Augustus

The Greek opens with a genitive absolute construction ("Jesus having been born"), which sets the scene rather than narrating the birth itself; the rendering "After Jesus was born" preserves that background function and keeps the sentence moving toward the main clause, the arrival of the visitors. The Greek word magoi has no exact English equivalent: "wise men" is used here because it is familiar to the ear and avoids the misleading overtones of "magicians" or "sorcerers," while "astrologers" would be more precise about their craft and "Magi" would simply transliterate the term. Their number is never stated; the traditional three comes from the three gifts in verse 11, not from the text. The phrase "in the days of King Herod" translates a Semitic-flavored time expression literally, since the rhythm of "in the days of" reads well aloud; "during the reign of Herod the king" would be an equally faithful but flatter alternative. Note also that the sentence continues into verse 2 without a full stop, matching the single flowing sentence of the Greek.

Magos is a loanword from Old Persian, originally denoting a member of the priestly caste of the Medes, and by the first century used broadly for practitioners of astrology, dream interpretation, and esoteric learning. The word could carry a negative charge in Greek writing (compare its use of Simon and Elymas elsewhere in the New Testament), which makes Matthew's positive portrayal striking. The phrase apo anatolōn is plural, literally "from risings," that is, from where the sun rises — hence "from the east"; in the next verse the same root appears in the singular of the star's rising, a deliberate echo. "Bethlehem of Judea" distinguishes this village from another Bethlehem in Galilee, in the territory of Zebulun.

Herod the Great ruled as Rome's client king over Judea from about 37 to 4 BC, an able builder (the expanded temple was his work) and a ruler notorious for eliminating perceived rivals, including members of his own family. His reign anchors the birth of Jesus before 4 BC. Bethlehem was a small village roughly six miles south of Jerusalem, remembered as the hometown of David. Astral observation was highly developed in Babylon and Persia, and the ancient world widely assumed that celestial events could signal the birth of a ruler; Roman writers record an expectation in the east that a world ruler would arise from Judea. A delegation of eastern dignitaries traveling to honor a king would have been a recognizable, politically charged event.

Matthew opens his account of Jesus' childhood with foreigners who read the heavens seeking a Jewish king, while Jerusalem's own leadership will be troubled by the news. This frames a theme that runs to the Gospel's final verse: the nations coming to worship the Messiah. Readers have long heard echoes of the promises that Gentiles would come to the light and bring gifts, and of the pagan seer Balaam who spoke of a star rising out of Jacob. The episode also raises the perennial question of how God may use knowledge outside Israel's covenant — here the sciences of the east — to lead people to Christ, without endorsing astrology as such.

The text of this verse is remarkably stable across the manuscript tradition. Minor variation involves word order and the spelling of Bethlehem, and some witnesses omit or vary the article with "Herod the king," none of which affects the sense.

This verse begins the Gospel reading for Epiphany, celebrated on January 6 in the West and closely associated with the Theophany season in the East, where in many traditions the visit of the Magi is commemorated with the Nativity. It is among the most widely used Gospel texts in Christmas services, processions, and hymnody.

The Greek opens with the participle λέγοντες, "saying," continuing the sentence begun in verse 1; since English resists a long run-on, the participle is rendered as a finite verb, "and asked," which also signals that a question follows. The phrase ὁ τεχθεὶς βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων is literally "the born king of the Jews"; the rendering "the one who has been born king of the Jews" preserves the passive participle and the emphatic word order, which stresses that this king holds his title by birth. An alternative rendering is "the one who has been born to be king of the Jews." The clause ἐν τῇ ἀνατολῇ can be taken either spatially, "in the east," or temporally, "at its rising" — the technical astronomical sense of a star's first appearance above the horizon. The temporal sense, "when it rose," is adopted here because the noun stands in the singular with the article, unlike the plural ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν ("from the east") in verse 1. Finally, προσκυνῆσαι is rendered "to worship"; "to pay homage" or "to do obeisance" are equally defensible.

ἀνατολή comes from ἀνατέλλω, "to rise up, spring up," used of the sun, stars, and even of shoots from a root. The same root gives the noun both meanings that hover over this verse: the direction of sunrise (the east) and the act of rising. The verb προσκυνέω is built from πρός ("toward") and κυνέω ("to kiss"), and originally described blowing or throwing a kiss toward a superior, then prostration before a king or a god. In Greek the participle τεχθείς is aorist passive of τίκτω, "to give birth," the same verb used in the birth announcements of chapter 1.

"King of the Jews" was the very title Herod the Great held by decree of the Roman senate, which is why the question is politically explosive and why verse 3 reports his alarm. Astrologers from Persia or Babylon — the μάγοι were originally a priestly caste associated with dream interpretation and star-lore — were widely believed to read the births and deaths of rulers in the sky. Ancient sources record the appearance of new stars, comets, and planetary conjunctions being interpreted as heralding royal births, and Roman writers describe a well-known expedition of eastern magi who came west to honor an emperor. Whatever the astronomical phenomenon, the narrative assumes a world where the heavens announce a change of thrones.

The first people in this Gospel to seek out and worship the newborn Messiah are foreigners, not Israelites — a quiet foreshadowing of the closing commission to make disciples of all nations. The verb translated "worship" is used throughout this Gospel both for reverence toward a human superior and for the worship due to God alone; the narrator lets the ambiguity stand, but the reader who knows the child is "God with us" hears more in it than the magi themselves may have intended. The title "king of the Jews" appears again only at the end of the Gospel, on the placard above the cross, framing the whole story between the homage of Gentiles and the mockery of soldiers.

The wording of this verse is unusually stable across the manuscript tradition. Notably, the singular ἐν τῇ ἀνατολῇ here is uniformly attested and stands in deliberate contrast to the plural ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν in verse 1, which supports reading the singular in its technical sense of a star's rising rather than simply as a geographical direction.

This passage is read at the feast of Epiphany, celebrated on the sixth of January in most traditions, which commemorates the manifestation of Christ to the nations. The question "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?" and the star that guides the seekers have shaped centuries of Epiphany hymnody, processions, and the custom of blessing homes with the initials of the traditional names of the magi.

The Greek says only "when he heard"; "this" is supplied so the sentence stands on its own when read aloud. The verb rendered "was deeply disturbed" (etarachthē) is a passive form meaning "was stirred up, agitated, thrown into turmoil" — alternatives include "was troubled," "was alarmed," or "was shaken." "Deeply" carries the force of a word used elsewhere for water churned up or a heart in anguish, without adding a new idea. The second clause has no verb in Greek (literally "and all Jerusalem with him"), and the translation keeps that terse echo rather than repeating the verb, since the shorter line reads better and preserves the original's clipped effect. "All Jerusalem" renders a collective expression; some render it "all the people of Jerusalem," but the city-as-a-whole phrasing is closer to the Greek and stronger in the ear.

The verb tarassō is used of water being stirred or troubled, and in the Gospels of deep inner agitation — Jesus himself is "troubled" in spirit by grief and by the shadow of the cross. It is not merely intellectual puzzlement but visceral upheaval. The name for Jerusalem here appears as a feminine singular (pasa Hierosolyma), an unusual form since this Gospel elsewhere treats the name as a neuter plural; the feminine suggests the city is being thought of as a single personified whole, as a mother-city. Note too that the singular verb agrees with Herod alone, with the city joined afterward by the phrase "with him" — grammatically the turmoil radiates outward from the throne.

Manuscripts differ in the word order of the royal title: some read "the king, Herod," others "Herod the king," and a few omit the article. The sense is unaffected either way, and no translation decision hangs on the variant.

Herod the Great, an Idumean by descent, was granted the title "king of the Jews" by Rome and ruled Judea from 37 to 4 BC. He was a spectacular builder — the temple, Caesarea, Masada — and notoriously suspicious of rivals, executing his wife Mariamne, her relatives, and three of his own sons on suspicion of conspiracy. Jerusalem's dread is therefore realistic: the city had learned what happened when Herod felt his throne threatened. Since he held the very title the magi used, the report of a newborn "king of the Jews" struck at the legitimacy of his dynasty.

The verse sets up the Gospel's deep irony: the birth of the true king brings joy to foreigners who travel from afar, but panic to the reigning king and the holy city itself. Jerusalem, which should have welcomed its Messiah, is instead "troubled" — a note that returns at the end of the Gospel, when the same city hands over the same "king of the Jews" to death. The contrast between Gentile worship and the capital's fear anticipates the wider movement of the Gospel toward all nations.

This verse belongs to the Epiphany narrative and is read in that season alongside the visit of the magi, where the church hears both the homage of the nations and the resistance of earthly power in a single account.