There are numerous theories about what the star of Bethlehem was but secular sources cannot determine what astronomical features were involved. Matthew 2 records that the astronomical phenomena had gone unnoticed even in the royal court in Jerusalem, where the Roman appointed king did not even know where the Messiah was to be born.
But Psalm 19 says that God recorded the promise of salvation in two ways: in the stars, and in His written word. It is one message for all men for all time beginning in Genesis and ending in Revelation and does not change, unlike the counterfeit, popular astrology, which fluctuates.
How could such significant phenomena be hidden in plain sight? (Genesis 1:14) And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years.” While the stars as indicators of seasons and measurement of time is still common in culture, the knowledge of how they are signs, i.e. indicators marking significant events, has been all but lost, obscured and distorted. The indicators, signs marking the once in history event, were not astrological myth, nor overt massive displays. They were long planned indicators by the God Who created the heavens and Earth and gave all the stars their names. Knowing the record preserved in the star names and the significance of the constellations and the written Word of God was essential for the Magi to determine that the indicators of this once in history event had come, and make a journey of approximately 1,000 miles to pay their respects.
Psalm 19:1-4 “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set am tabernacle for the sun.” Obviously, stars don’t literally speak; using the words declare, sheweth, uttereth speech, voice and words are the figure of speech personification, used to emphasize the message being communicated. All the people of the earth can see the stars, but all the earth could not understand every written or spoken language. So how did the stars speak?
Most of us when we look at the sky cannot tell one constellation from another. Obviously, there are no graphic representations in the sky. The groupings and visual images were made by men as memory cues. Several scriptures note that God named all the stars, with that names had significance related to the story of redemption. Over time these have been obscured, but the meanings are preserved in the original Semitic languages. The constellations were groupings that connected the dots as our sun passed through to help visualize the events of the redemption story.
One of the ways God’s people could recognize the Messiah was noted in Isaiah 7:14 and Matthew 1:23, “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” The corresponding constellation is Virgo. The next important constellation is Leo, which is associated with the Lion of Judah, the tribe from which the Messiah would come.
There were six significant astronomical events in Leo, the constellation representing Judea, from which the Messiah would come, between August 12, 3 BC and June 17, 2 BC. Five were conjunctions of Jupiter, the planet representing royalty, with either Regulus the king star, or with Venus, the bright and morning star, representative of the Messiah. The sixth was a massing of planets in Leo on August 27, 2 BC. These celestial events put together, particularly the three conjunctions of Jupiter, which in Hebrew is ssdeq, (righteousness) with Regulus, indicated to the Magi that the one the world had been waiting for had been born. It was a birth announcement in the heavens as clear as written words to those who were trained to recognize it, but hidden from the political hierarchy who intended to murder the Christ.
Since they were not Judeans, how did the Magi have this information? (Daniel 5:11,12a) “There is a man in thy kingdom, in whom is the spirit of the holy gods; and in the days of thy father light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, was found in him; whom the king Nebuchadnezzar thy father, the king, I say, thy father, made master of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers; Forasmuch as an excellent spirit, and knowledge, and understanding, interpreting of dreams, and shewing of hard sentences, and dissolving of doubts, were found in the same Daniel,” Some time after this, the Persians took over the Babylonian Empire. (Daniel 6:3) and Daniel was again in one of the highest positions in the land, teaching and training all these men. By the time of Christ, the Magi had split into two factions–a pagan faction of sun worshipers and soothsayers and the Magi of the East who believed in one God, a spiritual adversary, and a coming redeemer king out of Judah. When the Eastern Magi saw the planet of royalty in the rising in Leo multiple times, with the king star, they made their journey to Jerusalem. Depending on where they were located–and they may have come from several locations–they began the journey (one to two month’s duration) to Jerusalem, the capital of Judea Where else would they look for the redeemer king of the Judeans to be born?
No one in Jerusalem had any idea what was happening until the Magi arrived, and then had to scramble to find someone who knew where the Messiah was supposed to be born. When someone someone finally identified Bethlehem as the specified birthplace, the Magi travelled on—with instructions from Herod to let him know where the child was. When the Magi approached Bethlehem, Jupiter was approaching its meridian, it’s highest point in the sky. To the human eye it would appear to “stand” over the area of Bethlehem.
God in His omniscience and foreknowledge knew that Herod would attempt to murder His only begotten son, so He warned the Magi to return home bypassing Jerusalem, and warned Joseph, Jesus’s stepfather to go to Egypt. The messages were delivered, and the process of redemption begun.
Birth of Christ Recalculated – Ernest Martin
Figures of Speech in the Bible – E.W. Bullinger
The Witness of the Stars – E.W. Bullinger
Jesus Christ Our Promised Seed – Victor P. Wierwille https://www.space.com/star-of-bethlehem
Judith Niewiadomski, Yonkers
