This is a very interesting chapter in the Bible because it shows us that many people knew about the coming of the Messiah, not just the Jews. The chapter begins with the wise men coming from the East to worship "the King of the Jews". It is very interesting that they came to Herod looking for the King of the Jews because Herod was the King of that area. Herod, also known as Herod the Great, was a very jealous king. History tells us that he actually killed members of his family because he was afraid that they would try to take away his authority and reign in his place. So you can see how dangerous it was for little Jesus when these wise men came and asked for Him. V. 3 says that Herod was troubled, as was all of Judea. The reason everyone in Judea was troubled is that they knew he could potentially kill any of them if he perceived them as threats.

Anyway, jumping back to verse 2, where the magos (wise men), ask for the King of the Jews, there are a few key words in their question. They ask, "Where is He who has been born King of the Jews?" No one is born as a king. Even when a child is born to a king and everyone knows that when that child grows up, he will be come king, he is not crowned king until his father dies. Jesus was born as the King. Litterally, the magos ask, "At what locality is he, born the Sovereign of the Jews?"

The magos also say that they have seen Jesus' star in the east. Now, I can't tell you how it is possible that a star could have lead these wise men to where Jesus was. This is one of the miracles in the Bible. If the Lord could lead His people out of Egypt with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night and if the Lord could lead all of us to Him by His Holy Spirit, then I have no doubt that He had no problem leading these wise men to Jesus.

As we read further in this chapter, we see that Herod called the chief priests and scribes to ask about where the Christ was to be born. This is interesting because it means that even Herod knew that the magos were talking about the Christ and the Jewish leaders knew that the Christ was supposed to be born in Bethlehem. The really sad thing to note here is that Herod appears to believe that the Christ has been born more than the Jewish leaders do, even though Herod is threatened by His birth and doesn't fall to his knees in belief in the Savior. This, I believe, holds a very powerful lesson for all of us as believers.

The Jewish leaders, who lived their lives surrounded by the Word of God, who were probably so well versed in the Scriptures that they could quote any verse to you at any time, had lost the depth and the meaning behind the very verses that they were immersed in. This can happen to us as well. How often do we catch ourselves thinking when we hear someone quote a verse, "Oh yeah, that verse says such and such. I've heard that one before." However, in all these quiet compliments of our own Biblical knowledge, we forget to think about the true meaning behind the words. Every word in the Bible could be memorized a thousand times over without ever grasping the full meaning of those words. Each time I read the Bible and really seek for the Holy Spirit to speak to me through those words, I am given a new and deeper understanding of what I am reading. I can also just read because I'm supposed to read the Bible in the morning because it's good for me like spiritual health food and sometimes I won't get a thing, but the black text on a white background. Oh yeah. I knew that. I read the same thing last time. This is the kind of thing that I believe had happened to these scribes and it is the same thing that can happen to us if we don't take the time to really seek the Lord in our Bible studies. Honestly, you're not always going to have a big revelation, but you should always seek one and see what the Lord wants to do.

Anyway, back to the chapter. The scribes answer Herod by quoting a verse found in Micah 5:2. They quoted it a little bit different here and so I will give you what it says in Micah. "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting." The next two verses give even more detail, showing that this person is the Christ. "Therefore He shall give them up, until the time that she who is in labor has given birth; then the remnant of His brethren shall return to the children of Israel. He shall stand and feed His flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord His God; and they shall abide, for now He shall be great to the ends of the earth; and this One shall be peace." Micah 5:3-5a. You can see by the full verse, that this is clearly speaking of the Messiah and it is clear by the answer of the scribes that they knew this verse was talking about the Christ, but they didn't go and seek Him out.

So Herod told the magos secretly to find the King and come and tell him where He was, supposedly so that he could worship Him. This would have been an excellent plan had the Lord not been protecting Jesus. The Lord protected Jesus in a lot of ways. Herod could have sent spies to follow the magos to Jesus. He could have gone with them to find Him. He could have followed the star himself. However, the Lord kept him from doing so. This should be a lesson to us that the Lord protects us, even if it looks like we are going to find trouble. I know that, when I was in Perú on the mission field, a lot of people told me not to go to certain neighborhoods, but I went because the Lord lead me and He also protected me.

The magos followed the star to where Jesus was and they came in a gave Him gold, frankincense and myrrh. Gold was a gift for kings, frankincense was a gift for priests and myrrh was for embalming the dead. These three gifts show the ministry of Jesus as our King, our Priest and our Savior who died for us.

Now imagine all this from Mary's perspective. You're sitting peacefully in your house, taking care of your son and minding your own business when all these rich guys with funny accents show up at your front door with all these expensive gifts, probably more riches than you've ever seen in your life. I mean, you knew your Son was of the Lord, but you didn't know what all that would entail. Then these guys start worshiping your Son. Oh to be a fly on the wall for that event.

Anyway, notice here that the magos came into the house where Jesus was. He was no longer in the stable where he was born and in verse 16, Herod goes to kill all the male children two years old and under because of when the magos said that they had seen Jesus' star. This means that Jesus was probably around two when the magos came to visit Him, contrary to the popular Christmas story where they are there for His birth.

As the magos were leaving, God warned them in a dream not to go back to Herod and so they went home another way. The Lord also told Joseph in a dream to get out of Israel and go to Egypt because Herod was going to try to kill Jesus.

The Scripture quote in verse 15 is from Hosea 11:1b. It is interesting because in Hosea, it appears that this verse is talking about God's son being the children of Israel. This quote is not a mistake. There is a real parallel between what the Lord did for the children of Israel and what He did for the whole world through His Son.

When Israel was in Egypt, they were aware of God through what they saw in nature and because of the stories that their ancestors told, but they had not been personally called by the Lord. The Lord delivered them from slavery just like He has delivered us from the slavery of our sinful flesh. The Lord brought them to the desert to learn how to walk with Him, leading them each step by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, just like He separated us from the world and guides our every step by His Spirit and by His Word. The Lord brought Israel into the Promised Land where there were both battles and abundant blessings just as He brings us into a life of victory and blessings as we learn to walk with Him more and more. Note: The reason I don't equate the Promised Land with Heaven as some people do is because in the Promised Land, Israel continued to have battles, but in Heaven, what will we have to battle against?

So when Herod found out that the wise men had gone away without telling him where the King of the Jews was, he got really angry and ordered all the male children 2 and under to be killed. He thought that he would be able to rule out anyone that would challenge his throne and I'm sure that he thought he had gotten rid of this King of the Jews even to his death bed.

The verse that is quoted in verse 18 is from Jeremiah 31:15. The whole chapter is very interesting actually because in verses 31-34, Jeremiah talks about the new covenant that the Lord made through His Son. It's really rather beautiful and I would recommend reading all of Jeremiah 31 for a little context on this quote here in Matthew.

When Herod died, the Lord told Joseph in a dream to go back to Israel. This is interesting because the Lord didn't tell Joseph His entire plan right away. Joseph was on his way back to Bethlehem and it was only when he realized that Archelaus, Herod's son, was ruling there that he was afraid and sought the Lord. Then the Lord warned him not to go there. It doesn't tell us that the Lord told Joseph to go to Nazareth, but that's where he went. It appears that this was also a prophecy from Judges 13:5. The prophecy was actually originally given to Samson's mother. Now, remember that Samson was the guy that was strong as long as he didn't cut his hair. He spent a lot of time beating up the Philistines and delivering Israel from them. He was not a particularly godly man until his death. He tended to really run after women and Delilah finally got the secret from him that if he cut his hair that he would lose his strength and so she cut off all his hair and he became a prisoner of the Philistines. On the last day of his life, his hair had started to grow back and he had begun to have faith in the Lord. The Philistines were having a big party to laugh at him when he knocked down their gathering place, killing both himself and a lot of the worshipers of Dagon. Now Samson was a Nazarite: a person who was not allowed to cut his hair, eat anything unclean or drink wine. Jesus, on the other hand, was a Nazarene, meaning one from the city of Nazareth. While we don't know whether or not Jesus cut His hair or ate anything unclean, we do know that Jesus drank wine so He must not have been a Nazarite in the sense of that vow (the specifics of the vow are found in Numbers 6). The only parallel that I can see is that a Nazarite was a lay person who had made a decision to dedicate their entire life to the Lord and Jesus, who actually was a lay person on this earth even though we know He is our High Priest, dedicated His life to the Lord and the fact that Jesus and Samson were both dedicated from birth to death is another similarity.

Once again, I pray that this has blessed someone because I know it has blessed me!!! May the Lord be your King today!!!

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In Matthew's account of the gospel, he starts out with the genealogy of Jesus Christ because he was writing primarily to Jews and, to the Jews, someone's genealogy is very important. Coming from a Jewish family myself, I know how proud the people are who can still trace there lineage. Unfortunately, I'm not one of those Jews.

The lineage of Jesus is somewhat interesting. First of all, there is Rahab who married Salmon and had a son named Boaz. Rahab is the woman in Joshua 2 that hides the Israeli spies that came into Jericho to check it out. Rahab was a prostitute, but she believed in the Lord and she knew that the Lord had given Jericho to the Israel. Here is what she said in Joshua 2:9-11, "and (she) said to the men: 'I know that the Lord has given you the land, that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land are fainthearted because of you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were on the other side of the Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. And as soon as we heard these things, our hearts melted; neither did there remain any more courage in anyone because of you, for the Lord you God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.' "

Rahab showed her faith by what she said and when the walls of Jericho came tumbling down at the shout of the Israeli army in Joshua 6, all the people who were in Rahab's house were saved from death because of the faith of Rahab. Certainly, there is a spiritual lesson to be learned in this. In Acts 16:31, it says, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household." I am hoping this is true for my household because I am the only Christian here.

Boaz and Ruth are some other interesting characters in the lineage of Jesus. Ruth was a Moabite. She had been married to one of Naomi's sons and when both her sons and her husband died in the land of Moab, she decided to return to Bethlehem where she was originally from. I'm sure most of us are familiar with this story because it appears that Ruth and Naomi could have possible had a lesbian relationship. In any case, Ruth showed her faith in the God of Israel and her love for Naomi with this statement in Ruth 1:16-17, "Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following after you; for wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, are your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me." So Ruth followed Naomi to Bethlehem and started picking up the extra food that the shearers dropped in the fields. This was a potentially dangerous job, especially for a woman in those days because sometimes they got taken advantage of, but Ruth did this to feed herself and Naomi. Ruth ended up in a field that belonged to a relative of Naomi named Boaz. In those days, if I woman had been married into a family and her husband died, it remained the responsability of the next of kin to marry her and then her first born son would carry on the family name of her dead husband. Boaz wasn't quite the next of kin, there was one closer, but he took a liking to Ruth and the next of kin decided to let him marry her. So that is how she ended up in the lineage of Jesus. This whole story is found in the book of Ruth.

Bathsheba is also in the lineage of Jesus, although she is not mentioned by name, but we all know who it was who had been the wife of Uriah. In 2 Samuel 11, the story of David and Bathsheba unfolds. Basically, David sent his men to war while he just hung around in his palace. The king customarily went to war with his troops, but David did not. While he was lazing around his palace, he happened to see a really pretty woman taking a bath on the roof. He thought that she was really something and so he called for her and slept with her. Lo and behold, a short while later, he found out that he had gotten her pregnant and so he called her husband, Uriah, from the battle ground and tried everything to get him to sleep with his wife so that it would just look like she was pregnant from him, but he refused on the honorable grounds that he should not get to enjoy the pleasures of his wife while his comrades were at war. David finally sent a message by the very hand of Uriah to Joab, his commander, to have Uriah killed. Once Uriah was dead, David took his wife Bathsheba as his own wife. David got repremanded for this greatly in the next chapter and his first son with Bathsheba died, but his second son was Solomon and it is said of Solomon in 2 Samuel 12:24-25 that the Lord loved Solomon. The Lord also chose Solomon to be king after the death of David. This shows the wonderful mercy of the Lord because even though David had committed both adultry and murder, the Lord had forgiven him and even allowed the line of Jesus Christ to pass through his son with Bathsheba. It is somewhat fitting though since the Lord has since forgiven many adulterers and murderers by the blood of Jesus Christ, who was yet to come from this very line. Beautiful!

There are many remarkable stories of the people in Jesus' lineage, but I am going to leave it at that.

We are probably all familiar with the story of Jesus' birth. Verse 18 tells us that Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit while His mother, Mary, was still a virgin. Joseph obviously loved Mary a lot because he could have had her stoned for being pregnant by someone else, but he was thinking of try to save her life even though it appeared to him, that she had cheated on him. Joseph fell asleep while he was thinking about these things, perhaps he cried himself to sleep. I know I would have. In his dreams, an angel of the Lord came to him and told him this in verses 20-21, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins." In those days, a name was more than just what your parents thought was a cute name. Often times, children were named for the circumstances surrounding their birth. This is the case with Jesus' name as well.

Jesus, which is actually a form of the Hebrew name Yihoshua, which means litterally Jehovah saved. Thus it was a very fitting name for Jesus. Joshua is also another variation of the same Hebrew name. Joshua saved his people physically from the inhabitants of the Promised Land and Jesus saved His people from their own sins.

The prophet Isaiah actually talked about Jesus and what He was also to be called in Isaiah 7:14. The verse is also quoted here in Matthew 1:23, "'Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,' which is translated, God with us." When the word, name, is used here and in verse 21, it actually doesn't just mean name in the sense that we think of the word name. It comes from the Greek word onoma which can also mean the actual meaning of a name or all that a name implies. It means the character, the authority, the rank, the power and the attributes of the name. When you pray, in the name of Jesus, you are actually calling upon Him in all the fullness of who He is to answer the prayer that you have offered up.

The last two verses of this chapter are beautiful. Joseph obeyed the angel and took Mary to be his wife and didn't sleep with her even though he knew that he would be forever looked down upon because she had been pregnant before they were married. This shows his deep love for both the Lord and his wife Mary. It also shows us the great self-control that he had in not having sex with Mary until Jesus was born. Mary and Joseph did have other children later. Jesus' brothers are mentioned in all three gospel accounts (Matt. 12:46-47, Mark 3:33, Luke 8:19-20, John 2:12). If that's not enough for the skeptics, his brothers are mentioned by name in Matthew 13:55-56, as is the fact that Jesus also had sisters.

May the Lord bless you all and enrich your lives with His Word as He has enriched mine with It!!!

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