Week 35 Matthew
A group of astronomer-astrologers appeared in King Herod’s court and asked: where is the newborn king of the Jews? We have seen his star as it arose, and we have come to worship him. That wasn’t good news and the king was: deeply disturbed by their question. Herod called in top Jewish religious specialists and asked them only one geographic question: where did the prophets say the Messiah would be born?
They told him that the prophetic forecast said: O Bethlehem of Judah, you are not just a lowly village in Judah, for a ruler will come from you who will be the shepherd for my people Israel. So the Messiah had to be born in Bethlehem.
I paged back to the Micah cross-reference: but you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, are only a small village in Judah. Yet a ruler of Israel will come from you, one whose origins are from the distant past…
I checked a map in the back of my bible to see how many cities were in Israel in Micah’s time. I counted about 55 west of the Jordan River. I think that’s a low estimate so if Micah was just picking a name out-of-a-hat then he had no better than a 1-in-55 probability of getting it right. His percentage chance would be low. Bethlehem was a longshot.
I’m impressed that Micah got it right. A Messiah born in Jezreel wouldn’t be the Messiah.
Note: quotes from Matthew 2:2, 3, 4, 6 & Micah 5:2 (NLT)