{"commentary":{"id":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamieson-Fausset-Brown_Bible_Commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"db3d4c8b3c1f32ef9d1430a57392e02bda3a17aac1f9bbe398461de021a3cb13","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":66,"totalNumberOfChapters":1187,"totalNumberOfVerses":17056,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"MAT","commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Matthew","commonName":"Matthew","introduction":"THE author of this Gospel was a publican or tax gatherer, residing at Capernaum, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. As to his identity with the \"Levi\" of the second and third Gospels, and other particulars, see on Mat 9:9. Hardly anything is known of his apostolic labors. That, after preaching to his countrymen in Palestine, he went to the East, is the general testimony of antiquity; but the precise scene or scenes of his ministry cannot be determined. That he died a natural death may be concluded from the belief of the best-informed of the Fathers--that of the apostles only three, James the Greater, Peter, and Paul, suffered martyrdom. That the first Gospel was written by this apostle is the testimony of all antiquity.\n\nFor the date of this Gospel we have only internal evidence, and that far from decisive. Accordingly, opinion is much divided. That it was the first issued of all the Gospels was universally believed. Hence, although in the order of the Gospels, those by the two apostles were placed first in the oldest manuscripts of the Old Latin version, while in all the Greek manuscripts, with scarcely an exception, the order is the same as in our Bibles, the Gospel according to Matthew is \"in every case\" placed first. And as this Gospel is of all the four the one which bears the most evident marks of having been prepared and constructed with a special view to the Jews--who certainly first required a written Gospel, and would be the first to make use of it--there can be no doubt that it was issued before any of the others. That it was written before the destruction of Jerusalem is equally certain; for as HUG observes [Introduction to the New Testament, p. 316, FOSDICK'S translation], when he reports our Lord's prophecy of that awful event, on coming to the warning about \"the abomination of desolation\" which they should \"see standing in the holy place,\" he interposes (contrary to his invariable practice, which is to relate without remark) a call to his readers to read intelligently--\"Whoso readeth, let him understand\" (Mat 24:15) --a call to attend to the divine signal for flight which could be intended only for those who lived before the event. But how long before that event this Gospel was written is not so clear. Some internal evidences seem to imply a very early date. Since the Jewish Christians were, for five or six years, exposed to persecution from their own countrymen--until the Jews, being persecuted by the Romans, had to look to themselves--it is not likely (it is argued) that they should be left so long without some written Gospel to reassure and sustain them, and Matthew's Gospel was eminently fitted for that purpose. But the digests to which Luke refers in his Introduction (see on Luk 1:1) would be sufficient for a time, especially as the living voice of the \"eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word\" was yet sounding abroad. Other considerations in favor of a very early date--such as the tender way in which the author seems studiously to speak of Herod Antipas, as if still reigning, and his writing of Pilate apparently as if still in power--seem to have no foundation in fact, and cannot therefore be made the ground of reasoning as to the date of this Gospel. Its Hebraic structure and hue, though they prove, as we think, that this Gospel must have been published at a period considerably anterior to the destruction of Jerusalem, are no evidence in favor of so early a date as A.D. 37 or 38--according to some of the Fathers, and, of the moderns, TILLEMONT, TOWNSON, OWEN, BIRKS, TREGELLES. On the other hand, the date suggested by the statement of IRENÆUS [Against Heresies, 3.1], that Matthew put forth his Gospel while Peter and Paul were at Rome preaching and founding the Church--or after A.D. 60--though probably the majority of critics are in favor of it, would seem rather too late, especially as the second and third Gospels, which were doubtless published, as well as this one, before the destruction of Jerusalem, had still to be issued. Certainly, such statements as the following, \"Wherefore that field is called the field of blood unto this day\" (Mat 27:8); \"And this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day\" (Mat 28:15), bespeak a date considerably later than the events recorded. We incline, therefore, to a date intermediate between the earlier and the later dates assigned to this Gospel, without pretending to greater precision.\n\nWe have adverted to the strikingly Jewish character and coloring of this Gospel. The facts which it selects, the points to which it gives prominence, the cast of thought and phraseology, all bespeak the Jewish point of view from which it was written and to which it was directed. This has been noticed from the beginning, and is universally acknowledged. It is of the greatest consequence to the right interpretation of it; but the tendency among some even of the best of the Germans to infer, from this special design of the first Gospel, a certain laxity on the part of the Evangelist in the treatment of his facts, must be guarded against.\n\nBut by far the most interesting and important point connected with this Gospel is the language in which it was written. It is believed by a formidable number of critics that this Gospel was originally written in what is loosely called Hebrew, but more correctly Aramaic, or Syro-Chaldaic, the native tongue of the country at the time of our Lord; and that the Greek Matthew which we now possess is a translation of that work, either by the Evangelist himself or some unknown hand. The evidence on which this opinion is grounded is wholly external, but it has been deemed conclusive by GROTIUS, MICHAELIS (and his translator), MARSH, TOWNSON, CAMPBELL, OLSHAUSEN, CRESWELL, MEYER, EBRARD, LANGE, DAVIDSON, CURETON, TREGELLES, WEBSTER and WILKINSON, &c. The evidence referred to cannot be given here, but will be found, with remarks on its unsatisfactory character, in the Introduction to the Gospels prefixed to our larger Commentary, pp. 28-31.\n\nBut how stand the facts as to our Greek Gospel? We have not a title of historical evidence that it is a translation, either by Matthew himself or anyone else. All antiquity refers to it as the work of Matthew the publican and apostle, just as the other Gospels are ascribed to their respective authors. This Greek Gospel was from the first received by the Church as an integral part of the one quadriform Gospel. And while the Fathers often advert to the two Gospels which we have from apostles, and the two which we have from men not apostles--in order to show that as that of Mark leans so entirely on Peter, and that of Luke on Paul, these are really no less apostolical than the other two--though we attach less weight to this circumstance than they did, we cannot but think it striking that, in thus speaking, they never drop a hint that the full apostolic authority of the Greek Matthew had ever been questioned on the ground of its not being the original. Further, not a trace can be discovered in this Gospel itself of its being a translation. MICHAELIS tried to detect, and fancied that he had succeeded in detecting, one or two such. Other Germans since, and DAVIDSON and CURETON among ourselves, have made the same attempt. But the entire failure of all such attempts is now generally admitted, and candid advocates of a Hebrew original are quite ready to own that none such are to be found, and that but for external testimony no one would have imagined that the Greek was not the original. This they regard as showing how perfectly the translation has been executed; but those who know best what translating from one language into another is will be the readiest to own that this is tantamount to giving up the question. This Gospel proclaims its own originality in a number of striking points; such as its manner of quoting from the Old Testament, and its phraseology in some peculiar cases. But the close verbal coincidences of our Greek Matthew with the next two Gospels must not be quite passed over. There are but two possible ways of explaining this. Either the translator, sacrificing verbal fidelity in his version, intentionally conformed certain parts of his author's work to the second and third Gospels--in which case it can hardly be called Matthew's Gospel at all--or our Greek Matthew is itself the original.\n\nMoved by these considerations, some advocates of a Hebrew original have adopted the theory of a double original; the external testimony, they think, requiring us to believe in a Hebrew original, while internal evidence is decisive in favor of the originality of the Greek. This theory is espoused by GUERICKS, OLSHAUSEN, THIERSCH, TOWNSON, TREGELLES, &c. But, besides that this looks too like an artificial theory, invented to solve a difficulty, it is utterly void of historical support. There is not a vestige of testimony to support it in Christian antiquity. This ought to be decisive against it.\n\nIt remains, then, that our Greek Matthew is the original of that Gospel, and that no other original ever existed. It is greatly to the credit of DEAN ALFORD, that after maintaining, in the first edition of his Greek Testament the theory of a Hebrew original, he thus expresses himself in the second and subsequent editions: \"On the whole, then, I find myself constrained to abandon the view maintained in my first edition, and to adopt that of a Greek original.\"\n\nOne argument has been adduced on the other side, on which not a little reliance has been placed; but the determination of the main question does not, in our opinion, depend upon the point which it raises. It has been very confidently affirmed that the Greek language was not sufficiently understood by the Jews of Palestine when Matthew published his Gospel to make it at all probable that he would write a Gospel, for their benefit in the first instance, in that language. Now, as this merely alleges the improbability of a Greek original, it is enough to place against it the evidence already adduced, which is positive, in favor of the sole originality of our Greek Matthew. It is indeed a question how far the Greek language was understood in Palestine at the time referred to. But we advise the reader not to be drawn into that question as essential to the settlement of the other one. It is an element in it, no doubt, but not an essential element. There are extremes on both sides of it. The old idea, that our Lord hardly ever spoke anything but Syro-Chaldaic, is now pretty nearly exploded. Many, however, will not go the length, on the other side, of HUG (in his Introduction to the New Testament, pp. 326, &c.) and ROBERTS (\"Discussions of the Gospels,\" &c., pp. 25, &c.). For ourselves, though we believe that our Lord, in all the more public scenes of His ministry, spoke in Greek, all we think it necessary here to say is that there is no ground to believe that Greek was so little understood in Palestine as to make it improbable that Matthew would write his Gospel exclusively in that language--so improbable as to outweigh the evidence that he did so. And when we think of the number of digests or short narratives of the principal facts of our Lord's history which we know from Luke (Luk 1:1-4) were floating about for some time before he wrote his Gospel, of which he speaks by no means disrespectfully, and nearly all of which would be in the mother tongue, we can have no doubt that the Jewish Christians and the Jews of Palestine generally would have from the first reliable written matter sufficient to supply every necessary requirement until the publican-apostle should leisurely draw up the first of the four Gospels in a language to them not a strange tongue, while to the rest of the world it was the language in which the entire quadriform Gospel was to be for all time enshrined. The following among others hold to this view of the sole originality of the Greek Matthew: ERASMUS, CALVIN, BEZA, LIGHTFOOT, WETSTEIN, LARDNER, HUG, FRITZSCHE, CREDNER, DE WETTE, STUART, DA COSTA, FAIRBAIRN, ROBERTS.\n\nOn two other questions regarding this Gospel it would have been desirable to say something, had not our available space been already exhausted: The characteristics, both in language and matter, by which it is distinguished from the other three, and its relation to the second and third Gospels. On the latter of these topics--whether one or more of the Evangelists made use of the materials of the other Gospels, and, if so, which of the Evangelists drew from which--the opinions are just as numerous as the possibilities of the case, every conceivable way of it having one or more who plead for it. The most popular opinion until recently--and perhaps the most popular still--is that the second Evangelist availed himself more or less of the materials of the first Gospel, and the third of the materials of both the first and second Gospels. Here we can but state our own belief, that each of the first three Evangelists wrote independently of both the others; while the fourth, familiar with the first three, wrote to supplement them, and, even where he travels along the same line, wrote quite independently of them. This judgment we express, with all deference for those who think otherwise, as the result of a close study of each of the Gospels in immediate juxtaposition and comparison with the others. On the former of the two topics noticed, the linguistic peculiarities of each of the Gospels have been handled most closely and ably by CREDNER [Einleitung (Introduction to the New Testament)], of whose results a good summary will be found in DAVIDSON'S Introduction to the New Testament. The other peculiarities of the Gospels have been most felicitously and beautifully brought out by DA COSTA in his Four Witnesses, to which we must simply refer the reader, though it contains a few things in which we cannot concur. \n\n\n\nNext: Matthew Chapter 1\n\n","order":40,"numberOfChapters":28,"sha256":"85230502f7845520bbf6f2983f2d40076dbb901c7feac0d1cfa0d62c8b7d54f8","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/MAT/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"MAT","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":28,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/MAT/28.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"MAT","chapter":28},"totalNumberOfVerses":525},"chapter":{"number":2,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews?--From this it would seem they were not themselves Jews. (Compare the language of the Roman governor, Joh 18:33, and of the Roman soldiers, Mat 27:29, with the very different language of the Jews themselves, Mat 27:42, &c.). The Roman historians, SUETONIUS and TACITUS, bear witness to an expectation, prevalent in the East, that out of Judea should arise a sovereign of the world. \n\nfor we have seen his star in the east--Much has been written on the subject of this star; but from all that is here said it is perhaps safest to regard it as simply a luminous meteor, which appeared under special laws and for a special purpose. \n\nand are come to worship him--to do Him homage, as the word signifies; the nature of that homage depending on the circumstances of the case. That not civil but religious homage is meant here is plain from the whole strain of the narrative, and particularly Mat 2:11. Doubtless these simple strangers expected all Jerusalem to be full of its new-born King, and the time, place, and circumstances of His birth to be familiar to every one. Little would they think that the first announcement of His birth would come from themselves, and still less could they anticipate the startling, instead of transporting, effect which it would produce--else they would probably have sought their information regarding His birthplace in some other quarter. But God overruled it to draw forth a noble testimony to the predicted birthplace of Messiah from the highest ecclesiastical authority in the nation.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled--viewing this as a danger to his own throne: perhaps his guilty conscience also suggested other grounds of fear. \n\nand all Jerusalem with him--from a dread of revolutionary commotions, and perhaps also of Herod's rage.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together--The class of the \"chief priests\" included the high priest for the time being, together with all who had previously filled this office; for though the then head of the Aaronic family was the only rightful high priest, the Romans removed them at pleasure, to make way for creatures of their own. In this class probably were included also the heads of the four and twenty courses of the priests. The \"scribes\" were at first merely transcribers of the law and synagogue readers; afterwards interpreters of the law, both civil and religious, and so both lawyers and divines. The first of these classes, a proportion of the second, and \"the elders\"--that is, as LIGHTFOOT thinks, \"those elders of the laity that were not of the Levitical tribe\"--constituted the supreme council of the nation, called the Sanhedrim, the members of which, at their full complement, numbered seventy-two. That this was the council which Herod now convened is most probable, from the solemnity of the occasion; for though the elders are not mentioned, we find a similar omission where all three were certainly meant (compare Mat 26:59; Mat 27:1). As MEYER says, it was all the theologians of the nation whom Herod convened, because it was a theological response that he wanted. \n\nhe demanded of them--as the authorized interpreters of Scripture. \n\nwhere Christ--the Messiah. \n\nshould be born--according to prophecy.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judea--a prompt and involuntary testimony from the highest tribunal; which yet at length condemned Him to die. \n\nfor thus it is written by the prophet-- (Mic 5:2).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["And thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Juda--the \"in\" being familiarly left out, as we say, \"London, Middlesex.\" \n\nart not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, &c.--This quotation, though differing verbally, agrees substantially with the Hebrew and the Septuagint. For says the prophet, \"Though thou be little, yet out of thee shall come the Ruler\"--this honor more than compensating for its natural insignificance; while our Evangelist, by a lively turn, makes him say, \"Thou art not the least: for out of thee shall come a Governor\"--this distinction lifting it from the lowest to the highest rank. The \"thousands of Juda,\" in the prophet, mean the subordinate divisions of the tribe: our Evangelist, instead of these, merely names the \"princes\" or heads of these families, including the districts which they occupied \n\nthat shall rule--or \"feed,\" as in the Margin. \n\nmy people Israel--In the Old Testament, kings are, by a beautiful figure, styled \"shepherds\" (Eze 34:1-10, &c.). The classical writers use the same figure. The pastoral rule of Jehovah and Messiah over His people is a representation pervading all Scripture, and rich in import. (See Psa 23:1-6; Isa 40:11; Eze 37:24; Joh 10:11; Rev 7:17). That this prophecy of Micah referred to the Messiah, was admitted by the ancient Rabbins.\n\nThe Wise Men Despatched to Bethlehem by Herod to See the Babe, and Bring Him Word, Make a Religious Offering to the Infant King, but Divinely Warned, Return Home by Another Way (Mat 2:7-12).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men--Herod has so far succeeded in his murderous design: he has tracked the spot where lies his victim, an unconscious babe. But he has another point to fix--the date of His birth--without which he might still miss his mark. The one he had got from the Sanhedrim; the other he will have from the sages; but secretly, lest his object should be suspected and defeated. So he \n\ninquired of them diligently--rather, \"precisely.\" \n\nwhat time the star appeared--presuming that this would be the best clue to the age of the child. The unsuspecting strangers tell him all. And now he thinks he is succeeding to a wish, and shall speedily clutch his victim; for at so early an age as they indicate, He would not likely have been removed from the place of His birth. Yet he is wary. He sends them as messengers from himself, and bids them come to him, that he may follow their pious example.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently--\"Search out carefully.\" \n\nfor the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also--The cunning and bloody hypocrite! Yet this royal mandate would meantime serve as a safe conduct to the strangers.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["When they had heard the king, they departed--But where were ye, O Jewish ecclesiastics, ye chief priests and scribes of the people? Ye could tell Herod where Christ should be born, and could hear of these strangers from the far East that the Desire of all nations had actually come; but I do not see you trooping to Bethlehem--I find these devout strangers journeying thither all alone. Yet God ordered this too, lest the news should be blabbed, and reach the tyrant's ears, before the Babe could be placed beyond his reach. Thus are the very errors and crimes and cold indifferences of men all overruled. \n\nand, lo, the star, which they saw in the east--implying apparently that it had disappeared in the interval. \n\nwent before them, and stood over where the young child was--Surely this could hardly be but by a luminous meteor, and not very high.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy--The language is very strong, expressing exuberant transport.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["And when they were come into the house--not the stable; for as soon as Bethlehem was emptied of its strangers, they would have no difficulty in finding a dwelling-house. \n\nthey saw--The received text has \"found\"; but here our translators rightly depart from it, for it has no authority. \n\nthe young child with Mary his mother--The blessed Babe is naturally mentioned first, then the mother; but Joseph, though doubtless present, is not noticed, as being but the head of the house. \n\nand fell down and worshipped him--Clearly this was no civil homage to a petty Jewish king, whom these star-guided strangers came so far, and inquired so eagerly, and rejoiced with such exceeding joy, to pay, but a lofty spiritual homage. The next clause confirms this. \n\nand when they had opened their treasures they presented--rather, \"offered.\" \n\nunto him gifts--This expression, used frequently in the Old Testament of the oblations presented to God, is in the New Testament employed seven times, and always in a religious sense of offerings to God. Beyond doubt, therefore, we are to understand the presentation of these gifts by the Magi as a religious offering. \n\ngold, frankincense, and myrrh--Visits were seldom paid to sovereigns without a present (Kg1 10:2, &c.; compare Psa 72:10-11, Psa 72:15; Isa 60:3, Isa 60:6). \"Frankincense\" was an aromatic used in sacrificial offerings: \"myrrh\" was used in perfuming ointments. These, with the \"gold\" which they presented, seem to show that the offerers were persons in affluent circumstances. That the gold was presented to the infant King in token of His royalty; the frankincense in token of His divinity, and the myrrh, of His sufferings; or that they were designed to express His divine and human natures; or that the prophetical, priestly, and kingly offices of Christ are to be seen in these gifts; or that they were the offerings of three individuals respectively, each of them kings, the very names of whom tradition has handed down--all these are, at the best, precarious suppositions. But that the feelings of these devout givers are to be seen in the richness of their gifts, and that the gold, at least, would be highly serviceable to the parents of the blessed Babe in their unexpected journey to Egypt and stay there--that much at least admits of no dispute.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed--or, \"withdrew.\" \n\nto their own country another way--What a surprise would this vision be to the sages, just as they were preparing to carry the glad news of what they had seen to the pious king! But the Lord knew the bloody old tyrant better than to let him see their face again.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT--THE MASSACRE AT BETHLEHEM--THE RETURN OF JOSEPH AND MARY WITH THE BABE, AFTER HEROD'S DEATH, AND THEIR SETTLEMENT AT NAZARETH. ( = Luk 2:39). (Mat 2:13-23)\n\nAnd when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother--Observe this form of expression, repeated in Mat 2:14 --another indirect hint that Joseph was no more than the Child's guardian. Indeed, personally considered, Joseph has no spiritual significance, and very little place at all, in the Gospel history. \n\nand flee into Egypt--which, being near, as ALFORD says, and a Roman province independent of Herod, and much inhabited by Jews, was an easy and convenient refuge. Ah! blessed Saviour, on what a checkered career hast Thou entered here below! At Thy birth there was no room for Thee in the inn; and now all Judea is too hot for Thee. How soon has the sword begun to pierce through the Virgin's soul (Luk 2:35)! How early does she taste the reception which this mysterious Child of hers is to meet with in the world! And whither is He sent? To \"the house of bondage?\" Well, it once was that. But Egypt was a house of refuge before it was a house of bondage, and now it has but returned to its first use. \n\nand be thou there until I bring thee word; for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him--Herod's murderous purpose was formed before the Magi had reached Bethlehem.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt--doubtless the same night.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["And was there until the death of Herod--which took place not very long after this of a horrible disease; the details of which will be found in JOSEPHUS [Antiquities, 17.6.1,5,7,8]. \n\nthat it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying-- (Hos 11:1). \n\nOut of Egypt have I called my son--Our Evangelist here quotes directly from the Hebrew, warily departing from the Septuagint, which renders the words, \"From Egypt have I recalled his children,\" meaning Israel's children. The prophet is reminding his people how dear Israel was to God in the days of his youth; how Moses was bidden to say to Pharaoh, \"Thus saith the Lord, Israel is My son, My first-born; and I say unto thee, Let My son go, that he may serve Me; and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy first-born\" (Exo 4:22-23); how, when Pharaoh refused, God having slain all his first-born, \"called His own son out of Egypt,\" by a stroke of high-handed power and love. Viewing the words in this light, even if our Evangelist had not applied them to the recall from Egypt of God's own beloved, Only-begotten Son, the application would have been irresistibly made by all who have learnt to pierce beneath the surface to the deeper relations which Christ bears to His people, and both to God; and who are accustomed to trace the analogy of God's treatment of each respectively.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["Then Herod, &c.--As Deborah sang of the mother of Sisera: \"She looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of his chariots? Have they not sped?\" so Herod wonders that his messengers, with pious zeal, are not hastening with the news that all is ready to receive him as a worshipper. What can be keeping them? Have they missed their way? Has any disaster befallen them? At length his patience is exhausted. He makes his inquiries and finds they are already far beyond his reach on their way home. \n\nwhen he saw that he was mocked--was trifled with. \n\nof the wise men--No, Herod, thou art not mocked of the wise men, but of a Higher than they. He that sitteth in the heavens doth laugh at thee; the Lord hath thee in derision. He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise. He taketh the wise in their own craftiness, and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong (Psa 2:4; Job 5:12-13). That blessed Babe shall die indeed, but not by thy hand. As He afterwards told that son of thine--as cunning and as unscrupulous as thyself--when the Pharisees warned Him to depart, for Herod would seek to kill Him--\"Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to-day and to-morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected. Nevertheless I must walk to-day, and to-morrow, and the day following: for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem\" (Luk 13:32-33). Bitter satire! \n\nwas exceeding wroth--To be made a fool of is what none like, and proud kings cannot stand. Herod burns with rage and is like a wild bull in a net. So he \n\nsent forth--a band of hired murderers. \n\nand slew all the children--male children. \n\nthat were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof--environs. \n\nfrom two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently--carefully. \n\ninquired of the wise men--In this ferocious step Herod was like himself--as crafty as cruel. He takes a large sweep, not to miss his mark. He thinks this will surely embrace his victim. And so it had, if He had been there. But He is gone. Heaven and earth shall sooner pass away than thou shalt have that Babe into thy hands. Therefore, Herod, thou must be content to want Him: to fill up the cup of thy bitter mortifications, already full enough--until thou die not less of a broken heart than of a loathsome and excruciating disease. Why, ask skeptics and skeptical critics, is not this massacre, if it really occurred, recorded by JOSEPHUS, who is minute enough in detailing the cruelties of Herod? To this the answer is not difficult. If we consider how small a town Bethlehem was, it is not likely there would be many male children in it from two years old and under; and when we think of the number of fouler atrocities which JOSEPHUS has recorded of him, it is unreasonable to make anything of his silence on this.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying-- (Jer 31:15, from which the quotation differs but verbally).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not--These words, as they stand in Jeremiah, undoubtedly relate to the Babylonish captivity. Rachel, the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, was buried in the neighborhood of Bethlehem (Gen 35:19), where her sepulchre is still shown. She is figuratively represented as rising from the tomb and uttering a double lament for the loss of her children--first, by a bitter captivity, and now by a bloody death. And a foul deed it was. O ye mothers of Bethlehem! methinks I hear you asking why your innocent babes should be the ram caught in the thicket, while Isaac escapes. I cannot tell you, but one thing I know, that ye shall, some of you, live to see a day when that Babe of Bethlehem shall be Himself the Ram, caught in another sort of thicket, in order that your babes may escape a worse doom than they now endure. And if these babes of yours be now in glory, through the dear might of that blessed Babe, will they not deem it their honor that the tyrant's rage was exhausted upon themselves instead of their infant Lord?\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["But when Herod was dead--Miserable Herod! Thou thoughtest thyself safe from a dreaded Rival; but it was He only that was safe from thee; and thou hast not long enjoyed even this fancied security. See on Mat 2:15. \n\nbehold, an angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt--Our translators, somewhat capriciously, render the same expression \"the angel of the Lord,\" Mat 1:20; Mat 2:13; and \"an angel of the Lord,\" as here. As the same angel appears to have been employed on all these high occasions--and most likely he to whom in Luke is given the name of \"Gabriel,\" Luk 1:19, Luk 1:26 --perhaps it should in every instance except the first, be rendered \"the angel.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["Saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel--not to the land of Judea, for he was afterward expressly warned not to settle there, nor to Galilee, for he only went thither when he found it unsafe to settle in Judea but to \"the land of Israel,\" in its most general sense; meaning the Holy Land at large--the particular province being not as yet indicated. So Joseph and the Virgin had, like Abraham, to \"go out, not knowing whither they went,\" till they should receive further direction. \n\nfor they are dead which sought the young child's life--a common expression in most languages where only one is meant, who here is Herod. But the words are taken from the strikingly analogous case in Exo 4:19, which probably suggested the plural here; and where the command is given to Moses to return to Egypt for the same reason that the greater than Moses was now ordered to be brought back from it--the death of him who sought his life. Herod died in the seventieth year of his age, and thirty-seventh of his reign.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["And he arose, and took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel--intending, as is plain from what follows, to return to Bethlehem of Judea, there, no doubt, to rear the Infant King, as at His own royal city, until the time should come when they would expect Him to occupy Jerusalem, \"the city of the Great King.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judea in the room of his father Herod--Archelaus succeeded to Judea, Samaria, and Idumea; but Augustus refused him the title of king till it should be seen how he conducted himself; giving him only the title of ethnarch [JOSEPHUS, Antiquities, 17.11,4]. Above this, however, he never rose. The people, indeed, recognized him as his father's successor; and so it is here said that he \"reigned in the room of his father Herod.\" But, after ten years' defiance of the Jewish law and cruel tyranny, the people lodged heavy complaints against him, and the emperor banished him to Vienne in Gaul, reducing Judea again to a Roman province. Then the \"scepter\" clean \"departed from Judah.\" \n\nhe was afraid to go thither--and no wonder, for the reason just mentioned. \n\nnotwithstanding--or more simply, \"but.\" \n\nbeing warned of God in a dream, he turned aside--withdrew. \n\ninto the parts of Galilee--or the Galilean parts. The whole country west of the Jordan was at this time, as is well known, divided into three provinces--GALILEE being the northern, JUDEA the southern, and SAMARIA the central province. The province of Galilee was under the jurisdiction of Herod Antipas, the brother of Archelaus, his father having left him that and Perea, on the east side of the Jordan, as his share of the kingdom, with the title of tetrarch, which Augustus confirmed. Though crafty and licentious, according to JOSEPHUS--precisely what the Gospel history shows him to be (see on Mark 6:14-30; Luk 13:31-35) --he was of a less cruel disposition than Archelaus; and Nazareth being a good way off from the seat of government, and considerably secluded, it was safer to settle there.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":23,"content":["And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth--a small town in Lower Galilee, lying in the territory of the tribe of Zebulun, and about equally distant from the Mediterranean Sea on the west and the Sea of Galilee on the east. Note--If, from Luk 2:39, one would conclude that the parents of Jesus brought Him straight back to Nazareth after His presentation in the temple--as if there had been no visit of the Magi, no flight to Egypt, no stay there, and no purpose on returning to settle again at Bethlehem--one might, from our Evangelist's way of speaking here, equally conclude that the parents of our Lord had never been at Nazareth until now. Did we know exactly the sources from which the matter of each of the Gospels was drawn up, or the mode in which these were used, this apparent discrepancy would probably disappear at once. In neither case is there any inaccuracy. At the same time it is difficult, with these facts before us, to conceive that either of these two Evangelists wrote his Gospel with that of the other before him--though many think this a precarious inference. \n\nthat it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene--better, perhaps, \"Nazarene.\" The best explanation of the origin of this name appears to be that which traces it to the word netzer in Isa 11:1 --the small twig, sprout, or sucker, which the prophet there says, \"shall come forth from the stem (or rather, 'stump') of Jesse, the branch which should fructify from his roots.\" The little town of Nazareth, mentioned neither in the Old Testament nor in JOSEPHUS, was probably so called from its insignificance: a weak twig in contrast to a stately tree; and a special contempt seemed to rest upon it--\"Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?\" (Joh 1:46) --over and above the general contempt in which all Galilee was held, from the number of Gentiles that settled in the upper territories of it, and, in the estimation of the Jews, debased it. Thus, in the providential arrangement by which our Lord was brought up at the insignificant and opprobrious town called Nazareth, there was involved, first, a local humiliation; next, an allusion to Isaiah's prediction of His lowly, twig-like upspringing from the branchless, dried-up stump of Jesse; and yet further, a standing memorial of that humiliation which \"the prophets,\" in a number of the most striking predictions, had attached to the Messiah.\n\n\n\n\nNext: Matthew Chapter 3\n\n"]}],"introduction":"VISIT OF THE MAGI TO JERUSALEM AND BETHLEHEM. (Mat 2:1-12)\n\nNow when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea--so called to distinguish it from another Bethlehem in the tribe of Zebulun, near the Sea of Galilee (Jos 19:15); called also Beth-lehem-judah, as being in that tribe (Jdg 17:7); and Ephrath (Gen 35:16); and combining both, Beth-lehem Ephratah (Mic 5:2). It lay about six miles southwest of Jerusalem. But how came Joseph and Mary to remove thither from Nazareth, the place of their residence? Not of their own accord, and certainly not with the view of fulfilling the prophecy regarding Messiah's birthplace; nay, they stayed at Nazareth till it was almost too late for Mary to travel with safety; nor would they have stirred from it at all, had not an order which left them no choice forced them to the appointed place. A high hand was in all these movements. (See on Luk 2:1-6). \n\nin the days of Herod the king--styled the Great; son of Antipater, an Edomite, made king by the Romans. Thus was \"the sceptre departing from Judah\" (Gen 49:10), a sign that Messiah was now at hand. As Herod is known to have died in the year of Rome 750, in the fourth year before the commencement of our Christian era, the birth of Christ must be dated four years before the date usually assigned to it, even if He was born within the year of Herod's death, as it is next to certain that He was. \n\nthere came wise men--literally, \"Magi\" or \"Magians,\" probably of the learned class who cultivated astrology and kindred sciences. Balaam's prophecy (Num 24:17), and perhaps Daniel's (Dan 9:24, &c.), might have come down to them by tradition; but nothing definite is known of them. \n\nfrom the east--but whether from Arabia, Persia, or Mesopotamia is uncertain. \n\nto Jerusalem--as the Jewish metropolis.\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/MAT/2.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"MAT","chapter":2},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/MAT/3.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"MAT","chapter":3},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/MAT/1.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"MAT","chapter":1},"numberOfVerses":22}