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The message of the Magi was brief:
v. 2. Saying, Where is He that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East, and are come to worship Him.
There was an assertion contained in their question. Their knowledge was definite as to His having been born. It was a fact beyond question or discussion. A Child has been born that is King of the Jews; His kingship is even now established beyond a doubt. The evidence which the Magi adduce for their belief is sensational. They had seen a star in its rising, just as soon as the phenomenon became visible; not any star, not a meteor provided for the occasion, not a comet of peculiar brilliance, not an extraordinary conjunction of planets, but His star, a star which was set in the firmament, or which flashed forth at just this time with unusual brightness. The appearance and, according to verse 9, also the guidance of this star was to them a definite sign, an unmistakable token of the fulfillment of a prophecy, tradition, or revelation which was known to them. It may have been that the prophecy of Balaam, Num_24:17, had been explained by their teachers as referring to an actual, physical star, or it may he, as the medieval legend, which is embodied in the Old Saxon poem of The Heliand , has it, that Daniel transmitted to the learned men of the East a tradition concerning this particular star. At any rate, they had come to worship Him whose coming the star indicated, to give Him divine homage and adoration by a gesture or ceremony of abject submission, placing themselves and all their possessions at His disposal.
The effect of this startling announcement:
v. 3. When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.
The consternation of Herod may be explained in two ways. As king, because of his position as king, Herod was troubled. Having himself reached his position of ruling sovereign by methods which were not at all unobjectionable, the foreigner and usurper feared a rival, and the tyrant feared the joyful acceptance of the rival by the people. At the same time, Herod felt a dread since it was freely predicted that a great personage, the Messiah, the King of the Jews, should judge both the nation and the world,—and Herod's conscience was not clean. On the other hand, the people were excited for different reasons. Their alarm was due to a bad conscience and the feeling of guilt because of their hypocrisy and selfishness which was sure to be found out by the Messiah, but mingled with this was the excitement of expecting a deliverer from the yoke of Rome, a hope which had been carefully cherished by the Pharisees.