When Herod inquired of the wise men where Christ should be born, they said unto him, "In Bethlehem of Judea: for thus it is written by the prophet, And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel." (Matt. ii. 5, 6.)

The passage is taken from the prophet Micah, who was a cotemporary with Jeremiah, and prophesied under the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. He lived during the time of Nebuchadnezzar, the great enemy of the Jewish nation, and witnessed a large share of the miseries he inflicted upon that people. We would infer from the first verse of the fifth chapter, that his book was written at a time when the armies of the king of Babylon were encamped around the walls of Jerusalem.

"Now gather thyself in troops, O daughter of troops: he hath laid siege against us; they shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek." Looking forward to the time when the Jewish people will be delivered from the power of Nebuchadnezzar and the Assyrian nation, and of their conquest by some other power, the prophet, aroused by a prophetic spirit, announces that the time is coming when Israel shall again be free: "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet opt of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth: then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel. And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God; and they shall abide; for now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth." (Micah v. 2, 3, 4.)

In the tenth verse of the fourth chapter, the captivity of the Jews, and their transportation to Babylon, is distinctly announced, and they are told that while in the hands of the Assyrians, they shall be as a woman in travail; but that, like her, they should in time be delivered from suffering. The third verse of the fifth chapter declares that God will not interfere in the mean time, and that they must wait for deliverance, and submit to their sufferings, as unavoidable as in the case of the woman; that at the appointed time a deliverer would come, who would save and bring back a remnant of the people, who shall grow powerful and "be great to the ends of the earth."

Now it is deliverance from Assyrian captivity that is referred to, and it is to violate the fitness of time, place, history, and the state of the Jews to apply it to anything else. Amidst the awful fate impending over the Jewish people, they wanted something to encourage and sustain them; and the prophet undertook to do so, by a promise, that in time their captivity should cease, and they be allowed to return to their own country.

But deliverance is to come from Bethlehem Ephratah—words which sufficiently indicate from what quarter the deliverer was to come; and to give a false direction the word Ephratah is omitted in the text in Matthew. Bethlehem in Judea is surely not intended, but the country watered by the river Euphrates. A little poetic license to create obscurity—a peculiarity of the Jewish prophets—does not at all render the meaning doubtful. Cyrus was king of all the country watered by the Euphrates; and the Assyrian empire ceased to exist when he restored the Jews to their own country. Cyrus was a ruler in Israel. He took the direction of their affairs, ordered the temple to be rebuilt, and directed how the means were to be provided to pay the expense. (Letter of Cyrus to Sisinnes and Sathrabouzanes. Josephus, Antiq., book xi. chap. 1, sec. 3.) Cyrus is the ruler alluded to, and not Christ. The deliverer was to be at the head of a very ancient people—the Medes and Persians—who "have been from old—from everlasting." When did Christ rule over Israel? Never.

That Jesus lived at Nazareth until he grew to be a young man could not be disputed, and no doubt the fact was stated in the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew. He might live there, but he must be born in Bethlehem, and some excuse must be had to get Mary there at the precise time when his birth took place. The device of the tax to take her there at the time is weak and puerile, and proves that those who got it up were neither wise nor learned. Matthew barely alludes to Bethlehem as the place of Christ's birth. "Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem." Luke is more specific. "And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from CÆsar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed." (Luke ii. 1.) "And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, into the city of David, which is called Bethlehem (because he was of the house and lineage of David), to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child." (Luke ii. 3, 4, 5.)

The Jews were taxed at the place where their property, real or personal, was at the time of taxing, and not where their ancestors happened to be born. A law or decree of the kind mentioned would involve a movement of almost the entire population of Judea, and for no reason, unless it was to give the people a chance to defraud the tax-gatherer by concealing their effects.

The Cyrenius mentioned was sent out by CÆsar "to be a judge of that nation (the Jews) and take an account of their substance." (Josephus, Antiq., book xviii. chap. 1, sec. I.) It would not be necessary for Joseph to go to Bethlehem, seventy-five miles away, where he had nothing, to give an account of his substance, when all he had was in Nazareth. Besides, Judea was at this time under the government of Rome, and if there ever had been a law among the Jews requiring each one of them to go to his native city to be taxed, the Romans could not have any object in enforcing it. Admit that Joseph was required to go to Bethlehem because David was born there several hundred years before, to be taxed: why was it necessary for Mary to go with him? He was to give to the Roman officer "an account of his substance:" and did this require the presence of Mary?

The writer of Luke fixes the time when this tax was to be levied. It was when Cyrenius was Governor of Syria. Now this Cyrenius, according to Josephus, was a Roman senator, who was sent to Judea "to take an account of the substance of the people," as a basis of taxation. This was after Archelaus, the son of Herod, had been deposed, and ten years after the death of Herod. Christ was ten years old when Cyrenius was made Governor, so that the journey of Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem was ten years before the decree to tax was made. The following are the words of Josephus: "Now Cyrenius, a Roman senator, and one who had gone through other magistracies and had passed through them till he had been Consul, and one who, on other accounts, was of great dignity, came at this time into Syria, with a few others sent by CÆsar, to be a judge of that nation, and to take an account of their substance." (Josephus, Antiq., book xviii. chap. I, sec. I.)

Had the writer of Matthew known anything of Jewish history, he never would have made so gross a blunder, and saved the immense amount of labor that it has taken to explain away the effects of his ignorance. One explanation of this mistake is, that there were two assessments—one about the time Jesus was born, and the other ten years after. The first has been proven to be a forgery, and was never made. (Renan's Life of Christ, chap. I. See note.) "In Ramah was there a voice of lamentation and weeping and great mourning. Rachel weeping for her children and would not be comforted." This, it is claimed, referred to the cruelties of Herod, to escape from which Joseph and Christ were forced to fly into Egypt; so that his subsequent return to Nazareth would answer to the prophecy, which says, "Behold, from Egypt I have called my Son." In the first place, the story of Herod's cruelties in the case of the infants is an invention, without the least claim to truth, and was a lame excuse, as we have just stated, to get Christ into Egypt. "Then Herod, when he saw he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men." A very short time, not more than two or three days, elapsed after the birth of Christ, when Herod, not hearing from the wise men, gave the command for the wholesale murder of the infants. It was certainly giving Herod more credit for cruelty than was necessary, even on that occasion, for as Christ was only a few days old when the order was given, it was useless murder to include all under two years: ninety-five per cent, of the infants might as well have been spared as not.

It is a matter of surprise that Josephus, the Jewish historian, who suffers nothing deserving notice to escape his pen, has made no mention of a fact which, if true, would have filled Bethlehem and the country round about it with mourning. He could afford to make mention of the quarrels in Herod's family; but not one word to say about the wholesale slaughter of the infants. The story is so absurd, so easily exposed, and of no possible use, that it is omitted in Mark, Luke, and John.

But if the story is true, what has it to do with the troubles of Rachel? The passage from Jeremiah refers to a time in the history of the Jews when Jerusalem was taken and held by the Assyrians, and a great number of that people had taken refuge in Egypt. The Jews were undergoing great afflictions, and God, through Jeremiah, undertakes to console and comfort them. The Lord, in plain language, says: I know that there is great suffering in Ramah—much lamentation and bitter weeping. Israel has lost many of her children, and she suffers great sorrow and grief. "Thus saith the Lord: Refrain thy voice from weeping, for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy." (Jeremiah xxxi. 15, 16.) What has this to do with the cruelty of Herod?

We have stated that the massacre of the infants was an invention to form an excuse to get Jesus into Egypt; for his return from that country would serve to prove that he was the one referred to when the Lord is made to say, "Out of Egypt I have called my son." Here, we confess, we are at a loss to express our astonishment. In the eleventh chapter of Hosea, the Lord complains of the ingratitude of the Jewish nation, and reminds them what he had done for them in times past. He expresses the love he had for them when the nation was young, and required the power of his arm to protect them. "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt" (Hosea. 1.) It need not be said, that this refers to the deliverance of the Jews from the hands of Pharaoh. Israel is the son spoken of who had already passed out of Egypt. "And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene." (Matthew ii. 23.) There is no such prophecy to be found in the Old Testament.