Matthew 2:2

2. King of the Jews If these Magi were indeed Gentiles, they were fully indoctrinated into the understanding that the future Saviour was to be a Jew, and a king of the Jews. They came in quest of a Jewish Messiah.

Have seen his star in the east A close inspection of the words will, perhaps, disperse some gratuitous impressions: 1. The star did not stand over Jerusalem. Otherwise it would have been as visible to the Jews as to them; and they would not have said, “We have seen his star in the east;” that is, we in the east saw his star; but they would have said, “Yonder is his star in the firmament.” The star very plainly was not at that moment visible to the Magi, and for that reason they were inquiring his place. 2. There is no proof that the star guided them on their way from their own country to Jerusalem. At Jerusalem they only affirm that they saw his star when they were in the east, before they started; not that they were guided on the way, or see it now. 3. It is plain that this star is no ordinary member of the firmament. It is his star, and not a star that existed independently of him.

Now we are not informed how they learned the star was his. At any rate, some divine revelation must have been given with the star. The angels who appeared to the shepherds explained themselves verbally; the Divine giver of his star no doubt explained it by words, or by prophetic impulse, to be his.

And now what was the star? To this some have answered that it was a conjunction of planets, which astronomy shows to have taken place at that time; and which, to the eye, would appear as one very luminous star. The Magi saw this, and, influenced by the expectation derived from prophecy, then widely existing through the East, that Messiah was soon to be born, they started for Jerusalem to make inquiry. No commentator states this theory more plausibly than Alford. But it fails to meet the facts. How could such a star reappear (see comment on Matthew 2:9-10) on their way toward Bethlehem, go before them, and indicate the very “house” (Matthew 2:11) where the young child was?

There is then left us but one plain view of this star. It was a luminous orb, divinely and specially given, and divinely explained, as a signal of the Saviour’s birth. It is called a star from its visible form. Just as the angels are called men, because they were men by form though not by nature, so this orb is called a star, because though not so by nature, it is by form.

The submission of the Jews to Jesus was typified by the shepherds; the submission of the Gentiles by the Magi. The former were informed by angels; the latter by a star.

This was perhaps the star seen in prophetic vision by the Gentile Balaam, as being far distant from himself in time: “I shall see him, but not now; I shall behold him, but not nigh; there shall come a STAR out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel.” Numbers 24:17. And by the coming of the Magi was fulfiled in type, “the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.” Isaiah 60:3. These Magi were as the ambassadors of the Gentile nations. To worship him As king and Saviour.