The Great Christ Comet (9 page)

The king therefore assembled “all the chief priests and scribes of the people” (Matt. 2:4), which may perhaps mean that he summoned the whole Sanhedrin
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or simply that he gathered a sizable group of respected Bible scholars (in the Gospels, the Sanhedrin is normally designated “the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders,” but the elders are not mentioned here).

The Teachers' Response.
Herod presented the religious experts with his simple question: Where was the Messiah to be born? This half-Jewish king of Judea was clearly intent on assassinating the Messiah while he was still a baby. Completely devoid of any fear of God, he was prepared to use the revelation God had given concerning his plan of salvation in the Hebrew Scriptures—to thwart the divine plan! The hard-heartedness and audacity of this man who had made the Second Temple one of the most glorious structures in the ancient world are mind-boggling. So self-deluded is this king of Judea that he actually imagines that he can take on God and win!

According to Matthew 2:5–6, the chief priests and scribes “told [Herod], ‘In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet:

“And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;

for from you shall come a ruler

who will shepherd my people Israel.”'”

The response of the Jewish religious leadership to Herod's question reveals a lot. Their answer reflects a high view of the Hebrew Scriptures. They regard Micah's oracle as the word of God channeled through a prophetic agent (“it is written by the prophet”), and they interpret it in a literal and straightforward manner to refer to the Davidic Messiah. The chief priests and scribes manifestly do have a basic grasp of God's plan of salvation through the Messiah. It is striking that Matthew is content to let these Jewish leaders introduce Micah 5:2 into the narrative concerning the birth of Jesus. Matthew does not explicitly state that the religious leadership was aware of the report of the Magi from the east. However, word concerning the Magi had spread like wildfire through the city, so that “all Jerusalem” heard it, and it is hard to justify excluding the Jewish religious leaders from this, particularly because Jerusalem was so oriented around the temple. Accordingly, when they answered Herod's question concerning the birthplace of the Messiah by appealing to Micah's prophecy, they were effectively testifying that, if what the Magi had seen was indeed the Messiah's natal sign, the Messiah was at that very moment a newborn baby in Bethlehem.

Remarkably, however, the Jewish religious leaders, despite having a knowledge of the Word of God considerably greater than that of the Gentile Magi, made no effort to travel the five or six miles south to Bethlehem to see if indeed the Messiah had been born in fulfillment of the Prophets. They evidently despised the report, and perhaps those who brought it, and so they remained in Jerusalem. They were content with the status quo and did not crave the promised salvation of God.

Micah's Oracle.
The quotation from Micah 5:2 is significant:

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,

who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,

from you shall come forth for me

one who is to be ruler in Israel,

whose origin
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is from of old,

from ancient days.

Therefore he shall give them up until the time

when she who is in labor has given birth.

Micah, a contemporary of Isaiah, here declares that the messianic King, the one through whom Yahweh will supremely fulfill his covenant promises to David, will be born in Bethlehem, the very same town in which King David was born. The apparent implication of Micah's prophecy concerning Bethlehem was that the Messiah would have strong Davidic ancestry.
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Micah's reference to “she who is in labor” giving birth seems to recall Isaiah 7:14, where Isaiah foretold that “the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” If so, Micah has evidently interpreted Isaiah's prophecy as referring to the Messiah's birth.
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Notably, Matthew quotes Isaiah 7:14 in Matthew 1:23, claiming that it was fulfilled when Jesus was born to the Virgin Mary.

Matthew omits the latter part of Micah's
prophecy of the Messiah's birth: “whose origin is from of old, from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has given birth” (Mic. 5:3). However, as Davies and Allison suggest, the readers are probably supposed to fill this in for themselves.
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By replacing Micah's “Ephrathah” with “in the land of Judah,” Matthew highlights that the Messiah had to be a member of the tribe of Judah, in accordance with Genesis 49:9–10, where Jacob prophesied that “Judah is a lion's cub. . . . The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.”

Matthew also edits Micah's “ruler in Israel” to say “ruler who will shepherd my people Israel” (Matt. 2:6). The introduction of shepherd imagery seems intended to recall God's promise to David in 2 Samuel 5:2 (“You shall be shepherd of my people Israel, and you shall be prince over Israel”) and is thus very much in tune with the thrust of Micah's prophecy.
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Matthew's most striking change to the quotation from Micah is to transform “are too little to be among the clans of Judah” into “are by no means least among the rulers of Judah” (Matt. 2:6). In Micah, “small” highlights that the city in the era before fulfillment is of little importance, implying that its status will change fundamentally after the Messiah is born there. Matthew's “by no means” is consistent with this.
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There has been a remarkable change in Bethlehem's significance as a result of the Messiah's birth there. From the eighth century BC, when Micah wrote, until Jesus's birth at the end of the first century BC, Bethlehem had been an insignificant town, with its sole claim to fame being that King David had been born there. However, now it was guaranteed to be esteemed and famous forever, because the Messiah himself had been born there.

Herod's Meeting with the Magi

Matthew 2:7–9a relates the story of Herod's meeting with the Magi: “Then Herod summoned the Magi secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, ‘Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.' After listening to the king, they went on their way.” This meeting between Herod and the Magi (see
fig. 3.1
) was apparently the first and only one of its kind.

Secrecy.
The fact that Herod summoned the Magi “secretly” demands explanation. Why did Herod not want the people of Jerusalem to know about his meeting with the Magi? Most likely he had at least two main motives for his secrecy. First, he would not have wanted to lend credence to the Magi's announcement that the Messiah had been born.
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Second and more important, Herod did not want to endanger his dastardly secret plan to kill the Messiah.
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The Magi were ignorant of Herod's scheming ways, but the people of Jerusalem and Judea were not. Herod would have realized that some in Judea would have been enthusiastic about the announcement of the Magi concerning the arrival of the Messiah on the earthly scene. Were word to get out that Herod had told the Magi to report back to him regarding the precise location of the Messiah so that he could go and worship the newborn King of the Jews, some pro-Messiah Judeans would undoubtedly have alerted the Magi to the king's obviously malign agenda.

Herod's Agenda.
Herod treated the Magi's report with deadly earnestness. He wanted to know from them two critical pieces of information: the maximum age of the Messiah, and where exactly within Bethlehem he resided. Armed with these facts, he would be in an excellent position to strike down the infant King.

Discovering the Messiah's age.
Herod acquired from the Magi accurate information concerning the precise time at which the Star had appeared (Matt. 2:7). Whether they knew this off the top of their heads or had written records of this is not stated. However, since record-keeping was very important to Bab­ylo­nian astronomers, and since one would expect them to bring with them copies of pertinent records to show interested parties, we should probably envision the Magi consulting these in order to answer Herod's question.

Before the Magi arrived in Jerusalem, Herod may well have known about the Star's behavior in recent weeks or months, but he did not know when the Star had first appeared. How much of the Star's history he was aware of since that first appearance, we simply cannot know for sure.

In the wake of the Magi's arrival in Jer­usalem but prior to Herod's meeting with them, the king only knew that the Magi were claiming that recent astronomical events had revealed that the Messiah had just been born.

At the covert discussion, Herod presumably got a more complete account of the Star. Most importantly, he discovered the particular day and month that the star had appeared in the sky—then, as nowadays, only professional astronomers could have been expected to have such information. Herod evidently figured that, if he knew this, he would know the maximum age of the Messiah.

Since Herod was providing the Magi with the key piece of information that they needed to complete their mission to worship the Messiah—the place of the Messiah's birth—and was even effectively commissioning them to find the newborn Messiah, the Magi had every reason to think that they could trust him. No doubt they attributed his curiosity to a spirit of joyful awe and wonder.

Discovering the Messiah's location.
The half-Jewish king requested that the Magi, after finding the Messiah, bring back word to Jerusalem, claiming that he himself wanted to go and worship him. He obviously judged that these foreign magi had no inkling of his true agenda: to discover where precisely within Bethlehem the Messiah was located, so that he could assassinate him.

Evidently, Herod had a Plan A and a Plan B: Plan A was targeted assassination of the messianic baby, and Plan B was mass infanticide in Bethlehem. He clearly preferred the “cleaner” Plan A, which would entail only a short wait until the gullible Magi returned to his palace with detailed information regarding the precise whereabouts of the messianic child. However, the evil king had an atrocious backup plan that could be implemented if, for any reason, the favored plan failed.

The Star's First Appearance.
Herod “ascertained the exact time”
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(
akribo
ō
ton chronon
) that the star had “appeared” (
phainomai
) (Matt. 2:7). The verb Matthew chose to describe the star's behavior has been interpreted by some to be synonymous with “rising” (vv. 2, 9) and hence to refer to “the time when the star came up over the horizon, the year, the month, and the day.”
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However, there is no reason to assume that “appeared” in verse 7 is equated with “rising” in verses 2 and 9. Indeed if the two are equated, the fact that Herod based his massacre of baby boys in their second year or under on the date of the first appearing of the Star would mean that the Magi had taken at least twelve lunar months to get to Jerusalem, which is completely implausible, or that the wonder in the eastern sky associated with the Star's heliacal rising lasted a ridiculously long time. It is much more natural to believe that the first appearance preceded the rising by many months. That is, after being visible in the sky for a long time, the Star was in conjunction with the Sun and then rose in the eastern sky in advance of the Sun.

Herod was obviously of the opinion that the child might have been born at some stage of the Star's apparition prior to its heliacal rising. The king, who was apparently influenced by astrology (see, for example, Josephus,
Ant
. 17.6.4 [§167]) and undoubtedly would have been knowledgeable about astronomy, may have wondered if the first appearance of the Star itself had coincided with the birth of the Messiah. The Magi clearly were convinced that what they had seen the Star do in connection with its heliacal rising marked the occasion of the birth, but Herod was eager to allow for an alternative interpretation.

Herod's Commissioning of the Magi.
The magnitude of the task facing the Magi at Bethlehem is highlighted in what Herod says to them: “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him . . .” (v. 8). Herod has told them that the Messiah's birthplace is Bethlehem, and the short (5–6 miles) journey to Bethlehem would not pose any problems. However, Herod does not
know where precisely within Bethlehem the child is. The city of Bethlehem (and environs) was large enough to present a formidable challenge to the Magi as they sought to locate the newborn Messiah. The Magi would have had no choice but to move from door to door, asking for information. Moreover, how would they know which baby was the Messiah? Would the people of Bethlehem be as clueless as the people of Jerusalem? If the Bethlehemites did know, would they cooperate with the foreigners in their quest? Since the holy family was evidently keeping information out of the public domain, would they make themselves known to the Magi? The Magi faced an incredibly daunting task on the last phase of their journey to worship the Messiah.