Matthew 2

Matthew 2:1

THE birth of Christ, and the circumstances belonging to that, being set down in the former chapter, here now succeed in this some passages pertaining to his childhood; and the first passage is, That after some time, not immediately after his birth, but whilst Mary and her son remained yet at Bethlehem, certainly after the time of Mary’s purification at Jerusalem (mentioned by St. Luke) and return to Bethlehem again, the Chaldeans or Arabian astronomers came to Jerusalem. when we were in our country we saw a strange extraordinary star rise in the heavens, which we never saw before, and discerning that it signified the birth of the Messias of the Jews (and of all other true sons of Abraham), foretold by Jewish prophets that he should be born, (and that all kings should worship him, Psalm lxxii. 11,) we are come to bring presents to him and worship him, and therefore we desire to be informed where is the place of his birth, and where is he. Or, thou shalt, for the ancient Gr. and Lat. MS. reads καλέσεις. risen, διευγερθείς. either: see note [l]. Jews which is born, ὁ τεχθεὶς βασιλεὺς, &c.

[a] wise men] The Greek μάγοι signifies not only those which in our ordinary dialect we call magicians, i. e. sorcerers, but also φιλόσοφοι, θεολόγοι, in Hesychius, generally learned men, students and professors of liberal sciences, especially of astronomy, without any ill character upon them. These were then famous among the a Persians, and were both their kings and their priests, and so among other nations also, but especially the eastern, and were at that time honoured and known for the study of good learning; and so the ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν, of, or from the east, is perhaps to be joined with μάγοι, the wise or learned men of or from the east, (as οἱ ἀπὸ Θεσσαλονίκης Ἰουδαῖοι, the Jews of or from Thessalonica, Acts xvii. 13.) not to the word came, as if they came from the east of Jerusalem thither. These are by an ancient commentator on

• Μάγοι παρὰ Πέρσαις οἱ φιλόσοφοι καὶ φιλόθεοι, ὧν ἦρχε Ζωροάστρῃς. Phavorin.

Matthew 2:2

[b] King of the Jews] Whether the angel of God had appeared to those magi, and told them that such a person was born, who was or should be King of the Jews, (and that in an extraordinary manner, the Messias whom that nation did according to prophecies fully expect about this time,) is utterly uncertain, being neither here nor any where else distinctly affirmed; yet some way of revelation may probably be conjectured or supposed, by their calling him the King of the Jews, which they could not read in the star, unless either the prophecy of Balaam, or some other of Daniel, &c. had directed them thus to apprehend, or unless the angel had appeared to them, as he did to the shepherds, Luke ii. 11, saying, There is born to you this day a Saviour, which is the anointed Lord, (i. e. Prince, or, King here,) in the city of David, i. e. (in another phrase, the same with this here,) the King of the Jews, with an emphasis on the, THE expected King, or, Messias.

b See note [c].

[c] his star] His star signifies an extraordinary star appearing in the heaven, observed by those magi in the field to differ from the ordinary stars of heaven, and some way interpreted to them to be the index or finger to point out this miraculous birth, the δφδούχος to light him into the world. Concerning this it is observable which we find in Chalcidius, in his comment upon Plato’s Timæus, who, relating some portentous significancies of stars, adds, Est quoque alia venerabilior et sanctior historia, quæ perhibet ortu stellæ cujusdam insolitæ non morbos, ‘moresque prænunciatos, sed descensum Dei venerabilis, ad humanæ servationis rerumque mortalium gratiam, quam a Chaldæis observatam fuisse testantur, qui Deum nuper natum muneribus venerati sunt; “There is also a more venerable and sacred history” (the Gospel, no doubt) “which mentions the rising of one extraordinary star, by which was foretold, not the diseases and” (tempers, or) “d manners of men, but the descent of a venerable God,” (or, of a God who is to be reverenced,) “in favour to the preservation of men,” (or, salvation, as it seems he collected out of the word σωτήρ, in St. Luke ii. 11,) “and the benefit of mortals here below, which star they testify” (the Gospel again) “to have been observed by the Chaldeans,” (the magi, ver. 1,) “who came to this God, which was newly born, and worshipped and presented him.”

[d] in the east] These observers, learned in astronomy, and curious in their daily beholding the rising and setting of the stars, saw at this time a star rise, which they never had seen before, and were amazed at it, as at a new prodigious sight, which did certainly presage something of great consideration. This rising of the star may possibly be signified by ἀνατολὴ here, and ἐν ἀνατολῇ be rendered, not in the east, either here or ver. 9, but at the rising of it, or when it arose; and that it should be so rendered may be guessed by the ortu stellæ, &c. in Chalcidius, out of the sanctior historia, i. e. out of this Gospel; and it is observable to this purpose, that among the Greek astronomers the rising of stars is called ἀνατολὴ and ἐπιτολὴ, (as ἀνατολὴ ἡλίον, the rising of the sun, Apoc. vii. 2,) and the setting of them, δύσις; but the east is commonly expressed in the plural number, ἀνατολαί, as it is here distinctly, ver. 1; and the west, δυσμαί; and so they are used, Matt. viii. 11, they shall come ἀπ’ ἀνατολῶν καὶ δυσμῶν; and so Luke xiii. 29, and Matt. xxiv. 27. All this put together would make that of ἐν τῇ ἀνατολῇ, at the rising of the star, both here and ver. 9, a probable rendering; but because ἀνατολὴ in the singular doth once signify the east, Rev. xxi. 13, and because the 9th verse seems to set down the several places of the star’s appearance, now just vertical to the house where Christ was, as before, ἐν τῇ ἀνατολῇ, which seems to denote the place where they first saw it, and whence they came, ver. 1; it may therefore be rendered in the east in both places.

Matthew 2:4

And when he had gathered all the Chief Presets and Scrubes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.

And calling the rulers of the Sanhedrin to him, (see note [a] on Mark v. 68.) he proposed this question to them, What place do your books assign for the birth of your expressed Messias? (see note [c] on Acts xv.)

b prophet Micah, ch. v. 8.

Matthew 2:5

And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judah, for thus it is written by the prophet.

Matthew 2:6

And then Bethlehem, [c] is the land of Juda, art [f] not the least among the [g] princes of Juda, for out of this shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel.

And then Bethlehem, which art part of the portion of land assigned to the tribe of Judah in the division, known by the name of Bethlehem Ephrata for its affinity to Ephrath, Gen. xxxv. 10, though thou wert in precinct and worldly account one of the least cities of Judah, yet art thou not now by any means the vilest, but the most honourable; for from thee shall proceed, or, in thee shall be born a Baler, who shall govern my people Israel.

moved before them in the heavens as a guide to lead them to the place where the child was, and when it came to the point of the heavens which was just over the house, it stood still.

[e] in the land] The word γῆ is the nominative case, and here c Perhaps, mortosque. d Perhaps, deaths.

[f] not the least] Some doubt hath been of the agreement of this phrase, οὐδαμῶς ἐλαχίστη εἶ, thou art by no means the least, with the Hebrew, Micah v. 2, צעיר להיות, which the Septuagint render ὀλεγοστὸς εἶ, and the Vulgar, parvulus es, “thou art little.” But M. Edward Pocock, a great master of the Oriental languages, hath evidenced out of many learned grammarians, that this word צעיר, little, signifies also the quite contrary, and is used for primaria, judex, princeps, magistratus, all great ones. So Jer. xlviii. 4, Rabbi Tanchum renders צעיריה, his princes and governors; and so the Chaldee paraphrast there, כלמניהון, his sultans, or rulers. So Ebn Jannahium, a learned grammarian, affirms of צעיר, that it is one of the words that signify contraries, and cites Zech. xiii. 7, where הצערים, saith he, signifies nobles and princes. And so the author of the Hebrew-Arabic Glossary sets כולטאן, sultan, ruler, or prince, for one of the significations of צער; and so in that place of Zechariah, the Septuagint render it ποιμένας, pastors; and the Syriac, עללנא, superiors; and the Arabic, pastors, or rulers. Many words of that sort, which have such contrary significations, Mr. P. hath collected to confirm this interpretation.

[g] princes] Instead of the Hebrew word in Micah v. 2, rendered the thousands, the evangelist hath here set ἡγεμόνες, rulers. The meaning of it will not be discerned but by remembering a custom of the Jews, among whom the people was distributed by chiliads or thousands, so many in a town or city, not that that number was so to continue, and not to exceed, but (as we see in our hundreds or wapentakes, which, as by the original of the view of frank-pledge appears, was first an hundred families precisely, but since hath much varied) only in relation to the first distribution. Hence it is, that such a division, or town, or city is in the Old Testament phrase called a chiliad or thousand, as in Micah it is, and Judges vi. 15, where the ordinary translation reads, My family is poor in Manasseh; but the Hebrew rendered in the margin is, My thousand is the meanest &c. Of every such division there was some lord, or chief, under whom the whole multitude were, as under a patriarch, or head of a family; and such was Gedeon, Judg. vi. 15, when he saith, My thousand; and as it is ordinary for a king of any nation in authors to signify, not only the person of the king, but the whole people under him also; so here the ἡγεμόνες, rulers, in the evangelist, are the very same with the thousands in the prophet, and each of them signify the towns or cities of Judah, such as Bethlehem was, which is here spoken of as the place where the Messias was to be born, according to that in Micah aforesaid. Unto which also agrees that known oracle, that ex Judæa profecti rerum potirentur, “rulers should come out of Judæa;” which is mentioned both by Tacitus and Suetonius, (and by them falsely applied to Vespasian,) and also by Cicero in lib. 2. De Divinat., by Virgil in Eclog. 4, by Suidas in Αὐγοῦστος. Where as the rerum potiri is the direct rendering of the Hebrew משל in Micah, and ποιμαίνειν here, (in

Matthew 2:7

Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise man, [h] enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared.

[h] enquired of them diligently] Ἀκριβολογοῦμαι is to inquire diligently, ἀκριβῶς ἐξετάζειν, ver. 8; but ἀκριβόω, with an accusative of the thing, as ἀκριβῶ τέχνην, or ἀκριβῶ χρόνον, here signifies, to learn exactly by inquiry; ἀκριβῶς ἐπίσταμαι, to know exactly, saith Phavorinus; and ἀκριβῆια, ἡ ἀκριβὴς κατάληψις, the accurate knowledge of any thing, saith Hesychius.

Matthew 2:8

And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and march diligently for the young child, and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also.

Matthew 2:9

When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.

Matthew 2:10

When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.

And discerning that the star, which they had not seen so long, appeared again to them, in an horizon so far distant from that where they first saw it, and that it conducted them, and at last stood still, and pointed out the house to them, they rejoiced very exceedingly.

b the Christ is, or, must be born, a Spanish yearn. b the territory of Judah. c learnt from them exactly. d had seen, alive. e led them along, spotyce abode.

Matthew 2:11

[i] gold, &c.] Among the gifts that Abraham gave to the sons of Chetura, there were (say the traditions of the Jews) gold, frankincense, and myrrh, which he had received from the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, as Epiphanius cites it out of them in the Exposition of the Catholic Faith, and therefore, saith he, their posterity in Magodia, a region of Arabia, presented the same gifts to Christ at his nativity.

Matthew 2:14

And upon the angel’s warning, after the departure of the magi, or astronomers, immediately he took the child and his mother in the night time, and went a private way into Egypt.

Matthew 2:17

Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying,

Then had that prophecy of Jeremy, xxxi. 14. (which was delivered first to express the captivity of Babylon and slaughter of Jerusalem,) another more eminent completion.

went into Galilee, where another of Herod’s sons, Herodes Antipas, that contended with Archelaus for the whole kingdom, had seated himself, having gotten that from him. He probably would not be inquisitive or jealous against any that should be likely to dethrone Archelaus, and so there was not from him any apprehension of danger. Besides he was not such a tyrant as Archelaus had discovered himself to be.

and so by residing and dwelling in Nazareth, he was made capable of that title which is used of the Messias in the prophets, that he should be

learned, by others: see note [b].

Matthew 2:18

In Rome was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning. [A] Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.

[k] Rachel weeping] That which is here cited out of Jer. xxxi. 15, was there a prophetic and figurative speech spoken of the captivity of Babylon, and the slaughter at Jerusalem, (a city of the tribe of Benjamin, the son of Rachel,) long after Rachel’s death, who therefore did not really weep, but is set to express a lamentable slaughter; and so also it hath here a second completion in this killing of the infants in Bethlehem; the people of the Jews being by an ordinary synecdoche capable of the title of Benjamin, because in the breach of the kingdom the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin make up that people, and therefore Rachel, Benjamin’s mother, is also here figuratively brought in, lamenting this slaughter as of her children, and that the more properly, because she was buried in Bethlehem, Gen. xxxv. 19.

Matthew 2:19

But when Herod was dead, he held an angel of the Lord approach in a dream to Joseph in Egypt.

Matthew 2:20

Saying, Anne, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel for they are dead which sought the young child’s life.

Matthew 2:21

And he arose, and took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel.

Matthew 2:22

But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither; notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee:

Matthew 2:23

And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the pro-

according to the time of Christ’s birth, or according to the age which he had by conference with the magi, calculated Christ to be of, viz. not two years old.

[l] These words in Isaiah had there a literal sense, (whether really to be then performed, or only in vision, it is not certain,) which is thus to be interpreted; that the child given for a sign to Ahaz was to have this name imposed upon him, Emmanuel, which signifies, God with us; not that that child, then born in Isaiah’s time, should be God, but (as Gen. xxii. 14, the place where God provided the ram instead of Isaac, is called Jehovah-jireh, God will see, or provide, which concludes not that the place was God, or that the place should see, but only that that was to be a memorative of God’s seeing and providing, so here) that the imposition of this name upon the child should signify (as a sign given Ahaz to that purpose) that God would afford him his peculiar presence and assistance against his enemies. And so all is plain in the place of Isaiah: (as for the accommodation of it to this of the birth of Christ, see note [k].) Only it must be added, that if καλίσουσι be the right reading of the place, then there is a scheme of the sacred dialect discernible in it, whereby they shall call is but a phrase for he shall be called; as, Thou fool, this night shall they require thy soul, i. e. thy soul shall be required; and as of making friends of mammon, it is added, that when ye fail, they may receive you, i. e. that you may be received into everlasting habitations. And accordingly, ver. 21, for καλίσεις, thou shalt call, spoken to Joseph, some copies have καλίσουσι, they shall call, i. e. he shall be called; but the ancient copy which Beza sent to the university of Cambridge reads καλίσεις, thou shalt call, in both places: and so in Isaiah, from whence this place is taken, it is certainly thou shalt call: whereupon, though our Bibles read, a virgin shall conceive, and shall call, yet in the margent it was thought necessary to set it, Thou, O virgin, shalt call. And so in the Epistle appointed by the church for the Annunciation of Mary, it is rendered, And thou, his mother, shalt call; and in the Gospel for the Sunday after Christmas, the 25th ver. of this chapter, which stands ambiguously in the Greek, is there determined to the mother, till she had brought forth her first begotten son, and called his name Jesus.

[l] a Nazarene] That he should be called a Nazarene, as that signifies an inhabitant of (or one that sprang from) the city Nazareth, is nowhere found to be affirmed in the prophets of the Old Testament. That which is here observable is, 1. That there is an Hebraism ordinarily to be discerned in the word κληθήσεται, he shall be called. The Hebrew word דבר signifies promiscuously, a word, and a thing, and is rendered ῥῆμα or λόγος, word, when it denotes a matter, or thing. So Exod. viii. 12, על דבר, ἐπὶ λόγῳ βατράχων, about the word, i. e. the business of the frogs. So 1 Kings xiv. 19, the rest of the acts of Jeroboam are in the Hebrew ויתר דבר, περισόν ῥῆμα, and ver. 29, λοιπὰ λόγων, the rest of the words. So Tobit i. 1, βίβλος λόγων, the book of the words, i. e. a commentary or story of the actions. And so 1 Kings xi. 41. So Luke ii. 15, ῥῆμα τοῦτο γεγονός, this word, i. e. thing, which is done. So Acts viii. 21, Mark i. 45, Luke i. 37. By the same analogy and proportion the two words, καλεῖσθαι and εἶναι, to be called, and to be, are all one, (as names and persons, Acts i. 15, and Luke vi. 22, Rev. iii. 4, and xi. 13.) So Isaiah lvi. 7. and Mark xi. 17, My house shall be called, i. e. shall be to all people an house of prayer, i. e. there shall be a court or atrium in it for the Gentiles, as well as for the Jews; and so St. Luke reads it, οἶκος εὐχῆς ἐστι, it is an house of prayer. So Isaiah ix. 6, his name shall be called Wonderful, i. e. he shall be a wonderful person; so Luke i. 32, he shall be called, i. e. he shall be the Son of the Highest; and ver.

Matthew 2:25

And she brought forth this Jesus, her firstborn, and in all probability her only son, (the word till being of no force to the contrary, as may appear,

[c] star in the [d] east,

and are come to worship him.