Him. ‘In Bethlehem,’ they answered promptly. Right glad would they be when Herod, satisfied with this information, dismissed them, and they went their way safe and sound to their houses. Thus at the outset the chief priests and scribes proved themselves unwilling to suffer anything for the Messiah, whose office it was to bring to them glory and dominion.
Privately, but courteously, Herod then sent for the wise men, and inquired of them diligently how long it was since the star appeared; and bade them seek the child in Bethlehem, and when they had found Him to bring him word, that he might go and do homage to Him also. There was nothing in the king’s manner or words to arouse their suspicions of his real purpose, and no doubt they set out for Bethlehem with the intention of returning to Jerusalem.
Still it appeared likely that there would be some difficulty in discovering the child, of whom they knew nothing certainly, except that they were to search, and to search diligently, for Him in Bethlehem. They rejoiced with exceeding great joy, therefore, when, as they left the walls of Jerusalem behind them in the evening dusk, they saw the star again hanging in the southern sky, and going before them on their way. No need now for guides, no need to wander up and down the streets, asking for the new-born King. The star, or meteor, stood over the humble house where the young child was, and, entering in, they saw Him, with Mary, His mother, and fell down, doing Him homage as the King whose star was even now shining above the lowly roof that sheltered Him. There was no palace, no train of servants, no guard, save the poor carpenter, whose day’s work was done, and who was watching over the young child; but they could not be mistaken. The future glorious King of the Jews was here.
They had not come from their distant country to seek a king empty-handed. Royal presents they had prepared and brought with them; and now they opened their treasures, and offered costly gifts to Him, gold, and frankincense, and myrrh, such as they would have presented, had they found the child in Herod’s own palace in Jerusalem. Then, taking their leave, they were about to return to Herod, when a warning dream which they could not mistake or misinterpret, directed them to depart into their country another way.
The hour was at hand when the costly gifts of the wise men would be necessary for the preservation of the poor little family, not yet settled and at home in its new quarters. Even as a babe the Son of Man had not where to lay His head; and no spot on earth was a resting-place for Him. After the wise men were gone, the angel of the Lord came to Joseph in a dream, saying, ‘Arise, take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy Him.’
Mary’s chilly fears then were being realized, and she felt the first prick of the sword that should pierce her soul. The visit of the wise men from the far East had been another hour of exultation and another testimony to the claims of her son. Possibly they may have told her 'that the king himself wished to come down from Jerusalem, and worship Him; and dreams of splendour, of kingly and priestly protection for the infant Messiah, might well fill her mind. But now she learned that Herod was seeking the child’s life, to destroy Him. They could not escape too quickly; there was no time to be lost. The angel’s words were urgent, ‘Arise, at once.’
It was night; a winter’s night, but there must be no delay. At daybreak the villagers would be astir, and they could not get away unseen. Before the grey streak of light was dawning in the east, they ought to be some miles on the road. Mary must carry the child, shielding Him as best she could from the chilly dampness of the night; and Joseph must load himself with the wise men’s gifts. Little had she thought, when those rich foreigners were falling down before her child in homage, that only a night or two later she would be stealing with Him through the dark and silent streets, as if she was a criminal, not the happy mother of the glorious Messiah. And they were to flee out of the Holy Land itself, into Egypt, the old land of bondage!
Unseen, unnoticed, the flight from Bethlehem was made. They were but strangers there; and very few, if any, of the inhabitants would miss the strangers from Nazareth, who had settled among them so lately, and who had now gone away again with as little observation as they came.
Herod very soon came to the conclusion that the wise men, for some reason or other unknown to him, did not intend to obey his orders. They could very well have made the journey to Bethlehem in a day, and when he found that they did not return to him, he was exceeding wroth; for kings do not often meet with those who disregard their invitations'. He quickly made up his mind what to do. If the wise men had brought him word where the child was, he would have been content to slay only Him; now he must destroy all the infants under two years of age, to make sure of crushing that life, which threatened his crown. There was ample margin in the two years for any mistake on his own part, or that of the wise men. The child must perish if he put to death all the little ones of the unhappy village.
We wonder if the news reached Mary in her place of refuge and safety in Egypt. Whilst she went about the streets of Bethlehem she must have seen many of those little children in their mothers’ arms: their laughter and their cries had rung in her ears; and with her newly-opened mother’s eyes, she had compared them with her own blessed child, and loved them dearly for His sake. Now she would know the dire meaning of these words, ‘In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.’ A mystery of grief began to mingle itself with the mystery of her Son’s life. In her heart, which was for ever pondering over the strange events that had already befallen Him and herself, there must always have been a very sad memory of the children who had perished on His account; and it may be that one of the first stories her lips uttered to the little Son at her knee was the story of their winter’s flight into Egypt, and the slaying of all the children under two years of age who lived in Bethlehem, the place where He was born.
CHAPTER V.
NAZARETH.
Herod died a shocking death, after terrible suffering both of mind and body. Once even, in his extreme misery, he attempted to put an end to himself, but was prevented by his attendants. A few days only before he died he put to death his son Antipater, and appointed his son Archelaus to succeed him as king in Judea; but he separated Galilee from the kingdom, and left it to another son, Herod Antipas. He was in his seventieth year when he died, after reigning thirty-seven years; one of the most wicked and most wretched of kings.
It was now safe for Joseph and Mary to bring the child back to their native land. They seem to have had the idea of settling in Judea again, instead of taking Jesus to the despised province of Galilee; but when they reached Judea they heard that Archelaus reigned in the room of his father Herod, and that during the Passover week he had ordered his guards to march into the Temple amid the throng of worshippers, where they had massacred three thousand of the Jews. Such news naturally filled them with terror, and they might have sought safety again in Egypt; but Joseph was warned in a dream to go on into the land of Galilee. He was left to choose the exact place where he would settle down, and he returned to Nazareth, his and Mary’s early home, where their kinsfolk lived. There was every reason why they should go back to Nazareth, since Jesus could not be brought up in his own city, the mournful little village of Bethlehem, where no child of his own age was now alive.
Here, in Nazareth, they were at home again; and long years of the most quiet blessedness lay before the mother of Jesus, though the trifling daily cares of life may have fretted it a little from too perfect a bliss for this world. The little child who played about her feet, who prattled beside her as she went down to the fountain for water, who listened with uplifted eyes to every word she spoke, never gave her a moment’s pain, or made her heart ache by one careless or unkind word. Never once had the mother’s voice to change its tone of tenderness into one of anger. Never had a frown to come across her loving and peaceful face when it
