Mat 2:1 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,

Bethlehem is a village about six miles (10 km) south of Jerusalem. It means “house of bread.” I found this fact interesting in light of this:

Luk 22:19  And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake [it], and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.

Even his birth place foretold of his body being broken for us.

Judaea means “he shall be praised.”

So he was born in the house of bread; ‘to be broken,’ and ‘he shall be praised.’

Despite the fact that Jesus is also called Emmanuel, he was not named that because it means God with us; which is more of a characterization of who he was. The word Emmanuel is a description of Christ.

This happened during the time of king “heroic,” which is the meaning of Herod. I found a lot of information on Herod and his battles and how he alienated the Jews by his cruelty. However, there is another interesting thing I also discovered about Herod.

My pastor recently was talking about the differences between Jacob and his twin Esau, and the fact that because of these differences, Esau fell outside the blessings of God. In the course of recognizing his regret, Esau blamed Jacob and wanted to kill him.

Esau’s lineage birthed the Amelekites, the Horites, and the Edomites. The Edomites were wiped out, but I find it interesting that Esau’s lineage all carried the same murderous desire towards Jacob’s lineage all the way through the old testament, and subsequently, into the new testament as well. There were many exchanges and battles that Jacob’s descendants had with Esau’s descendants.

What does this have to do with Matthew 2:1? In looking at king Herod, I discovered that he is also from Esau’s lineage, and here in this chapter of Matthew, he is attempting to get information so as to destroy Jesus, who is of the lineage of Jacob. Talk about an example of attitude transfer; this is it.

I recently read something about the star that the wise men followed. It was in the Good News newspaper we get here. The information indicated that at that time period, two stars came together to create this one unbelievably bright and large star. Allegedly, this is historically recorded that this astronomical event happened.

The other thing I noted was this:

Mat 2:11 And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.

Now remember that Jesus was born in a manger. But this says that the wise men, who were not kings, but astrologers, came to a house. Here are the definitions for wise men:

1) a magus
a) the name given by the Babylonians (Chaldeans), Medes, Persians, and others, to the wise men, teachers, priests, physicians, astrologers, seers, interpreters of dreams, augers, soothsayers, sorcerers etc.
b) the oriental wise men (astrologers) who, having discovered by the rising of a remarkable star that the Messiah had just been born, came to Jerusalem to worship him
c) a false prophet and sorcerer

These guys were astrologers. They had been studying the stars and knew of the foretold coming of Christ. How do we know this?

Mat 2:2 Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.