SEV Biblia, Chapter 2:5
Y ellos le dijeron: En Beln de Judea; porque así est escrito por el profeta:
Clarke's Bible Commentary - Matthew 2:5
Verse 5. In Bethlehem of Judea: for thus it is written by the prophet] As there have been several confused notions among the Jews, relative not only to the Messiah, and his character, but also to the time of his birth, it may be necessary to add, to what has already been said on this subject, the following extracts from the Talmudists and Gemarists, quoted by LIGHTFOOT. At the close of a long dissertation on the year of our Lord's birth, (which he places in the 35th of the reign of Herod, not the last or 37th as above,) he says: "It will not be improper here to produce the Gemarists themselves openly confessing that the Messias had been born, a good while ago before their times. For so they write: After this the children of Israel shall be converted, and shall inquire after the Lord their God, and David their king: Ho iii. 5. Our rabbins say, That is King Messias, If he be among the living, his name is David, or if dead, David is his name. R. Tanchum said, Thus I prove it: He showeth mercy to David his Messiah.
(Psa. xviii. 50.) R. Joshua ben Levi saith, His name is jmx tsemach, a Branch. (Zech. iii. 8.) R. Juban bar Arbu saith, His name is Menahem.
(That is, paraklhtov, the Comforter.) 'And that which happened to a certain Jew, as he was ploughing, agreeth with this business. A certain Arabian travelling, and hearing the ox bellow, said to the Jew at plough, O Jew, loose thy oxen, and loose thy ploughs, for behold! The temple is laid waste. The ox belloweth the second time; the Arabian saith to him, O Jew, Jew, yoke thy oxen, and fit thy ploughs: ajym aklm ryly ahw For behold! King Messiah is born. But, saith the Jew, What is his name? Menahem, saith he (i.e. the Comforter.) And what is the name of his Father? Hezekiah, saith the Arabian. To whom the Jew, But whence is He? The other answered, From the palace of the king of Bethlehem Judah.
Away he went, and sold his oxen and his ploughs, and became a seller of infants' swaddling clothes, going about from town to town. When he came to that city, (Bethlehem,) all the women bought of him, but the mother of Menahem bought nothing. He heard the voice of the women saying, O thou mother of Menahem, thou mother of Menahem, carry thy son the things that are here sold. But she replied, May the enemies of Israel be strangled, because on the day that he was born, the temple was laid waste.
To whom he said, But we hoped, that as it was laid waste at his feet, so at his feet it would be built again. She saith, I have no money. To whom he replied, But why should this be prejudicial to him? Carry him what you buy here, and if you have no money today, after some days I will come back and receive it. After some days, he returned to that city, and saith to her, How does the little infant? And she said, From the time you saw me last, spirits and tempests came, and snatched him away out of my hands.
R. Bon saith, What need have we to learn from an Arabian? Is it not plainly written, And Lebanon shall fall before the powerful one? (Isa. x. 34.) And what follows after? A branch shall come out of the root of Jesse. (Isa. xi. 1.) "The Babylonian doctors yield us a confession not very unlike the former.
R. Charinah saith: After four hundred years are passed from the destruction of the temple, if any one shall say to you, Take to thyself for one penny a field worth a thousand pence, do not take it. And again, After four thousand two hundred thirty and one years from the creation of the world, if any shall say to you, Take for a penny a field worth a thousand pence, take it not. The gloss is, For that is the time of redemption, and you shall be brought back to the holy mountain, to the inheritance of your fathers; why, therefore, should you misspend your penny? "You may fetch the reason of this calculation, if you have leisure, out of the tract Sanhedrin. The tradition of the school of Elias, the world is to last six thousand years, &c. And a little after, Elias said to Rabh Judah, The world shall last not less than eighty-five jubilees: and in the last jubilee shall the Son of David come. He saith to him, Whether in the beginning of it, or in the end? He answered him, I know not. Whether is this whole time to be finished first, or not? He answered him, I know not. But Rabh Asher asserted, that he answered thus, Until then, expect him not, but from thence expect him. Hear your own countrymen, O Jew! How many centuries of years are passed by and gone from the eighty-fifth jubilee of the world, that is, the year MMMMCCL, and yet the Messias of your expectation is not yet come! "Daniel's weeks had so clearly defined the time of the true Messias, his coming, that the minds of the whole nation were raised into the expectation of him. Hence, it was doubted of the Baptist, whether he were not the Messias, Luke iii. 15. Hence it was, that the Jews are gathered together from all countries unto Jerusalem, Acts ii. , expecting and coming to see, because at that time the term of revealing the Messias, that had been prefixed by Daniel, was come. Hence it was that there was so great a number of false Christs, chap. xxiv. 5, &c., taking the occasion of their impostures hence, that now the time of that great expectation was at hand, and fulfilled: and in one word, They thought the kingdom of God should presently appear, Luke xix. 11.
"But when those times of expectation were past, nor did such a Messias appear as they expected, (for when they saw the true Messias, they would not see him,) they first broke out into various, and those wild, conjectures of the time; and at length, all those conjectures coming to nothing, all ended in this curse (the just cause of their eternal blindness) twr tph yxq yktm l , May their soul be confounded who compute the times!" They were fully aware that the time foretold by the prophets must be long since fulfilled; and that their obstinacy must be confounded by their own history, and the chronology of their own Scriptures; and therefore they have pronounced an anathema on those who shall attempt to examine, by chronological computations, the prophecies that predict his coming. Who can conceive a state of willful blindness or determined obstinacy superior to this!
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 5. And they said unto him , etc.] They answer without any hesitation, it being a generally received notion, and a thing well known among them, in Bethlehem of Judea ; and give their reason for it; for thus it is written by the prophet , that is, the prophet Micah, in whose prophecy, ( Micah 5:2) it stands, and is as follows:
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 1-8 - Those who live at the greatest distance from the means of grace ofte use most diligence, and learn to know the most of Christ and his salvation. But no curious arts, or mere human learning, can direct me unto him. We must learn of Christ by attending to the word of God, as light that shineth in a dark place, and by seeking the teaching of the Holy Spirit. And those in whose hearts the day-star is risen, to giv them any thing of the knowledge of Christ, make it their business to worship him. Though Herod was very old, and never had shown affectio for his family, and was not himself likely to live till a new-bor infant had grown up to manhood, he began to be troubled with the drea of a rival. He understood not the spiritual nature of the Messiah' kingdom. Let us beware of a dead faith. A man may be persuaded of man truths, and yet may hate them, because they interfere with his ambition, or sinful indulgences. Such a belief will make him uneasy and the more resolved to oppose the truth and the cause of God; and he may be foolish enough to hope for success therein.
Greek Textus Receptus
οι 3588 T-NPM δε 1161 CONJ ειπον 2036 5627 V-2AAI-3P αυτω 846 P-DSM εν 1722 PREP βηθλεεμ 965 N-PRI της 3588 T-GSF ιουδαιας 2449 N-GSF ουτως 3779 ADV γαρ 1063 CONJ γεγραπται 1125 5769 V-RPI-3S δια 1223 PREP του 3588 T-GSM προφητου 4396 N-GSM
Robertson's NT Word Studies
2:5 {And they said unto him} (hoi de eipan autwi). Whether the ecclesiastics had to search their scriptures or not, they give the answer that is in accord with the common Jewish opinion that the Messiah was to come from Bethlehem and of the seed of David (#Joh 7:42). So they quote #Mic 5:2, "a free paraphrase" Alford calls it, for it is not precisely like the Hebrew text or like the Septuagint. It may have come from a collection of _testimonia_ with which J. Rendel Harris has made the world familiar. He had consulted the experts and now he has their answer. Bethlehem of Judah is the place. The use of the perfect passive indicative (gegraptai) is the common form in quoting scripture. It stands written. {Shall be shepherd} (poimanei). The Authorized Version had "shall rule," but "shepherd" is correct. "Homer calls kings 'the shepherds of the people'" (Vincent). In #Heb 13:20 Jesus is called "the great shepherd of the sheep." Jesus calls himself "the good shepherd" (#Joh 10:11). Peter calls Christ "the chief shepherd" (#1Pe 2:25). "The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall be their shepherd" (#Re 7:17). Jesus told Peter to "shepherd" the lambs (#Joh 21:16). Our word pastor means shepherd.
