As part of a new series called: Things That Make You Go H’mmm!

Matthew 1:18
“Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.”

A good friend of mine recently asked me a question about “The Nativity” or birth of Jesus Christ. A question which I had never fully considered. Actually, it is a two-parter. Here is the question:

Why does the Gospel writer Matthew mention the wise men coming to Jesus, and why does the Gospel writer Luke mention shepherds coming to Jesus?

Believe it or not for once I am going try to give you the short answer without diving to deeply into the context of the scriptures behind the answers. At least I’m not going to write down or exactly quote book, chapter and verse. However, after we complete the answer, as a further introduction into this series, I want to explore questions and answers and why context and details are important for anything, especially the Bible. After which, I will continue to attempt for the rest of this series to give short answers for many questions we all have about the Bible. I digress.

As I began to think about the answers to my friend’s question, naturally I thought what do I know about Matthew’s Gospel? First, from his Gospel I know that Matthew was a tax collector and tax collectors are all about details. Next, I thought what else do I know about Matthew? Well, I know from my studies that Matthew paints us a picture of Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of Prophecy. I also know as part of Matthew’s picture of Christ that he begins with Jesus’ genealogy and he accounts this genealogy using a memory aide know as a mnemonic. Remember in Biblical antiquity (Old times, i.e. 2,000 years ago), the printing press had not been invented and very few people could afford literature, especially religious literature. So, writers employed memory techniques to help people memorize the scriptures. Matthew organized Jesus’ family history in a way to make it easier to remember. He records Jesus’ main ancestors beginning with Abraham to David, which is 14 generations. Next, he numbers from David to Jechonias or the Babylonian Captivity, 14 generations. Finally, he numbers from Jechonias to Jesus, again 14 generations. By doing this, Matthew incorporates several aspects of Messianic Prophecy into His genealogy. The way he organizes the names is a numerical pattern which in Hebrew spells David. So how does all this apply to the wise men? Again, Matthew’s genealogy endpoint is Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of prophecy, but one highlighted point along this numerical focus is the Babylonian Captivity of the Jews. The main place highlighting this Babylonian Captivity is the Book of Daniel.

If you will recall Daniel was a young Jewish boy carried captive to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, which attained the ears of multiple generations of Eastern Kings because of his wisdom. Daniel was numbered among the wise men of Babylon, plus their successors the joint kingdom of the Medes and Persians. In his over 70 years of captivity in Babylon, Daniel understood by books the number of years that the children of Judah would be in this captivity, which was 70-years. A couple of the books Daniel consulted concerning this time frame were by the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah. Additionally, as Daniel pondered these things and began to pray for the forgiveness of his sins and the sins of his Jewish kinsmen, God revealed to Daniel something even more important. Because Daniel asked how long until God would fulfill His promise of everlasting righteousness, it was revealed unto Daniel the number of years until the promised descendant of Abraham would appear. This Messiah (promised one), would set upon the throne of David and usher in everlasting righteousness or salvation, again as promised to Abraham.

So, when Matthew mentions wise men came from the East, it is a direct reference to this Babylonian Captivity of the Jews, his center point of the Genealogy to which Jesus is the End Point. You see because one man, Daniel, lived a consecrated life with the hope of a Messianic Prince, it not only changed his life but others took notice. They took such notice to what Daniel did and recorded that they passed down his knowledge and writings to those wise men that would follow them. So, because they knew the time frame by Daniels writings, gentile wise men came from the East to Israel to see the Prince which would become the King of the Jews.

Next time part two of this question: Why does the Gospel writer Luke mention shepherds coming to Jesus?