As a child, I imagined the story of the Wise Men as a simple one-liner. They woke up one morning after seeing a bright new star in the heavens, packed their bags with three gifts, dressed in regalia and took off on their camels, following a roving spotlight in the heavens in quest of seeing some fabled new-born infant, baby king.
But it dawned on me this year: it was gutsy for those men in the East to take off over 500 (some sources say 900) miles of desert in hopes of seeing an anticipated messiah as an infant king. What made them so sure?
First of all, who were these men? Were they Gentiles or Jews? Why was the star in the heavens so compelling? Was the star the only sign? What might have been other converging signs to propel them to take the time and energy to risk such long travel, for a great unknown?
It seems highly likely that they were Jews. Why? Because they eventually told Herod that they wanted to locate the King of the Jews for the purpose of worshiping him. Pagan Babylonian gentiles would not have been interested in leaving their luxurious lifestyles to go in search of another god to add to their idols. They were not interested in further worship, especially of poverty ridden Jews. Jews had been their enemies.
Examining the recent history of the Jews at that time will help identify these men further. Seventy-plus years prior to the start of their trip, all of Judah had been captured and transported to Babylon. The Lord had told them in prophecy that 70 years later their captivity would be ended and a certain future Persian king named Cyrus would issue an edict releasing the Jews to return to their homeland. When the 70 years were complete, freed by this edict, a remnant of Jews (about 50,000 of them) did in fact return to Jerusalem under the leadership of the prophets Nehemiah and Ezra. Most of the Jews opted out of the return and stayed on in Babylon, having enmeshed themselves heavily (and successfully) in the culture and prosperity of the region.
During the 70-year exile Daniel, who was residing with them in Babylon at the time, received an overwhelming prophecy about the exact future of the Jews -- that they would have 69 weeks (“weeks” of 7 YEARS each), totaling 480 years remaining before the Messiah (the Prince) would come. And then, that Messiah would be cut off for an unknown period of time (it turned out to be 2,000 years) before they would complete their final week of seven, called Daniel’s 70th Week (which we call the Tribulation) -- the time of Jacob’s Trouble -- and then that their national history would then come to a close with the second coming of this Messiah. If Daniel was 12 years old when he was taken from Jerusalem to Babylon and then was able to leave when he was 70, his age at the time of the release would have been 82. That allowed plenty of time for others of his generation to have birthed a number of children, and grandchildren. There is no mention of Daniel returning with the exiles. He may have been dead by that time, or he may have decided that he was too old to travel such a distance. Most of the returning remnant would have been the next generation’s younger children, now grown. We know that some very old men did return; they remembered the original temple vividly enough that in comparison the new smaller temple built by their offspring saddened them.
So, who could the wise men have been? Very likely , these were men from the younger generations of Jews, whose grandparents not only had been taught/influenced by Daniel’s prophecy in person, but likely had been thoroughly schooled in further Old Testament Jewish prophecy, which they meticulously handed down to their offspring. The edict from Cyrus was the means through which the remnant of exiles returned, and it was issued quickly after the 70 years had been completed. If we start the 69 weeks (480 years) from that decree (which the Bible said to do) and wait through four generations, these students of their great, great, great grandfather’s word would have recognized that the 480 years window was beginning to close. If they subtracted 30 years for a grown messiah to be operating (that was the age for the confirmation of rabbis) they would have calculated His birth date very closely.
So, it was not only the star but their knowledge of prophecy that propelled them to set forth upon such a dangerous and stark journey. Now what were those prophecies, related to the Messiah’s birth, that would have guided them? We know five of them specifically.
ü Isaiah 9:6: Unto us a CHILD is born.
ü Micah 5:2: But you, BETHLEHEM, out of you will come a king who will be ruler over Israel.
ü Isaiah 7:13-14: He will be born of a VIRGIN.
ü Numbers 24:17: A STAR will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel.
ü Isaiah 59:20: The redeemer will come out of ZION.
These prophecies, coupled with Daniel’s awesomely specific year dates, were a ca-ching for these watchful men. The bright star, possibly an alignment of Jupiter seemingly right behind Venus, would have made the two into one large concentric circle of brilliant light never seen before. And if the star was seen in the constellation of the Virgo (representative of the virgin mother), it would have been akin to an insistent neon sign to these men. “And God placed the sun, moon and stars in the heavens as signs.” Some think the star occurred over Babylon to begin with but then disappeared (not needed during the desert journey), as they knew from prophecy that the Messiah would be located in Israel, but then the star later appeared again over the Bethlehem manger.
Matthew 2:2 says, “We saw the star when it rose [i.e., not while on their journey] and have come to worship him.” Also, Matthew 2:9: “And the star they HAD SEEN when it rose went ahead of them [possibly now the short distance from Jerusalem onward to Bethlehem] until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star [again], they were overjoyed.” They wouldn’t have been so overjoyed if they had seen it continually on their journey. It took them four months to make the journey, just as it had for Ezra, centuries before.
Now if we add one more convergence, it would have been a no-brainer for these men [perhaps more than three; the Bible does not tell us the number] to start out on their long four-month journey. Since angelic activity was at an all-time high in Jerusalem at this time, why not in Babylon as well? An angel confirmed the message to Mary, an angel confirmed the message to Joseph, an angel confirmed a message to Zechariah (John the Baptist’s father), and angels were used to confirm the message to the shepherds. It is not too much of a leap to conjecture that simultaneously an angel may have tapped these wise men on their shoulders to pick up their beds and walk! / ride!
All this to say, the wise men were indeed wise. They were eagerly looking for the redemption of their people, and they were on high alert when it happened. They lived in eagerness. They were not crazy nut cases, deluded and emotionally feverish. They were dot connectors -- not only of the scriptures but of the sky, and of the earth. So, too, some earnest believers of our present age, many preachers who are calling it the end of the ages, look for the convergence of many signs. It is altogether true that wise men still seek Him!
