Matthew 2:6 - Exposition

And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Jude, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel; and thou Bethlehem , land of Judah , art in no wise least among the princes of Judah : For out of thee shall come forth a governor , which shall be shepherd of my people Israel (Revised Version). In this quotation from Micah 5:2 notice the following Variations from the Hebrew, and practically from the LXX .:

(a) to a different pointing of the Hebrew, יפֵלֻאַבְּ for יפֵלְאַבְּ (cf. the rabbinic commentary, 'Metzud. Zion.'), or

(b) to understanding יפֵלְאַבְּ as "families", and then concentrating the family in its head.

Nothing is commoner in Jewish authors than the silent conjunction of quotations from separate contexts. In this case the thought of the shepherd in Micah 5:4 made the addition from Samuel the more easy. It must also be noticed that the reference of the passage in Micah to Christ is fully borne out by Jewish writers. Though they generally explain the rest of the verse as referring to the long lapse of time from David himself, they understand the ruler to be Messiah. But it is not usual with Jewish interpreters to understand the reference to Bethlehem as implying the place of Messiah's own birth. They generally take it as referring to the home of David, Messiah's ancestor. And this is the more natural meaning of the prophecy. The quotation, however, from the Jerusalem Talmud already given on verse 1, and the Targum of Jonathan on Genesis 35:21 ("the tower of Edar—the place whence King Messiah is about to be revealed in the end of the days"), endorse the thoroughly Jewish character of the reply given to Herod (cf. also John 7:42 ). If it be asked why St. Matthew does not give an exact and verbal rendering of the Hebrew, the answer may be made that he probably gives the current form of its exposition. The high priests and scribes would have doubtless quoted it accurately in the process of weighing Micah's statement, but when, as here, they were only reproducing the result that they had arrived at, they would care for only the substance of the prophet's teaching (cf. the paraphrastic rendering of the Targum). In the land of Judah ; Revised Version omits in ( βηθλεὲμ γῆ ἰούδα ) . "Bethlehem-Judah" would have presented no difficulty, for a town was often distinguished by the apposition of the name of the district in which it was situated; e.g. Ramoth-Gilead, Kedesh-Naphtali. It seems best to explain the γῆ as a mere expansion of "Judah" (cf. 1 Macc. 5:68, ἄζωτον γῆν ἀλλοφυλῶν , where probably the thought was Ashdod-Philistia). It is, however, possible that γῆ is here used in the sense of "the town and its surrounding district, over which district, it is to be observed, Herod extended his massacre (verse 16)" (Humphrey, in loc .).