Lecture

In the words of Matthew the apostle,

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him”

(Matthew 2:1–2 NKJV)

Many believe these wise men were astrologers from Babylon who studied the heavens in an effort to know the ways and times of God.

Edwin Yamauchi: The Christmas magi are often described as wise men or kings. But it’s fairly evident that they were astrologers, because of what the word meant in the first century. The Greek magos—magi—comes from a Persian word that first occurs in Herodotus and is derived from a word maguš. And in the fifth century B.C. when Herodotus wrote, the magi were a priestly caste of the Medes who served the Persians to offer sacrifice as diviners to foretell the future.

If the magi from the East were astrologers from Babylon or Persia, they would have had access to Jewish prophets who predicted a coming king in Judah.

Gerry E. Breshears: Interestingly, in Babylon in the area of Persia, there are more Jews than there are in Jerusalem. In fact, the wise and the intellectuals and the financially prosperous Jews, they’re in the Babylon area, they’re not in Jerusalem. So these would be the people, intellectuals of the day, who would know the book of Daniel.

It was the prophet Daniel who predicted the coming of a messiah king, a messiah king who would also be called the “Most Holy.”

Edwin Yamauchi: We have no way of knowing for sure, but the magi may have heard about some of the prophecies. Some of the prophecies, for example in Isaiah, prophecies possibly in Daniel. We have no way of knowing. But something, perhaps orally, rather than written form, informed them that there would be a king born in Judah. And they derived that from, through, observation of some celestial phenomenon.

If the magi were able to combine knowledge of the stars with Jewish prophecies predicting the birth of a messiah king in Judah, it makes sense that they would come as kings,

“Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.”

(Matthew 2:2 NKJV)

With compelling accuracy, the prophet Daniel also predicted the number of years that would pass before Messiah’s appearance in Jerusalem.

Gerry E. Breshears: In Daniel chapter 9, we have the prediction that there will be the weeks of years, and from the decree of Cyrus, there would be 481 years until the cutting off of the Messiah. So they’re going to know the approximate time of His birth, of His arrival, and they come looking for Him, because they understood the prophecy of Daniel.

Daniel’s vision would have given the magi not only a time to calculate Messiah’s arrival, but a reason to worship the One Daniel had called the Most Holy. With the birth of Jesus, wise men worshipped—a fourth reason to believe God became a man.