Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Matthew 2:5,6

The answer of the experts. οἱ δὲ εἶπον, etc. This is not a Christian opinion put into the mouth of the scribes. It was the answer to be expected from them as reflecting the current opinion of the time. The Targum put upon the oracle in Micah a Messianic interpretation (Wetstein, and Wünsche, Beiträge). Yet with the Talmudists the Messiah was the one who should come forth from a strange, unknown place (Weber, Die Lehren des Talmud, p. 342). Vide on this point Schanz, who quotes Schegg as denying the statement of Wetstein, and refers to Celsus as objecting that this view about Messiah's birthplace was not current among the Jews. (Origen, c. Celsum, i. 51. Cf. John 7:27; John 7:42.) οὕτω γὰρ γεγραπται, etc.: The Scripture proof that Messiah's birth-place was Bethlehem is taken from Micah 5:2. The oracle put into the mouth of the experts consulted by Herod receives its shape from the hand of the evangelist. It varies very considerably both from the original Hebrew and from the Sept [5] The “least” becomes “by no means the least,” “among the thousands” becomes “among the princes,” and the closing clause, “who shall rule my people Israel,' departs from the prophetic oracle altogether, and borrows from 2 Samuel 5:2, God's promise to David; the connecting link apparently being the poetic word descriptive of the kingly function common to the two places ποιμανεῖ in Micah 5:3, ποιμανεῖς in 2 Samuel 5:2. The second variation arises from a different pointing of the same Hebrew word באלפי, בְאַלפֵי = among the thousands, בְאַלֻּפֵי = among the heads of thousands. Such facts are to be taken as they stand. They do not correspond to modern ideas of Scripture proof.

[5] Septuagint.

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Matthew 2:5,6

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