Matthew 2:1,2 - Wise men from the East

2:1

Matthew focuses on almost entirely different details than Luke, so put together we have a more complete picture. So there are no shepherds in Matthew, and no Magi in Luke. Matthew simply states that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. This was very important from Matthew’s perspective, for the Messiah was to come from Bethlehem (Mic 5:2). David also came from Bethlehem. This happened during the time of King Herod. Herod lived until 4 BC. Now Jesus was born sometime between 6 and 4 BC. Our calendar was set up by Dionysius the Humble or Small in the 6th century, and he got his dates slightly wrong. 

2:2

Traditionally there were three wise men or “kings”. However, the Bible does not give the number of them. The figure three comes from the three gifts. There are all sorts of theories about what the star was. Was it a star? A supernova? A comet? The junction of two planets? I don’t know, and to be honest don’t care. If you want to know more about this then you can search for it on the internet. People considered the heavenly bodies to be important. Apparently there was a nova at the time of Julius Caesar’s death. So God used the cosmic event to draw the Magi to Jesus. They seemed to know about the king of the Jews. This might have been due to the time the Jews spent in exile in Babylon and other places. These Gentiles coming to seek the King of the Jews is symbolic of the gospel going out to all the world.