Notes on Matthew 2:4-23

Chief priests and scribes - Matthew 2:4

All the chief priests and scribes of the people. Judaism had two main emphases, God's written Word and the system of sacrifices in the temple in Jerusalem. Therefore, the most important leaders were the priests who were in charge of the temple and the scribes who studied and taught God's Word. Herod asked these people to explain to him the prophecies about the Jewish king, the Christ. These two groups of people will turn out to be Jesus' greatest enemies.

The star in the east - Matthew 2:9

The star that they had seen in the east went before them. These learned men from the east were experts in interpreting signs in the heavens such as stars and this led them to come to Jerusalem to find Jesus (Matt. 2:2). In the ancient world stars were often connected with angels. It seems that the star must have been some sort of angelic being because it led them to the specific house where Jesus and Mary were.

An angel appeared to Joseph - Matthew 2:13

An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. Throughout the opening stories of Matthew 1–2 an angel gives instructions to people through a dream, usually to Joseph (Matt. 1:20; 2:13, 19, 22), but also to the learned men (Matt. 2:12). These instructions guided people to do the right thing and warn them of danger. Visions and dreams are not very common throughout the Bible but God does speak this way sometimes. In each instance in Matthew 1–2 the instructions guided people to do specific actions for their good, not to tell other people what to do or to teach doctrine. Angelic instructions in a dream do not occur again in Matthew until at the end of Jesus' life Pilate's wife had a dream warning her that Jesus was an innocent man (Matt. 27:19).

Out of Egypt I have called My son – Matthew 2:15

"Out of Egypt I have called my son." Once again Matthew connects Jesus' story to stories from the Old Testament, describing this as "fulfillment" (see note on Matt. 1:22). Joseph and Mary took the infant Jesus to Egypt to save him from Herod and when they returned, Matthew used Hosea 11:1 to connect Jesus with the story of God saving Israel from Egypt and to identify Jesus as God's Son (see also Matt. 3:17).

He sent and killed all the male children – Matthew 2:26

He sent and killed all the male children…two years old and under. Because he was afraid of being overthrown as king, the evil Herod killed all the male children in Bethlehem that were two years old and under. This shows that the arrival of the learned men in Jerusalem was around two years after Jesus' had been born, so these stories are from a later time than the stories about Jesus' birth in Luke 1–2.

Rachel weeping for her children – Matthew 2:17-18

Then was fulfilled … Rachel weeping for her children. With this fulfillment quotation from Jer. 31:15 Matthew connects Jesus' story to two important Old Testament texts — the story from Gen. 35:16-20 when Rachel wept for her other children as she died in childbirth, and Jeremiah's prophecy about the destruction of Jerusalem. The prophet Jeremiah used the example of Rachel weeping to describe the grief when God's people suffered in Jerusalem. Matthew continues this and applies these ideas to the grief in Bethlehem at the killing of the young boys.

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