Matthew 2:4

4. All the chief priests and scribes The deep alarm of Herod is manifested by the greatness of the convocation he calls. The chief priest was properly but one; but the title is extended to include his deputy and the heads of the twenty-four courses. Scribes The word scribe signifies a writer, and was originally used to designate one of the class in the tribe of Levi who performed the office of secretary, recorder, roll-keeper, or transcriber. Seraiah was scribe or secretary to King David. 2 Samuel 8:17. Elihoreph and Ahiah were secretaries to King Solomon. 1 Kings 4:3. Under Uzziah, king of Judah, Jeil, the scribe, kept the muster-roll of the army. 2 Chronicles 26:11. So Ezra was a ready scribe in the law of Moses. Ezra 7:6.

The scribes of the New Testament belonged to the class of which Ezra was the model. They were transcribers of the text of the Mosaic law, and students and doctors of its principles. They were the same as the lawyers.

A select number of these scribes, as well as of the Pharisees, was associated with the high priests to constitute the Sanhedrim, or supreme legislative body of the Jewish nation.

Where Christ should be born By Christ here is meant not a proper name, but a title the Christ or the Messiah. See note on Matthew 1:1. It is a profound, theological question, therefore, which King Herod puts to his spiritual advisers: Where, according to the prophecies of the Old Testament, is the Messiah to be born? In the answer then given by this illustrious body, we have the decision of the Jewish nation on this point. Hence Tacitus, the celebrated Pagan historian, says: “With the masses the opinion was prevalent that it was predicted IN THE BOOKS OF THE PRIESTS, that the East should at that time grow strong.” Which Suetonius, another Pagan Roman, confirms and makes even more pointed: “Through all the East there prevailed an ancient and constant opinion that it was contained in the fates that at that time those arising from Judea should become masters of human things.”

These testimonies prove, 1. That the expectations of an arising prodigy from Judea were then prevailing through the East. 2. That these expectations were founded on prophecy in the sacred books. 3. That the time for his coming was believed to be nigh at hand, the prophetic period being about accomplished. Finally, Herod, through his great Sanhedrim, has immediate access to these very sacred books which predict the very village where the Christ was to be born; just where our Jesus was born, in Bethlehem of Judea.

As a singular illustration of this whole subject, we quote the following: “So vivid was their (the Chinese’s) expectation of the Messiah ‘the Great Saint who,’ as Confucius says, ‘was to appear in the West’ so fully sensible were they not only of the place of his birth, but of the TIME of his coming, that about sixty years after the birth of our Saviour they sent their envoys to hail the expected Redeemer. These envoys encountered on their way the missionaries of Boodhism coming from India the latter announcing an incarnate God were taken to be the disciples of the true Christ, and were presented as such to their countrymen by the deluded ambassadors. Thus was this religion introduced into China.” (Schlegel’s Philosophy of History, 1:176.)