Matthew 2: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Jesus is born in Bethlehem during the reign of King Herod, and wise men from the east come to Jerusalem asking where the newborn king of the Jews is, saying they have seen his star. Herod's advisers point to Bethlehem from the prophet's writing, and Herod secretly sends the wise men there, asking them to report back. They find the child, worship him, give gifts, and go home another way after a dream warns them. Joseph takes the child and Mary to Egypt to escape Herod, who kills the young boys of Bethlehem; after Herod dies, the family returns and settles in Nazareth.

Claim by Claim

1. 2:1
   • Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea.
   • Jesus' birth took place in the days of Herod the king.
   • Wise men from the east came to Jerusalem.
2. 2:2
   • The wise men asked where the one born King of the Jews was.
   • The wise men said they had seen his star in the east.
   • The wise men said they had come to worship him.
3. 2:3
   • Herod the king heard this.
   • Herod was troubled.
   • All Jerusalem was troubled with Herod.
4. 2:4
   • Herod gathered together all the chief priests and scribes of the people.
   • Herod asked them where the Christ was to be born.
5. 2:5
   • They told Herod: in Bethlehem of Judea.
   • They said this is what is written by the prophet.
6. 2:6
   • The prophecy addresses Bethlehem in the land of Judah.
   • The prophecy says Bethlehem is by no means least among the rulers of Judah.
   • The prophecy says a ruler will come out of Bethlehem.
   • The prophecy says that ruler will shepherd God's people Israel.
7. 2:7
   • Herod called the wise men secretly.
   • Herod learned from them exactly the time the star appeared.
8. 2:8
   • Herod sent the wise men to Bethlehem.
   • Herod told them to go and search diligently for the young child.
   • Herod told them to bring him word when they found the child.
   • Herod said his purpose was that he too might come and worship the child.
9. 2:9
   • The wise men heard the king and departed.
   • The star they had seen in the east went before them.
   • The star came and stood over where the young child was.
10. 2:10
    • When the wise men saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy.
11. 2:11
    • The wise men came into the house.
    • They saw the young child with Mary his mother.
    • They fell down and worshipped the child.
    • They opened their treasures.
    • They presented gifts to him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
12. 2:12
    • The wise men were warned by God in a dream not to return to Herod.
    • The wise men departed into their own country by another way.
13. 2:13
    • After the wise men departed, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream.
    • The angel told Joseph to arise.
    • The angel told Joseph to take the young child and his mother.
    • The angel told Joseph to flee into Egypt.
    • The angel told Joseph to stay there until the angel brought him word.
    • The angel said Herod would seek the young child to destroy him.
14. 2:14
    • Joseph arose.
    • Joseph took the young child and his mother by night.
    • Joseph departed into Egypt.
15. 2:15
    • Joseph was in Egypt until the death of Herod.
    • This happened so that what the Lord spoke by the prophet might be fulfilled.
    • The prophecy says: Out of Egypt I have called my son.
16. 2:16
    • Herod saw that he was mocked by the wise men.
    • Herod was exceedingly angry.
    • Herod sent forth and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all its surrounding territory.
    • The children killed were two years old and under.
    • The age was set according to the time Herod had carefully learned from the wise men.
17. 2:17
    • Then what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled.
18. 2:18
    • A voice was heard in Ramah.
    • There was lamentation, weeping, and great mourning.
    • Rachel was weeping for her children.
    • Rachel would not be comforted.
    • The reason she would not be comforted is that her children are not.
19. 2:19
    • Herod died.
    • An angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt.
20. 2:20
    • The angel told Joseph to arise.
    • The angel told Joseph to take the young child and his mother.
    • The angel told Joseph to go into the land of Israel.
    • The angel said those who sought the young child's life were dead.
21. 2:21
    • Joseph arose.
    • Joseph took the young child and his mother.
    • Joseph came into the land of Israel.
22. 2:22
    • Joseph heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod.
    • Joseph was afraid to go there.
    • Joseph was warned by God in a dream.
    • Joseph turned aside into the parts of Galilee.
23. 2:23
    • Joseph came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth.
    • This happened so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled.
    • The prophecy says he shall be called a Nazarene.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

2:1

Herod the king is Herod the Great, who ruled Judea from 37 BC until his death as a king appointed and backed by Rome. Judea was the southern part of the Jewish homeland, the district around Jerusalem. Bethlehem was a small town about five miles south of Jerusalem, remembered as the home town of King David. The "wise men" of the King James are magoi in Greek, a word used for Persian or Babylonian scholar-priests who studied the stars, dreams and omens; the text does not say how many there were or call them kings.

2:2

"Worship" in 1611 English covered any act of deep homage, including the bow or prostration a subject made before a king, and the Greek word here is the ordinary word for falling at someone's feet. The English of the King James does not by itself settle what kind of honor the visitors had in mind. The phrase "his star in the east" translates a Greek expression that can mean either "in the eastern sky" or "at its rising", that is, when it first became visible.

2:3

Jerusalem is "troubled" because Herod frightened when frightened. Late in his reign he executed suspected rivals freely, and a scare at the palace meant arrests and violence in the city.

2:4

"Chief priests" were the senior priestly families who ran the Temple in Jerusalem. "Scribes" were not copyists in the ordinary sense but professional experts in the written law of Moses, the men you asked when you wanted to know what scripture said. "Demanded" in 1611 meant simply "asked"; it carried none of the modern force of a demand. "Christ" is a title, not a name: the Greek christos translates the Hebrew mashiach, "anointed one", the promised king from David's line.

2:5

"Christ" is a title, not a last name. It means "the anointed one," the king God had promised to send. Kings were anointed by having oil poured over their heads.

2:6

The priests are quoting the prophet Micah, chapter 5, verse 2. "Juda" is the King James spelling of Judah, the tribe and the territory named after it. "Princes" here renders a word for the clan chiefs or leading towns of a region, not royal sons. To "rule" as a shepherd was standard ancient language for governing a people, with the sense of feeding and protecting them rather than merely commanding them.

2:7

"Privily" means privately or in secret. "Diligently" here means carefully and in detail; Herod wanted the exact date.

2:8

Herod said he wanted to worship the child. He was not telling the truth.

2:11

Frankincense and myrrh are aromatic gum resins tapped from desert trees in Arabia and East Africa. Frankincense was burned as incense, in temples and at banquets; myrrh was used in perfume, in medicine and in preparing bodies for burial. Both traveled long distances by caravan and were expensive, in the same class of gift as gold. "Their treasures" means the containers they carried their valuables in.

2:12

"Warned of God" is old English for "warned by God"; through the whole chapter the King James uses "of" where modern English uses "by".

2:13

Egypt was a Roman province outside Herod's jurisdiction and the nearest safe refuge, a few days' journey southwest, with long-established Jewish communities, especially in Alexandria. People fleeing trouble in Judea had gone there for centuries.

2:15

The quotation is from the prophet Hosea, chapter 11, verse 1, where the words referred to Israel being brought out of slavery in Egypt. "Spoken of the Lord by the prophet" means spoken by the Lord through the prophet.

2:16

"Coasts" in 1611 English meant borders or surrounding territory and had nothing to do with the sea; Bethlehem is inland. "Wroth" means enraged. "Mocked of the wise men" means outwitted or made a fool of by them. Bethlehem was a small town, so the number of boys under two would have been quite small, perhaps a dozen or two.

2:17

"Jeremy" is the older English form of the name Jeremiah.

2:18

The quotation is from Jeremiah, chapter 31, verse 15. Ramah was a town a few miles north of Jerusalem, a staging point from which captives were marched off to exile in Babylon. Rachel was one of the wives of Jacob, the ancestral mother of several of Israel's tribes, and her tomb was traditionally located in this area; the prophet pictures her weeping over descendants being carried away. "Because they are not" is a Hebrew way of saying they no longer exist, they are gone.

2:20

"They are dead which sought the young child's life" uses a plural although only Herod has been named. The wording matches, almost word for word, what God says to Moses in Egypt in Exodus chapter 4, verse 19, when it is safe to return.

2:22

Archelaus was Herod the Great's son, who took over Judea, Samaria and Idumea at his father's death. He began his reign with a massacre in the Temple courts and was so brutal that Rome removed him about ten years later. "In the room of" is old English for "in place of", and "thither" means "to there". Galilee, well to the north, was governed by a different son of Herod, Antipas.

2:23

Nazareth was an obscure hill village in Galilee, never mentioned in the Hebrew scriptures. No single prophet says "He shall be called a Nazarene", and the writer says "prophets", plural, rather than naming one, which suggests he is pointing at a theme or at a play on words rather than quoting a verse. Readers have long noticed that the Hebrew word netzer, "branch" or "shoot", used of a coming king in Isaiah chapter 11, sounds like the name of the town.