Read Matthew 2:1-12

Matthew 2:2 - Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.

How did the Wise Men know what to look for in the stars, and how did they know to come to Israel? Though we are not told this in the Bible, we do know Daniel was leader of the wise men and astronomers for most of his life in Babylon. We read about this in Lesson 6. It is now more than 400 years later, and the men who had heard these things from Daniel have long since died. But they passed the information on to those who came after them.

Psalm 19 says the heavens declare the glory of God. The writer, David, had spent many nights under the stars as he kept his father’s sheep. And from this Psalm it is clear he too knew the stories in the stars. This was before writing was widespread, so the common people used other things instead of written words to remember the Bible they had learned. Jewish history today tells us the constellations of stars were stories of each of the Tribes of Israel and the blessings Jacob had given each. So the remembering of the prophecy of the star rising in the house of Judah would have been something the people of Israel would have been able to watch in their night skies.

But the leaders of Israel had not been paying attention to the skies; they were caught by surprise when the wise men came to ask where their King was to be born.

*Are you reading the Bible with the thought of watching for God’s prophesies to be fulfilled?