Week 37 Matthew 2
Starting to read the NT I get a reminder of the big information gap between Malachi & Matthew.
In Matthew 2 foreign astrologers arrive in Jerusalem and ask King Herod: where is the newborn king of the Jews?
Herod had no idea. But he’d heard rumours about a mysterious hero called The Messiah that Jewish people talked about. Herod called in Jewish religious specialists: where did the prophets say the Messiah would be born?’ (he didn’t ask where is the newborn king of the Jews?)
The religious leaders quoted Micah (even though Micah said nothing about The Messiah): out of you (Bethlehem Ephrathah) will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel.
That’s because over the centuries the reputation of Micah’s ruler-over-Israel had been elaborated. He’d been enlarged & transformed into a figure that Jewish people called The Messiah. Herod had heard about the mysterious and – for him – worrisome Messiah and he knew enough to ask where he’d be born. (The religious teachers didn’t correct Herod…didn’t say “oh, Micah didn’t say anything about a Messiah! He just said ruler-over-Israel”. Because over the years Micah’s ruler-over-Israel had evolved into Matthew’s Messiah.
Anyway…Point #1 is that during the silent years between the OT & NT Micah’s Ruler had been pretty dramatically transformed & enlarged & renamed. He’d become the NT’s Messiah.
And Point #2 is a reminder about how much I’m in-the-dark about several centuries worth of changes that went on in the ancient Near East.
Note: quotes from Matthew 2:2-3 (NLT))