The Babe In The Manger

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● Matt 2:11b . . They saw the child with his mother

When Jesus was lodged in the stable, the Greek word for his age is given as
brephos (bref'-os): an infant. In the house, the word for his age is given as
paidion (pahee-dee'-on) which refers to any underage kid from infancy to
adolescence but usually always refers to young children rather than infants.

I won't hazard a guess as to Jesus' age by the time the men arrived to see
him, but I'm thinking he was at the very least no longer in a bassinet.

● Matt 2:11c . . and fell down, and worshipped him:

The Greek word for "worship" is proskuneo (pros-koo-neh'-o). It's kind of a
funny word because it basically pictures a dog licking its master's hand; i.e.
homage, reverence, and/or adoration; viz: definitely subordination.

Now if these guys knew their stuff-- I think we can safely assume so --then
they didn't come all the way from the east seeking another run-of-the-mill
king of the Davidic dynasty, rather; a very special potentate that would one
day rule not just the land of Israel; but the entire planet, viz: everybody.

● Dan 7:13-14 . . In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was
one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the
Ancient of Days and was escorted into His presence.

. . . He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations
and men of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting
dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is the one that will never
be destroyed.

Well; let the record show that the wise men were the very first to begin
fulfilling that scene; viz: "all peoples, nations and men of every language
worshipped him".
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● Matt 2:11-12 . .Then they opened their treasures and presented him with
gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.

Those were not only appropriate tributes in that day, but also valuable
commodities that Joseph could put to use in financing his family's pending
sojourn in Egypt. (Matt 2:13-14)

It would've been fun if Matthew had told us the weight of the gold so we
could put a dollar figure on it according to today's precious metals.

● Matt 2:11-12 . . And having been warned in a dream not to go back to
Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

That was a safety measure to prevent Herod from knowing where to find the
lad because rulers in that day were typically Machiavellian-- they didn't just
crush potential threats to their power; they utterly annihilated it; and as
subsequent events demonstrate, ol' Herod had neither conscience nor
concern for child welfare.

● Matt 2:16a . .Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise
men, was exceeding wroth

There's really nothing in the story to even remotely suggest that the wise
men made a fool out of Herod. It was all in his own mind, i.e. his own
perception of the events. In other words; Herod was under the impression
that they had mocked him; thus his reaction was stimulated by a false
premise.

● Matt 2:16b . . He sent forth, and slew all the children that were in
Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under,
according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men.

The Greek word for "coasts" is a mite ambiguous. It technically indicates
borders, but can also indicate regions and/or environs and surrounding
areas.

That verse is commonly appropriated to calculate Jesus' age relative to when
the wise men visited him and his mother. But the verse merely indicates the
passage of time since Herod interviewed the men; which is quite useless for
calculating Jesus' age seeing as how he was already born before the men
even left their country-- how long before they left their country, nobody
knows for sure.

● Matt 2:17-18 . .Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was
fulfilled: "A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel
weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no
more." (Jer 31:15)

Ramah was roughly six miles north of Jerusalem, while Bethlehem is roughly
the same distance south in the opposite direction.

Ramah was settled by the people of Rachel's biological son Benjamin, so that
any weeping done by the mothers in that area would be reckoned, by
heritage, to be Rachel's weeping.

What this suggests to me is that the slaughter of the innocents extended
beyond the community of Bethlehem. Were we to set a draftsman's compass
to a radius equal to the distance between Bethlehem and Ramah, and scribe
a circle with Bethlehem at the center, it would yield a pretty good idea of the
area covered by Herod's death squads.

But Herod's efforts were futile. Jesus wasn't even in the country; Joseph had
moved the child and his mother down into Egypt before all the killing began.
(Matt 2:13)
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● Matt 2:19-23 . . After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a
dream to Joseph in Egypt and said: Get up, take the child and his mother
and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child's life
are dead.

. . . So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of
Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of
his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream,
he withdrew to the district of Galilee, and he went and lived in a town called
Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: "He will be
called a Nazarene."

NOTE: Jesus' hometown Nazareth was predicted by the prophets but not
recorded by the prophets; which alerts us to the fact that the prophets didn't
put everything they knew down in writing. That was fortunate because sure
enough Herod's death squads would've swept around Nazareth too had he
known.

Jesus is identified with Nazareth several times in the New Testament;
probably the best known incident took place on the day of his crucifixion.

● John 19:19-20 . . Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the
writing was:

JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS.

This title then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was
crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and
Latin.
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