It was natural to sugpose, that the metropolis would be the place where the truth would be most easily ascertained, and they conceived, no doubt, that the King had been born there.
2. no?, where ?) They are so sure of the event and the time, that they only ask where ? The Scribes only knew the place. It was incumbent on them to learn the time from the Magi, or to avail themselves of the opportunity of learning it. The know ledge of time and of place are both necessary in this instance. — o n^Sfls ftaffiXtvs, He who is born king) They affirm His birth as having already taken place, and His right to the kingdom com bined with it, and contrary to their expectation, find it to be a subject of terror to Herod. One is said to be bom, who from His very birth is King. As in the Septuagint version of 1 Chron.
Gentiles presented themselves to Jesus Himself. In His 7ra.fia.ffrtx.ffis He was Himself made manifest to the Israelites of Jerusalem, and a short while after wards to the Gentiles also. We may conjecture, from the words of the Magi, in which they draw the conclusion as to the birth of the King of the Jews, from the Star which they had seen, and also from the age of the little children slain by Herod, in accordance with the time which he had ascer tained from the Magi — that the star was seen by them at the time of Christ's conception, and that it was by it'their long journey was directed; so that at the time most suitable, namely after the lapse of six months from the na tivity, they arrived and paid their adorations. — 3.) Simeon foretold of Jesus, that He was to be a Light to lighten the Gentiles, immediately subjoining the statement as to the Cross. Both truths were to His parents, at the time of presentation, as a communication strange, and such as they had not here tofore realised ; therefore it was not till afterwards, though not long after wards, that the one prophecy began to be fulfilled by the arrival of the Magi, the other by the flight into Egypt. — 4.) The presentation was made in the temple on that very day of the week, which was subsequently called the Lord's day, — 5.) It is most easy to understand how it was that the King of the Jews remained unknown, all along from His birth to His presentation in the temple, to King Herod, inasmuch as that king was at the time aged, sick, torn with anguish on account of his sons, and hated by the Jews, and did not become known to him sooner than through the Magi. In fact, it was similarly that Herod the Tetrarch heard nothing of the miracles which Jesus performed before the beheading of John, notwithstanding the length of the interval from the beginning of the Lord's miracles. — 6.) If you place the departure into Egypt before the iretpourTouris, you must suppose the former to have been accomplished wholly in the winter : but the true order of events leads to the inference which is more in accordance with suitability of seasons, viz. that the flight occurred at the approach of spring, and the return at the spring season itself. — Harm, p. 53, 55, 56.