Matthew 2:11

The Magi enter and do homage. καὶ ε. ε. τ. οἰκίαν : the house. In Luke the shepherds find the holy family in a stable, and the holy child lying in a manger; reconcilable by assuming that the Magi arrived after they had found refuge in a friend's house (Epiphan. Theophy.). εἶδον τ. π.… αὐτοῦ : εἶδον better than εὗρον, which seems to have been introduced by the copyists as not only in itself suitable to the situation, but relieving the monotony caused by too frequent use of εἶδον (Matthew 2:9-10). The child with His mother, Joseph not mentioned, not intentionally, that no wrong suspicions might occur to the Gentiles (Rabanus in Aquin. Cat. Aur.). καὶ πεσόντες … σμύρναν. They come, eastern fashion, with full hands, as befits those who enter into the presence of a king. They open the boxes or sacks (θησαυροὺς, some ancient copies seem to have read πήρας = sacculos, which Grotius, with probability, regards as an interpretative gloss that had found its way into the text, vide Epiphanius Adv. Haer. Alogi., c. 8), and bring forth gold, frankincense and myrrh, the two latter being aromatic gums distilled from trees. λίβανον : in classic Greek, the tree, in later Greek and N. T., the gum, τὸ θυμιώμενον = λιβανωτός, vide Phryn. ed. Lobeck, p. 187. The gifts were of three kinds, hence the inference that the Magi were three in number. That they were kings was deduced from texts in Psalms and Prophecies (e.g., Psalms 72:10; Isaiah 60:3), predicting that kings would come doing homage and bringing gifts to Messiah. The legend of the three kings dates as far back as Origen, and is beautiful but baseless. It grew with time; by-and-by the kings were furnished with names. The legendary spirit loves definiteness. The gifts would be products of the givers' country, or in high esteem and costly there. Hence the inference drawn by some that the Magi were from Arabia. Thus Grotius: “Myrrha nonnisi in Arabia nascitur, nec thus nisi apud Jabaeos Arabum portionem: sed et aurifera est felix Arabia”. Gold and incense (λίβανος) are mentioned in Isaiah 60:6 among the gifts to be brought to Israel in the good time coming. The fathers delighted in assigning to these gifts of the Magi mystic meanings: gold as to a king, incense as to God, myrrh as to one destined to die (ὡς μέλλοντι γεύσασθαι θανάτου). Grotius struck into a new line: gold = works of mercy; incense = prayer; myrrh = purity to the disgust of Fritzsche, who thought such mystic interpretations beneath so great a scholar.