These were not the "chosen people." They were forbidden from being part of the people of Israel. We are told little about them, but the passage explains that they knew of the Messiah because they saw it in the star(s). They were astrologers 1. In Deuteronomy 18:10 we read:
10 "There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, (Deu 18:10 NAU)
Deuteronomy 18:12 calls them "abomination." Detestable. They were men accursed by the established Jewish religion and scriptures as sorcerers. In short, they were fringe people. They were exiled from the religious culture of Jewish monotheism. Yet they recognized and claimed the Son of God. They worshiped him (Mat 2:11). God even revealed a message to them (Mat 2:12). Though confirmed by the scriptures , God revealed his plan through their divinations.
There is incredible wonder in the wideness of the gospel of God in Jesus Christ. The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob is also the God of the wanderers, the nomads, the heterodox, the damaged and the despised. The outsiders.
The "good news" is not a message just for those who fit in. It is a reminder that God is big. Bigger than we could ever hope to imagine. Reminding us that his plans don't fit in our neat plastic-ringed binders, our well-structured organizations or our intricate statements of what He can and cannot do. It is the power of God to sow his grace and love wherever He sees fit.
It is a message to square pegs and sore thumbs. "You belong with me. I am home."
Notes:
1. Some have been tempted, at this point, to say these men were simply "astronomers." However, it must be remembered that in the ancient world, astrology and astronomy were often tightly linked. Priests of religions often studied the stars because of a belief that they were linked with the divine and the "gods" of their religions and then found that they were also able to predict seasons and times by this study. More specifically, we must remember that these men were called "magos." The word can mean "magician" or a member of the high priestly cast of the Magian (Zoroastrian) religion. In the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), this word is only found in the book of Daniel where it is lumped in with sorcerers, conjurers, enchanters and astrologers. In the New Testament, it is found outside of Matthew only in the book of Acts with little clue as to its exact meaning beyond its reference to the "false prophet" Bar-Jesus and Elymas (whose name translates as "magician") who opposed Paul. Virtually all major translations render it as "sorceror" or "magician."
Most significantly, we must recall that Matthew tells us these men were drawn to the Messiah's location by "his star" (Mat 2:2). The most likely prophetic reference for this is Numbers 24:17, "A star shall come forth from Jacob, A scepter shall rise from Israel" (NAU). However, these men were looking for signs in the stars and using divination to locate and identify the messiah by their reading of the stars. The evidence seems overwhelmingly to point to their being astrologers. But even for those who would resist this, they were Zoroastrian priests practicing a syncretistic mixture of Judaism and Magianism.
