NEW TESTAMENT CRITICAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R. Seyda

GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

CHAPTER TWO

Part II (con’t)

Verse 3: “When King Herod heard about this, it upset him as well as everyone else in Jerusalem.” This is to be expected. First of all, there is no evidence that King Herod and his wife had recently had a baby born to them. Second, news of a new king in the capitol city would have been announced from the king’s palace, not by visiting magi on camels. Third, in those days the kings of Judea were appointed by Caesar in Rome. Did that mean Caesar had appointed someone to take Herod’s place without telling him about it? So there could be only one person who fit that description, the Messiah. No doubt someone in King Herod’s court were familiar with the prophecy: “The days are coming,” says Adonai when I will raise a righteous Branch for David. He will reign as king and succeed, he will do what is just and right in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, Isra’el will live in safety, and the name given to him will be Adonai Tzidkenu, which translated is “The LORD our righteousness.”¹ Another Jewish translator renders it: “…is our righteousness.”² Could it be that these astrologers were the messengers bringing the fulfillment of this prophecy? Whatever the case, some Jewish scholars believe that a king was in this prophecy.³ In fact, one of them expresses it this way: “Kings will not cease, nor rulers, from the house of Judah, nor scribes teaching the law from his offspring, until the time that the King the Messiah, shall come, the youngest of his sons; and on account of him shall the peoples flow together. How beauteous is the King, the Messiah who will arise from the house of Judah!”⁴ And that is what upset Herod, because it indicated that people would swarm in support of the Messiah, and that would put his job and position in jeopardy. Not only that, even the Jewish Kabbalists⁵ see it like this: “What was the reason for the appearance of these Messiahs? Because there was no Moses to make intercession with the divine Shekinah, and therefore it is written, ‘There was no man to plow the ground.’ This esoteric meaning and interpretation is also that of the words, ‘And the Sceptre will not depart from Judah,”⁶ referring to the Messiah son of David; while the words, ‘nor a prince of his posterity,’ denotes Messiah the son of Joseph [Jesus].”⁷ We can also see by Matthew’s wording that he had little love or respect for the denizens of Jerusalem.⁸

Verse 4: “Herod called a meeting of all the leading Jewish priests and teachers of the law. He asked them where the Messiah would be born.” This was a logical move for Herod. Not that he wanted his army to raid the village, but simply that it would give him the information he needed when planning on how to get rid of this uninvited usurper of the throne. It also may seem strange that after finding out it was Bethlehem, that the scribes, chief priests and King Herod himself did not accompany the Magi after such a controversial subject as the new king was brought up. But there were good reasons for it. The scribes and priests expected a Messiah to arrive on the scene fully grown, and ready to establish the kingdom as a prince, not as some unknown infant in a small insignificant village. So they no doubt dismissed the Magi’s information as invalid. This is evident by the Pharisees’ reply to Jesus that no one would know where the Messiah came from nor know who his father or mother would be.⁹ Furthermore, to them the astrologers were just following stars, as was their profession. Herod also knew that if he showed up looking for this baby, the people would conceal the child because they all feared Herod the maniac. He used the Magi as spies but this time it didn’t work out the way he planned it. In the Septuagint Version,¹⁰ the term for those whom Herod called together is rendered as “officers of the people and their scribes.”¹¹ We also see that Solomon referred to these people as “leaders of assemblies.”¹² These were the leaders in every city who would call the people together for the teaching of the Torah. In fact, one Jewish scholar tells us that Solomon himself was called a leader of assemblies because he was so great at teaching.¹³ In Jesus’ day, a priest was called a “cohen.” And since “im” is the plural in Hebrew, a group of priests were referred to as “cohanim.” The role of the priest was similar to that of the prophet, to serve as a spokesman and mediator between God and man. As one Jewish scholar explains: “The prophet speaks to man on behalf of God, the priest speaks to God on behalf of man.”¹⁴ While the prophets did not have a patriarchal ancestor to point to, while all priests were descendants of Aaron, the brother of Moses. After much study, Dr. John Lightfoot conjectures that even though it was reported that Herod slew all the elders of the Sanhedrin who opposed his taking of the throne, he did not kill them all. Lightfoot says, “Out of that slaughter the two sons of Betira escaped, who held the first places in the Sanhedrin after the death of Shemaiah and Abtalion. Shammai and Hillel escaped, and both were likely present; and Menahem, who certainly was there, and who afterward sat as second in charge. Baba Ben Buta escaped also, who afterward persuaded Herod that he should repair the Temple to atone for this bloody unrighteous act. And others escaped. When the Sanhedrin consisted of priests, Levites, and Israelites, the word chief priests referred to whatever members of clergy were in the Sanhedrin; and the name scribes of the people referred to all those of the Sanhedrin who were not of the clergy.”¹⁵

NOTE: TEACHERS OF THE LAW, OR SCRIBES: Body of teachers whose office was to interpret the Law for the people, and were called in Hebrew, “sofers”. Their organization began with Ezra,¹⁶ who was their chief, and terminating with Simeon the Just. Ezra is styled “a ready scribe in the law of Moses.”¹⁷ Indeed, he might be correctly so called for two reasons, inasmuch as he could write or copy the Law and at the same time was an able interpreter of it. The original meaning of the Hebrew word soferim was “people who know how to write”; and therefore the royal officials who were occupied in recording in the archives the proceedings of each day were called soferim or “scribes.”¹⁸ But as the art of writing was known only to the intelligent, the term “scribe” became synonymous with “wise man.”¹⁹ Later, in the time of Ezra, the designation was applied to the body of teachers who, as stated above, interpreted the Law for the people. The Rabbis, however, interpret the term “soferim” to mean those who count the letters of the Torah or those who classify its contents and recount the number of laws or objects belonging in each group. For example: five classes of people that are exempt from bringing a heave-offering, four chief causes of damages, thirty-nine chief works which are forbidden on the Sabbath, etc. We find this in the Aggadah, which is the nonlegal or narrative material, as parables, maxims, or anecdotes, in the Talmud and other rabbinical literature, serving either to illustrate the meaning or purpose of the law, custom, or Biblical passage being discussed or to introduce a different, unrelated topic. It is evident that these scribes were the first teachers of the Torah and the founders of verbal teachings. The Greek term used in the New Testament is grammateus, which is variously translated as “scribes,” (KJV) and “teachers of the law,” (NIV). Both Nicodemus and Gamaliel was such. Later on after the 6^th century, these scribes became better known as Rabbis.

So it is clear, even before Jesus began His ministry and His eventual confrontations with these Jewish Rabbis, scholars and teachers, there was a narrow mindset on if and when the Messiah would come, how He would be revealed, and what He would be like. So it is no wonder that when this poor prophet named Jesus of Nazareth arrived with a bunch of uneducated fishermen, He did not fit their mold and was quickly dismissed as being an impostor. Perhaps this will help us better understand why Jesus was so pleased when He found those to whom He was able to say: “Your faith has made you whole.”²⁰