Matthew Chapter 2 verse 4 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 4. - And when he had gathered... together (καὶ συναγαγών). The Revised Version, and gathering together, suggests that there was no delay. All the chief priests and scribes of the people (πάντας τοὺς ἀρχιερεῖς καὶ γραμματεῖς τοῦ λαοῦ). In the absence of the article before γραμματεῖς we must take the words, "of the people," as belonging to both terms. The addition helped to bring out the evangelist's thought that the representatives of the chosen people (1 Peter 2:10) were fully informed of the coming of Christ. The chief priests (cf. also Matthew 16:21, note) represented the ecclesiastical and Sadducean part, the scribes the more literary and probably the Pharisaic part, of the nation. The width of the term "all," and the double classification, seem to point to this not being a meeting of the Sanhedrin as such. Herod called an informal and perhaps the more comprehensive meeting of those who could assist him. He demanded of them; Revised Version, inquired, for "demand" is, in modern English, too strong for ἐπυνθάνετο The tyrant could be courteous when it served his purpose. Does the imperfect mark his putting the question to one after another (cf. Acts 1:6; and contrast John 4:52)? Where Christ ( the Christ, Revised Version) should be born (γεννᾶται). In ver. 2 (ὁ τεχθείς) the stress lay on his birth as an accomplished fact. Here on his birth as connected with his origin The present is chosen, not the future, because Herod is stating a theological question without reference to time. Observe, in Herod's inquiry and subsequent action, the combination of superstition and irreligion. He was willing to accept the witness of stars and of prophecies, but not willing to allow himself to be morally influenced by it. His attempt to kill this Child was the expression of a desire to destroy the Jewish nationality so far as this was severed from himself, and perhaps with it to uproot at the same time a fundamental part of the Jewish religion.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(4) The chief priests and scribes.--The chief priests were probably the heads of the twenty-four courses into which the sons of Aaron were divided (2Chronicles 23:8; Luke 1:5), but the term may have included those who had, though only for a time, held the office of high priest. The "scribes" were the interpreters of the Law, casuists and collectors of the traditions of the Elders, for the most part Pharisees. The meeting thus convened was not necessarily a formal meeting of the Sanhedrim or Great Council, and may have been only as a Committee of Notables called together for a special purpose. With a characteristic subtlety, as if trying to gauge the strength of their Messianic hopes, Herod acts as if he himself shared them, and asks where the Christ, the expected Messiah, the "anointed" of the Lord (Psalm 2:2; Psalm 45:7; Psalm 89:20) was to be born.