New Testament Doctrine: Matthew 2:1-15

It’s not possible to make sense of this passage without a substantial look at the historical background.

Astrology figures large in our text as the presumed background of the visiting Magi. While Matthew’s comment that they came from “the east” covers a very wide space of territory, his choice of the term “magi” is fairly well defined in the context of the First Century Ancient Near East. They were a tribe of Median wise men whose influence rose until they were regarded as priestly nobles and kingmakers.

They hailed from a kingdom on the southeastern shore of the Caspian Sea, and had been part of both the Assyrian and the Median Empires. Later, they rose in importance in the combined Medo-Persian Empire. Their influence was so great that no one became emperor without their support in the Babylonian and Persian Empires. During Matthew’s day, the Parthian Empire had pretty much reclaimed most of the old Persian Empire, minus Palestine, which they tried to seize. The Magi Kingdom was still a critical element at that time in Parthia, retaining much of the Persian culture. It was fashionable among kings outside of Parthia to mimic what they imagined was Persian grandeur.

At the same time, keep in mind that Herod himself had led Roman troops (39-37 BC) in battle against the Parthian Empire early in his career. They had chased him all over the place, and even sacked Jerusalem, until Rome gave him troops. He managed to drive the Parthians out of Palestine, but Rome never managed to conquer them. Herod’s limited success was part of why Rome made him King. So, what made the Judean court so uneasy was that these Parthian Magi kingmakers were back in his kingdom about to anoint someone to displace Herod, whom they regarded as something of an enemy.

We know that the Prophet Daniel had a tremendous influence on the Magi back in the Babylonian and Persian Empires. In the Babylonian Empire, they were the highest ranking among the caste of wise men Daniel joined. He saved their hides once. They would have had at least a copy of his writings, along with a smattering of whatever other Hebrew literature was available at the time. But a major element in their expectations was Daniel’s prophecy of the weeks of years, which fed into their belief in three coming messiahs, all born of virgins. They had a pretty good idea of when the Hebrew Messiah was supposed to appear.

Their astrology was not deterministic as we find in Western brands of of astrology. Rather, the Parthians were mystical about such things, as is typical of Zoroastrianism. For them, it was a matter of discerning when divine influences would be strong in support of this or that. In turn, we find their Zoroastrian thinking was strong among Syrian Christians and other groups that never influenced Western churches directly.

Keep in mind that there is a significant overlap between Zoroastrianism and Ancient Hebrew religion, but that’s not the same as borrowing. A certain amount of common background naturally breeds a shared approach to ultimate questions. It’s only natural that the Hebrew teaching of Jesus would sound somewhat similar to parts of Zoroastrianism. It’s also to be expected that a lot of the conflicts and schisms in the early Western Church came from influences that included Zoroastrianism. It’s not a question of which side was right, but that both sides diverged from the gospel, a divergence that increased as time wore on.

We have no way of knowing what this star was that the Magi saw; we have a lot of popular but faulty speculation drawn from Western astrology. There’s not a lot of good scholarship in the West covering actual Parthian Zoroastrian astrology. What we do have isn’t enough to clarify this question. Thus, we can only guess when they left their homes and made the long journey to Jerusalem.

What we do know is that Jesus’ parents did travel the relatively short distance to Jerusalem to present Him at the Temple after Mary’s forty days of purification. There, two different aged prophets approached and announced Him as the Messiah (Luke 2:22-38). Along with the shepherds and their report of the angelic choir, it’s hard to imagine what Joseph and Mary thought of all this. At any rate, after presenting Him according to the Law of Firstborn Sons, they apparently went back and stayed in Bethlehem among Joseph’s relatives.

Sometime later the Magi showed up and began making inquiries. Herod received them at his palace in the city and, being merely a superficial convert to Judaism, had to call in the Sanhedrin to ask them what was going on here. All he knew is that a Messiah would threaten his throne, so for him, this was just politics with a lot of mystical threats he needed to understand on his own terms. Eventually the priests told him about Micah’s prophecy that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.

He then held a private conference with the Magi to find out how long they had been at this mission of chasing the star of the Messiah. We aren’t given any insight into their answer, only that Herod had a good estimate of the age of this alleged miraculous child who was prophesied to take his throne. Not wanting the Magi to know his true intent, he pretended to have a very grave interest in this matter and tasked them with finding the infant boy. We should doubt they took his words at face value.

As they approached Bethlehem, the Messiah Star appeared again, indicating to them precisely where to look. By this time, Joseph and Mary had a regular house. The Magi announced their business, yet another ponderous wonder Joseph and Mary added to everything else that came with the birth of their son. However many Magi there were, they brought out three representative gifts. Their business did not require very much of each item, just enough to symbolize their recognition of this Messiah. Gold betokens royalty, frankincense is for prayer to a deity, and myrrh was to embalm someone prophesied to die in a spectacular fashion.

Being men used to the mystical revelations of dreams and visions, they were warned in a shared dream not to keep their promise to Herod, because he would likely have killed them on some false pretext, and that meant most certainly a premature death of this Messiah. So they slipped off by another route and left the country quietly.

Even the small token gifts they left for Jesus were a substantial windfall for His middle-class family. When Gabriel came back to Joseph in another dream warning of Herod’s plot, those gifts funded their flight to Egypt, out of Herod’s jurisdiction. It fulfilled a prophesy (Hosea 11:1) that Jehovah would call His Son out of Egypt (again, after the Exodus). They had to stay until Herod died, and who could say how long that would be? So they used these gifts to make the journey and set up shop there in the Nile Delta somewhere among the cosmopolitan mixture of people, including a substantial Jewish community.

After a time of not hearing back from the Magi, Herod decided to hedge his bets. He had no way of knowing what prompted them to give him the slip and didn’t care. By this time they were likely out his reach. He had plenty of enemies within his own staff that would betray him, so this was nothing new. Still, there was a good chance the child’s family had not been alerted, as well. So, he dispatched his own Judean soldiers to the town with orders to execute any male child under two years. Knowing Herod, that was just for good measure; a reasonable estimate is that Jesus was just shy of a year old at the time.

And given the estimates of population at that time, it meant about a dozen or so children were slaughtered. Higher numbers are simply not realistic, and would have gotten Rome’s attention. He would have to justify it if it were as many as a hundred. But a dozen or so capriciously killed like that was typical of Herod’s behavior, so nobody would bat an eye about it. It was the price of having a reliable vassal of Rome to ignore small slaughters like that.

This brings us to yet another prophecy, this time from Jeremiah 31:15. Jeremiah points out Ramah in the tribal allotment of Benjamin, a very large flat open area perfect for staging exiles headed to Babylon. He pictures Rachel’s spirit weeping for her children, a reference to the Kingdom of Judah (as the remnant of the Nation of Israel). When she died giving birth to Benjamin, it’s likely she died very close to Ramah, but she was headed to Bethlehem (her celebrated tomb there is almost certainly bogus). What connects the two towns is this journey she was on; she had always been symbolically tied to Bethlehem as her destination.

In Matthew’s mind, the sin that took Rachel’s children to exile in Babylon is the same sin that sees a despotic king who hardly hesitates to slaughter those children later. In both cases, a horrific evil ruler was set loose on the nation because it refused the mission inherent in the Covenant.