The Great Christ Comet (37 page)

This New Testament evidence suggests that Numbers 24:17 played an important role in the earliest Christians' interpretation of the significance of the Christ Comet's appearance.

It is important to realize that the church fathers in the second and third centuries AD continued to regard Numbers 24:17 as having provided the Magi with the prophetic key to unlocking the meaning of the cometary apparition.

The second-century AD Christian apologist Justin Martyr wrote, “And that He should arise like a star from the seed of Abraham, Moses showed beforehand when he thus said, ‘A star shall arise from Jacob, and a leader from Israel'. . . . Accordingly, when a star rose in heaven at the time of His birth, as is recorded in the memoirs of his apostles, the Magi . . . , recognising the sign by this, came and worshipped Him.”
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Also in the second century, Irenaeus made this connection between Balaam's prophecy and the Magi's Star.
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So did Origen in the third century: “The Magi, seeing God's sign in the heavens, looked for its meaning. I think they knew the prophecies of Balaam that are recorded by Moses.”
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Elsewhere Origen asserted that, at the point when Jesus was born, the Magi did realize that the Star was the fulfillment of that oracle.
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Therefore the early Christians believed that the Balaam oracle was literal and metaphorical. Jesus, they were convinced, was the metaphorical Star and Scepter foreseen by Balaam. At the same time, the appearance of the Star at the time of Jesus's birth was a literal fulfillment of Balaam's prophecy that confirmed the messianic identity of Jesus.

Numbers 24:17 and the Magi's Interpretation of the Star

The case is strong for concluding that the Magi interpreted the cometary apparition in 6 BC in light of Numbers 24:17. No prophecy in the Hebrew Bible other than Balaam's oracle more clearly associated the Messiah's coming with the appearance of a celestial entity. Within Jewish thought in the Second Temple period, the prophecy was widely interpreted as referring to the coming of the Messiah. Further, the early Christians maintained not only that Jesus was the Star and Scepter of Numbers 24:17, but also that the new astronomical entity that had appeared to the Magi to signal his birth was a literal fulfillment of that ancient prediction and was regarded as such by the Magi. Moreover, most scholars agree that Matthew, our primary source on the Magi and the Star of Bethlehem, strongly intimates that the Star's appearance was a fulfillment of Numbers 24:17. Matthew also implies that this was the understanding of the Magi themselves. It stands to reason that the Magi may have become persuaded of the relevance of Balaam's oracle for the interpretation of the comet by the scepter-like form of the celestial body around the time of its rising.

In addition, Revelation 12:5 seems to intimate that, at the point when the messianic baby was born on the earth, the long, straight-tailed comet had the form of a massive scepter that was stretched out from the eastern horizon to the western horizon. Accordingly, the cometary scepter would have looked like it was resting on the earth in the west, where Judea was. Those witnessing such a phenomenon would have recalled that, according to Numbers 24:17, “a scepter shall rise out of Israel.”

Accordingly, both Matthew and Revelation suggest that the comet had the credentials to qualify as an obvious bona fide literal fulfillment of Balaam's oracle.

It is very likely that the Magi were guided to this prophecy by one or more members of the Jewish exilic community in Bab­ylon and found in it an important interpretive key to unlocking the mystery of the great cometary apparition.

We conclude, then, that Numbers 24:17 played an important part in helping the Magi deduce that the cometary apparition was marking the birth of the Jewish Messiah. However, it is probable that another passage from the Jewish Scriptures also strongly influenced the Magi's interpretation of the celestial phenomenon unfolding in the eastern sky, and prompted them to make a pilgrimage to Judea to find and worship the newborn Messiah. That passage is found in the book of Isaiah.

The Book of Isaiah

The Influence of the Book of Isaiah on the Magi

The fact that the Magi brought gifts of gold and frankincense for the newborn Messiah probably reflects the influence of the book of Isaiah on their thinking regarding the comet. Gold and frankincense are specifically mentioned in Isaiah 60:1–6 as offerings that will be brought by pilgrims from the Arabian Peninsula to the Messiah during his eschatological reign over the nations. There, these two gifts are representative of the great wealth that will be presented to the Messiah by the nations. When therefore the Magi give the baby Messiah these same gifts, they are most likely intimating that they already fully acknowledge his royal authority over them and
the world and look forward to the beginning of his reign.
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It is important to observe that this passage in Isaiah opens with a reference to the Messiah as Israel's extraordinarily bright celestial “light” that rises in a context of darkness:

Arise, shine, for your light has come,

and the glory of Yahweh has risen upon you.

. . . Yahweh will arise upon you,

and his glory will be seen upon you.

And nations shall come to your light,

and kings to the brightness of your rising.

Lift up your eyes all around, and see;

they all gather together, they come to you. . . .

Then you shall see and be radiant;

your heart shall thrill and exult,

because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you,

the wealth of the nations shall come to you.

A multitude of camels shall cover you,

the young camels of Midian and Ephah;

all those from Sheba shall come.

They shall bring gold and frankincense,

and shall bring good news, the praises of Yahweh. (Isa. 60:1, 2b–4a, 5–6)

Note the mention of gold and frankincense in verse 6. As for the Magi's gift of myrrh, as we suggested earlier, it probably reflects the influence of Isaiah 53, the mysterious Suffering Servant being regarded as the Messiah.

As important as these texts probably were for the Magi, the passage that contained the key for their interpretation of what the comet did with respect to Virgo in the eastern sky is almost certainly Isaiah 7–12. From these chapters they were able to deduce not only that the newborn was the Messiah but also that he was divine in nature and would be born of a virgin, and that his birth to a virgin mother would be attended by a celestial sign, a great light shining in the darkness.

Isaiah 7:10–14

In Isaiah 7:1–25 the prophet was challenging the covenantally faithless king of Judah, Ahaz, to trust in Yahweh through the crisis precipitated by the Syro-Ephraimite invasion of Judah in 734/733 BC rather than turning for help to the regional superpower of his day, Assyria.
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To encourage Ahaz to have faith in the God of David, God offered him an authenticating sign:

Again Yahweh spoke to Ahaz, “Ask a sign of Yahweh your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.” But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, and I will not put Yahweh to the test.” And [Isaiah] said, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin [
almah
] shall be with child and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” (Isa.
7:10–14
)

The Context of Isaiah 7:14

It is necessary to reflect on the historical and theological context and on the meaning of Isaiah's important oracle.
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Isaiah's prophecy was delivered in the winter of 734/733 BC in Jerusalem, capital of the southern kingdom of Judah.
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The eighth-century BC King Ahaz of Judah was terrified by the prospect of an imminent attack on Jerusalem by his enemies Syria and Israel. These northern kingdoms hated the resident regional superpower Assyria and loathed Ahaz, because he would not wholeheartedly join their anti-Assyrian alliance. Ahaz was frightened of Syria and Israel, because their kings Rezin and Pekah were relatively powerful and were dead set on ousting him from the kingship of Judah and replacing him with a puppet king more sympathetic to their anti-Assyrian agenda. Moreover, the Syrians and Israelites, along with their allies, the Edomites and Philistines, had in the immediate run-up to this crisis brought great destruction on Judah and killed many tens of thousands of Judahite men and taken captive countless women and children (2 Kings 16; 2 Chronicles 28). Ahaz felt that without foreign military assistance he stood no chance in the face of his enemies' determined advance to Jerusalem to oust him.

From the prophet Isaiah's perspective, what Ahaz was not sufficiently taking into account was that the Davidic dynasty and David's covenant with Yahweh were at stake. The future of Ahaz, Jerusalem, and Judah was determined by Yahweh, not Pekah and Rezin. In Isaiah's analysis, whether King Ahaz and the Davidic dynasty would remain in power in Judah would be determined in heaven and not on the earth. And God would make his decision regarding the future of Ahaz and the house of David on the basis of whether or not the king kept covenant with him, and on the basis of his own mercy and love. Consequently, as the prophet saw it, the crisis facing the king of Judah served to shine the spotlight on Ahaz's spiritual state and covenant performance and on the future of the Davidic covenant and dynasty. The spotlight exposed Ahaz's unbelief, for he was unprepared to trust his God to protect him. He was evidently determined to appeal to Assyria rather than Yahweh for help. In his heart, the Judahite king was not an admirer of Yahweh or of the religion of his fathers. He loved the gods of the nations and worshiped idols and celestial entities, and had even offered up his sons as sacrifices to a pagan deity (2 Kings 16:3; 2 Chron. 28:3).

The prophet Isaiah, representing Yahweh, went to meet Ahaz when the king was extremely worried about the vulnerability of Jerusalem's water supply, which was the city's Achilles' heel in times of siege. Isaiah sought to reassure Ahaz that the Syro-Ephraimite intervention in Judah would not succeed in its main objective of toppling the Davidic dynasty, because God had decreed that it would not. Moreover, the prophet challenged the king to put his faith in Yahweh.

According to Isaiah, although Ahaz would not be overthrown by Rezin and Pekah, his future and that of his dynasty were still very much at stake. This was so because Yahweh had decreed (Isa. 7:9) that, if at this moment of crisis Ahaz turned his back on his divine covenant partner, he would bring disaster upon himself: he would “not be firm at all” (v. 9b). Clearly, in the prophet's judgment, this was a momentous hour in the history of the House of David in Judah.

Probably at that time (or at least very shortly thereafter), Isaiah once again reached out to Ahaz (vv. 10–14), instructing him to request a sign from God to confirm his commitment to keeping his covenant with the Davidic dynasty in Judah and to preserving Ahaz through the Syro-Ephraimite invasion. The sign could be “deep as Sheol” (v. 11b, ESV) or “in the height above” (v. 11c, cf. KJV, ASV). “Deep as Sheol” presumably referred to some kind of seismic activity or resurrection from
the dead. “In the height above” plainly referred to a celestial wonder such as an eclipse or some phenomenon against the backdrop of the stars and constellations. In effect, Ahaz was to tailor his very own special sign within the set parameters. The implicit deal was that, when Yahweh did the sign in Sheol or in the heavens, Ahaz would turn his heart back to Yahweh and trust him through the present crisis.

Ahaz, however, declined to choose a sign for Yahweh to do, obviously because he was privately resolute that he was not going to trust or obey the God of Israel. He had the audacity to try to cover up his lack of trust in Yahweh with a cloak of pseudo-piety: “I will not ask, and I will not put Yahweh to the test” (v. 12). His words are drawn from Deuteronomy 6:16: “You shall not put Yahweh your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.” Ironically, Ahaz, by his refusal to specify a sign,
was
in fact “putting Yahweh to the test.” At Massah in the wilderness the Israelites were confronted with a trial—they lacked water to quench their thirst—and they refused to trust God to meet their need and rebelled against him and his servant Moses (Ex. 17:1–7). Ahaz was in his Massah, so to speak, and he was intent on rebelling against the word of Yahweh as represented by Isaiah. To Isaiah, the king's failure to request a sign was nothing short of covenant treachery.

By his refusal to stand firm in faith, Ahaz brought upon himself the fate decreed by Yahweh in verse 9: he ceased to “be firm at all.” The House of David in Judah had been tested and found wanting. As it happened, subsequent history powerfully vindicated Isaiah. In the story of the Davidic dynasty and of Judah, this incident proved to be a decisive turning point. Ahaz needlessly sold Judah's independence to Assyria, and the southern kingdom quickly became a pathetic vassal state that struggled to bear the heavy financial burdens that the short-tempered superpower put on it (see Isa. 7:17–25; 2 Chron. 28:16–21; 2 Kings 16:17–18). Essentially, from this moment onward Judah was on a downhill slope to termination in 586 BC at the hands of the Bab­ylo­nians.

In response to the hard-heartedness and rebellion of King Ahaz, Isaiah then declared to Ahaz (Isa. 7:13–14): “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” Ahaz had refused to specify which sign he wanted from Yahweh (v. 12)—whether a sign “deep as Sheol or in the height above” (v. 11)—and so Yahweh now chose “a sign” for him (v. 14). Disturbingly, Isaiah speaks of Yahweh as “my God,” implying that he was no longer Ahaz's God.