Matthew 2:4

II. THE PRIESTS AND RULERS IN COUNCIL.

4. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes together.

Literally, "high priests." The high priests and perhaps the heads of the twenty-four courses of priests are included. If there were any ex-high priests, as occurred frequently under the Roman rule, they would be embraced. The "scribes of the people" were the successors of Ezra, the official copyists of the Scriptures, who naturally became its expounders. The priests, as the head of the Jewish religion, and the scribes, as the chief expounders of the Scriptures, were the proper persons to answer Herod's question.

Where Christ should be born.

This demand concedes: 1. That the Jews demanded. Messiah; 2. That the Scriptures had foretold his coming; 3. That the very place of his birth had been pointed out.