the star led them directly to the right house, but if so, one wonders why they had to ask around in Jerusalem. They doubtless went to Jerusalem because, as the capital of the Jewish land, that seemed a logical place for the birth of a messiah. In any case, as Bethlehem was rather small, it doesn't seem that, with diligent inquiries, they would have had much trouble finding a male child of the right age.
On reaching the right house, they found the baby boy with his mother Mary. They fell to their knees and worshiped him and then opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
4
Before leaving Bethlehem, one of them was warned in a dream to steer clear of Herod, and so they left for their own land by a route that avoided Jerusalem.
After their departure, Joseph also had a dream in which one of Jehovah's angels told him: "Get up right now! Take the baby and his mother and flee to Egypt and stay there until I tell you differently. Herod is about to try to destroy the baby."
5
So Joseph arose and did as he was told. He and his family remained in Egypt until after Herod's death. (This episode fulfills the saying, "Out of Egypt have I called my son."
6)
Once Herod realized that the astrologers had made a fool of him, he went into a terrible rage. He sent soldiers to kill all the boys under age two
7 in and around Bethlehem. Herod knew how old his target was by what the astrologers had told him.
This atrocity fulfilled a passage of the prophet Jeremiah:
A voice was heard in Ramah –
Weeping and great mourning;
Rachel weeping for her children
And she would not be comforted,
because they are not8
Once Herod was dead, Joseph had another dream in which Jehovah's angel appeared. The angel told him, "Arise and take the youngster and his mother and go back to the territory of Israel. They are dead
9 who sought the child's life.
Joseph did as he was told, but as he entered Jewish territory, he heard that Herod's son, Archelaus, was now in charge (Caesar Augustus had denied him the kingship but named him ethnarch, or national leader). Archelaus had a terrible reputation and so Joseph decided to stay out of Judaea, instead taking his little family up north to Galilee, back to the town of Nazareth. This choice fulfilled what was said by the prophets, that the Messiah would be called a Nazarene.
The child grew strong, and was exceptionally intelligent. God gave him wonderful spiritual gifts.
On their return journey they once again decided to avoid Bethlehem
and Judaea in particular, says
Matthew, because Archelaus was
(still) ruler. Though Galilee was ruled by Herod Antipas, his rule
evidently wasn't considered to be quite as awful as that of Archelaus,
whose reputation was very bad. If we accept
Matthew on this,
then we know that the family traveled back to Nazareth during or
before 6 a.d. Jesus would have been between 8 and 12 years old. Assuming he was born near the beginning of Archelaus's rule, we can say Jesus would have been 10 years old at about the time Archelaus was deposed and exiled to the barbaric frontier town of Vienne, in Gaul.
Under Augustus, the Jews of Egypt were reduced to the lowest status, and thus all had to pay the burdensome poll tax at the full rate. This was quite a comedown from the generous treatment in Egypt that they had received from the Greek Ptolemaic rulers. (History repeats: The Jews of Egypt experienced favorable treatment under several pharaohs but their fortunes greatly reversed under a very powerful pharaoh, Augustus.)
Most of the Jews, it appears, lived in and around Alexandria.
Thus when Joseph brought his wife and child to Egypt, they were assured a relatively stable civil environment. But the onerous tax would have been reason enough for Joseph to seek to relocate back to his home country once the civil unrest there had cooled. Yet, not long after their return, insurrection erupted again. Insurrection marked both the beginning and the end of the reign of Archelaus, though the bloodshed in the former period seems to have been the most terrible.
So we are assuming that Joseph brought his pregnant wife to Bethlehem
for
some unspecified reason eight to ten years prior to the date given by Josephus (perhaps inaccurately) for the
census of Quirinius. Though I have suggested that Joseph felt it expedient to take his family far from the slaughterhouse of Galilee and Judea, another possibility is that he left Nazareth in order to
spare his wife the humiliation of everyone knowing that the birth had
come too soon to have occurred within normal wedlock. It may be that
early Christians were averse to mention of that point, not wishing to
give ammunition to skeptics or simply being unwilling to make it seem
as though there was all that much of a scandal.
If we decide against reconciling the Lucan and Matthean accounts, we
may speculate as follows: When Joseph heard about what the Romans had
done in the nearby town of Sepphoris – massacring the populace and selling the surviving women and children into slavery – he immediately made haste to
flee Galilee with the pregnant Mary.
So we may imagine that the Matthean writer had heard, in part, of the
massacre at Sepphoris and Joseph's flight southward, and brought in
King Herod's well-known antagonism to potential rival claimants to the
throne to explain Joseph's flight southward (this time from Bethlehem
to Egypt rather than from Nazareth to Bethlehem). In addition, we now
know from history that Herod had had three of his adult sons executed
for supposedly endangering his hold on the throne. This information
may have become mixed with the old account of the Sepphoris
massacre.
This hypothesis would require Jesus to have been born in 4 b.c., the year of Herod the Great's death. But there is a credible theory that the star of Bethlehem was a conjunction of heavenly bodies that occurred in 6 b.c. Still, we don't know when the magi actually arrived in Jerusalem. They might have come two years after the fact, perhaps asking about the sign while they were acting as envoys of a foreign state. Note that "Herod" ordered the death of all boys aged two and under, and Jesus would have been about two years old under that scenario.
We also note that Archelaus was a ruthless tyrant who took after his father in that respect, though lacking his father's political acumen. After Quintilius's Roman legions restored order, Archelaus began his reign. There is nothing inconceivable about either Herod or his son Archelaus ordering the death of boys in the Bethlehem area that were regarded as potentially true heirs of David and hence very dangerous. Scholars estimate that, supposing such an event occurred, no more than 20 children would have been slain. Considering the violence of that period, we should not rule out that possibility.
And since Archelaus was a Herod, it is conceivable that
Matthew's information actually concerned Archelaus.
Still, Herod was very ill in his final months and fully capable of ordering such a massacre. In either case, the account of it would have been just one more atrocity report among the many that were soon to follow as the anti-Roman insurrection was suppressed.
We note that Zechariah encountered the angel during Herod's reign, says
Luke. Further, Jesus was born about 15 months after John the Dunker,
Luke implies. This information places the births of both John and Jesus during or shortly after Herod's reign. Now because
Matthew and
Luke have independent sources, we tend to suspect that Jesus' birth during or shortly after Herod's reign is confirmed – though
Luke's dating of a.d. 6 is improbable.
In any case, if we follow
Matthew, we have some astrologers (often assumed to have been three in number) from a Gentile country to the east seeing a star (Johannes Kepler considered the possibility of a nova but settled on a supernatural event) that they recognized as a sign of the birth of the Jewish messiah. Were these, perhaps, Babylonian Jews who had learned Gentile mysteries? Babylonian Jews had extensive interaction with Jerusalem in that period. Perhaps their arts had been passed down from the period before Darius, when the magi were still strong. The pre-Darian magi
wx1 represented an extension of the old Sumerian practice of sorcery. On the other hand, most of the Roman empire, though not the Judaean part, took astrology very seriously.
When these magi asked around in Jerusalem where the new king of the Jews might be, the populace was stunned – because by that period astrology was strictly forbidden by, in particular, the Pharisee watchdogs of Judaism, and so no one in Jerusalem was aware of the sign.
These men were brought to Herod's palace and interrogated. But Herod or Archelaus was concerned not to tip his hand and so he did not order the three watched when, after his advisers had pointed to Bethlehem as the messiah's birthplace, the three left for that town, only five miles distant. But the ruler told them to return when they had found the infant so that he could worship him also.
Matthew has the star materializing and leading them straight to the right house. Yet, we would think they did not need the star's help. Had they gone to the village, a few inquiries would undoubtedly have led them to the right place. After all, they knew the boy's age to within a good degree of accuracy.
Matthew records that
as the astrologers departed Bethlehem, they were warned by an angel to take a detour around Jerusalem, which they did. Also, an angel told Joseph in a dream to flee immediately to Egypt,
Matthew adds. But we can imagine Joseph's horrified reaction when the foreigners told him about their visit to Herod's palace. Any adult Jew living under the Herods would have immediately grasped the extreme danger, knowing the horrendous measures that would be used to suppress rival claims to the seat of power. We can visualize Joseph himself warning the astrologers, who then prudently took another route while Joseph saddled up his donkey and left immediately for Egypt.
To repeat, the ensuing massacre of the little boys fits quite well with the character of both Herod and of his venal son Archelaus.
A massacre of some innocents
Earlier in Herod's reign, the Judaean people, led by the Pharisees, rejected Herod's attempt to bring some Hellenic culture to Jerusalem with a theater and a sheltered horse race arena for games, gladiatorial contests and chariot races, reports A.H.M. Jones in
The Herods of Judaea (Oxford 1938). Jones continues:
Feeling ran very high and ten fanatics resolved to save their people by assassinating Herod. Their plan was to strike him down while he was sitting in the theatre glorying in his sin. It was discovered just in time by one of Herod's secret agents and the assassins were arrested, and, boldly confessing their crime, were tortured and executed. Popular sympathy ran high in their favour, and soon afterwards the spy who had betrayed them was lynched in the open street and his body,
torn limb from limb, was thrown to the dogs. Herod had some difficulty in identifying the perpetrators of the outrage, but by persistent torture of some bystanders who had been seized he elicited their names. They were all executed with all their families. By these grim methods Herod enforced his will, and the games went on. Their propagandist effect was, however, negligible for the Jews sullenly refused to attend them and the audiences were composed almost entirely of foreigners attracted by their splendour.
Plainly, the families of the killers had done nothing to warrant death. But Herod was applying a type of punishment common in the Orient in those days and for many years thereafter.
A number of stories of Herod's cruelty circulated after his death, some having a legendary quality, Jones points out.
When he lay dying, it was said, he caused all the notable men of the Jews to be assembled in the hippodrome of Jericho and
charged Salome and Alexas, as soon as he was dead, to slay them every one; for he knew well the people would rejoice at his death and he would have mourning at his funeral. The historical origin of this story is probably the fact that the national assembly was summoned shortly before his death, probably to hear the arrangements for the succession, and was dismissed by Salome and Alexas without explanation. Another more familiar legend tells how wise men came from the east announcing the birth of a king of the Jews at Bethlehem, and how Herod, when they did not tell which child it was that should take his crown from him, massacred every man-child in Bethlehem.
All that notwithstanding,
we don't know where the story of the wise men comes from. For that matter, neither do we know where
Luke's story of the three shepherds comes from, but certainly God has the power to make such events happen.
In any case,
we can imagine that Jesus was born during a break in the strife, thus permitting his parents to dedicate him at the Temple, as told by
Luke.
The writer of
Matthew sees the move to Nazareth as providential, as he finds here a divine pun.
Nazirite means
consecrated one. Certainly during Jesus' 40 "days of separation" in the wilderness, Jesus met the criteria of a Nazirite.
10 Further, as God's Anointed, who could be more consecrated than Jesus? In fact, the word
messiah – more accurately rendered
mashiach – means a person anointed, which is to say, consecrated, to serve God.
One of the prophets referring to an anointed deliverer is Daniel. In chapter 9 of the book
Daniel, we have,
25 Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
Perhaps the writer of
Matthew did not name Daniel because he saw the prophecy as too difficult for his readers. Elsewhere in the Old Testament are at least 40 references to a messiah, although that word is not used.
r3
1. I must assume this statement in order to bring Matthew and Luke into partial conformity to each other. You will also see that I insert here and there other relevant detail based on modern research and knowledge.
2. These men, whom Matthew calls magi, were very probably skilled in astrology, as well as in other areas of occult knowledge.Wx2 The word magic stems from the Greek word magus (magi is the plural). By the time of Herod, any form of divination was shunned by Jews, who would then not have been aware of such a sign. By worshiping Jesus, and giving him gifts, the magi symbolically acknowledged that he was granted mastery of all worldly power, the spiritual power Jesus himself later associated with Satan.
Interestingly, the Jehovah's Witnesses group argues that the association of the magi with Satan is demonstrated by how their desire to pay their respects went so badly wrong.
The 17th century astronomer Johannes Kepler suggested that the magi saw a nova, a fairly common astronomical event in which two nearby stars interact, appearing to us as a "new star." Indeed, they may have seen a supernova, whereby a star is destroyed by explosion. The light output is fantastically high and, when close enough (not too close, God willing!), can be seen from earth for as much as several months.
3. Micah 5:2
But you Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you be little among the clans of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to me him who is to be ruler in Israel – whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.
Notice that the final clause implies the pre-existence of the one who comes out of Judah to save Israel, even though he is to come forth to God. The doctrine of the dual sonship of God and his humanity is here implicit. If we then regard the Holy Spirit as effectively the mind of God, we have the doctrine of the Trinity.
4.
The Psalms and Isaiah use poetic imagery as they forecast the reign of Israel's deliverer. A more or less literal fulfillment of that theme is given by Matthew.
Psalm 72:10-15
10 The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.
11 Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him.
12 For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper.
13 He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy.
14 He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in his sight.
15 And he shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba: prayer also shall be made for him continually; and daily shall he be praised.
Isaiah 60:6
The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come: they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall shew forth the praises of the Lord.
5. History records that Herod was a very dangerous man. He even had three of his adult sons executed.
6. Hosea 11:1
When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.
7. We should not assume that Jesus was two years old at that time, though he might have been. Herod was quite capable of trying to make very sure that the child was not overlooked by setting an age threshold well above the lad's actual age.
8.
Jeremiah 31:15
Thus says Jehovah:
A voice was heard in Ramah –
lamentation, and bitter weeping.
Rachel weeping for her children
would not be comforted,
because they were not.
As with other Old Testament scriptures quoted in Matthew, some object that the passage is taken out of context and that the prophet was not conveying the message that Matthew relates. An answer: The Holy Spirit is the one who helps Christians interpret scripture. Thus, scripture means whatever God says it means. God speaks through his old word in new ways. In fact, the story of Jesus itself proves that fact!
9. "They" may refer to Herod and his inner circle.
10. On Nazarites, we have
Numbers 6
1 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When either man or woman shall separate themselves to vow a vow of a Nazarite, to separate themselves unto the Lord:
3 He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink, and shall drink no vinegar of wine, or vinegar of strong drink, neither shall he drink any liquor of grapes, nor eat moist grapes, or dried.
4 All the days of his separation shall he eat nothing that is made of the vine tree, from the kernels even to the husk.
5 All the days of the vow of his separation there shall no razor come upon his head: until the days be fulfilled, in the which he separateth himself unto the Lord, he shall be holy, and shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow.
6 All the days that he separateth himself unto the Lord he shall come at no dead body.
7 He shall not make himself unclean for his father, or for his mother, for his brother, or for his sister, when they die: because the consecration of his God is upon his head.
8 All the days of his separation he is holy unto the Lord.
z1. It has been reported that the phrase "in the east" apparently refers to the specific astronomical concept termed "heliacal rising."
More on this matter will be included in an updated version of this page.
r3. Many other suggestions on this topic have been made. I don't insist that my proposed solution is necessarily correct.
On the nazirite interpretation, see The Birth of the Messiah – A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke by Raymond E. Brown (Doubleday/Image 1979), pp 210 and 211. Brown does not mention my Daniel reference.
He notes on p225 and elsewhere that the Matthean writer has two definite passages in mind: Isaiah 4:3 (He who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy) and Judges 16:17 (I have been a Nazirite of God from my mother's womb). Holy is equivalent to consecrated, which is what a Nazirite was. Brown gives a detailed explanation of Matthew's justification for interchanging Nazirite and Holy One.
Wx1. The Star of Bethlehem – The Legacy of the Magi by Michael R. Molnar (Rutgers 1999). Molnar brings the penetrating mind of a scientist to his research on this topic.
Wx2.
