We know for sure that it must have been helpful to have those costly gifts to finance an immediate “drop what you are doing”…”leave your home and livelyhood/job behind” flight to Egypt and back…God truly takes care of His children especially His one and only unique Son.

@Steve-WOW! Your insights are priceless. I love the way you think.

@Hutch-I never knew any of that stuff about Herod. That was very good to know and enhances the text drastically for me.

So the serpent changed the authority from God, man, woman, animal, fruit to Satan, fruit, animal, woman, man, God. Crafty indeed.

Following what Hutch said about a large caravan of dignitaries, the gifts they would have brought – especially coming to worship him as opposed to a normal tribute to a foreign king – following the custom of the time would have been worth untold millions of dollars. So, was Jesus poor like in our traditional interpretation of the NT? What ever happened to those gifts? Hmmmm.

A few random observations: Eve said of God’s commands, “neither shall you touch it.” Did God really say that? Notice that sons of Cain invented musical instruments. And, if Noah’s father Lamech lived 595 years after Noah was born, he would have seen Noah build most of the ark.

I couldn’t agree more. I tried to point that out a little but entire books have been written on the subject. But there is a lot of texts coming up that will help us dig deeper!

I would have like to have dived more into the picture/shadows/fullfilment of Egypt and how Matthew in both Matthew 1 and 2 use old testament prophecies to point to the true Messiah/King. But there is only so much room

-Alan

I liked this: We see early on that God has a very SPECIFIC way to be worshipped and nothing else is accepted (today many believe they can worship God how they please, and that is because God has been created in our image not His revealed image).

Some thoughts on MATT 2.

Although the massacre of the innocents is a tragic evil act of Herod, there is a certain amount of ironic humor contained in the narrative of the Gentile Magi seeking the one “born” King of the Jews. I can just see the expression on the murderous and paranoid King Herod’s face when he hears that a large caravan of powerful and esteemed foreign men have entered his kingdom and are inquiring about one “born” King of the Jews and that they intended to worship Him.

First off, Herod knew that he was never “born” king of the Jews as he was an Idumean a group of people who are non-Jews who converted to Judaism, thus he was not qualified to sit on David’s throne…and he knew that he had been appointed as king of Judea by Rome as a puppet government.

No wonder he was “troubled” and when Herod was troubled, everybody was troubled.

Can you think of the thoughts that went through Herod’s mind…excuse me, you’re in my kingdom and in case you have not heard, I’m the king of the Jews!

Keep in mind that Herod as the master builder and schemer had an elaborate system of surveillance towers all across his empire and the outlying frontiers, complete with fire-signaling abilities and runners on horseback, these men did not show up inside his kingdom without Herod knowing they were on their way debunking the common error that there were only three wise men, this is usually derived from the fact that we are told that the Magi bore three types of gifts, the actual number of people who entered Herods territory is unknown, but if there had only been three wise men, Herod would have detained or killed them when he heard of their purpose for visiting his kingdom. Most likely what showed up within Herods kingdom was a huge caravan with armed escorts to protect the mission and “gifts” from attack by armed bandits. It was most likely a force big enough to keep Herod who had no qualms about killing people to secure his grip on power from laying a hand on those who had the audacity to come to him seeking the one born King of the Jews!

Yes, Herod was troubled! Grin.