Matthew 2:9 - After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.
Bethlehem is not that far from Jerusalem. It's just a few miles south. It wouldn't have taken the Magi days to get there. More likely just a few hours. So I wonder if they left Herod and set out after sunset. How else would they have been able to see the guiding star?
I wonder how specific the star was. That is, did it show them the very house where Jesus was? Does "the place" mean "the house"? Or did they only get led to the city and had to ask around once there? Even just leading them to a new city a few miles down the road would have been pretty special.
I wonder if anyone else noticed the star. Surely it was visible to everyone. Even after the Magi mentioned it to Herod and company, did no one else take an interest in it? I suppose it wasn't the first time nor the last when some important item or event was out in the open for all to see, but only those wise enough to realize what it was took any notice of it.
I've always operated under the assumption that it was not a low-hovering marker, but an actual new star that showed up and whose position was *directly* above Jesus. This would have been of large importance to those who followed astrology or astronomy and were intimate with the stars, but I'd be hard pressed on any given night to point out more than the most famous constellations, let alone tell you if a new star had shown up.
ReplyDeleteFurther, stars don't generally stay fixed in the firmament (save for Polaris, which happens to be above the axis). I wonder if this one stayed put over Jesus. I would think that would still be lost on the general public, but would be of intense curiosity to those who make a point to watch the stars. If that was the case, I wonder how long the star followed Jesus. Until those who were supposed to find him found him? Until he died? And if so, what then? Did it blink out of existence? Or did it then resume a normal track starting from a point directly above Calvary?
This star had to be special in several ways:
ReplyDelete- It had to be visible from wherever the Magi lived.
- It either moved or gave the appearance of movement because it "went ahead of them" to show them their destination.
- It showed them "the place" where Jesus was.
Whether it had already been in existence for years and was now put to a special purpose or whether it was newly formed from existing matter or even whether God made an exception and created something new out of nothing (which I doubt)...I don't know. Just not enough information.
Can you tell which point of land -- even an area as large as a city or town -- a particular star is directly above? Is Polaris even directly above the pole? How could they tell this star was above Bethlehem? I think it must either have been low enough or, as Hollywood and Hallmark tend to show, a beam of visible light shone from it to point to "the place" they needed to go.
Interesting point about the lifespan of this star. I hadn't wondered about that before. Now I do. Thanks for bringing it up. Really.