The visit of the wise men to Bethlehem must have taken place a very few days after the birth of Jesus, and before His presentation in the temple. Bethlehem was not the stated residence of Joseph and Mary, either before or after the birth of the child (Luke i. 26, ii. 4, 39; Matt. ii. 2).  They were obliged to repair to the place on account of the taxing, and immediately after the presentation in the temple, they returned to Nazareth and dwelt there (Luke ii. 39).  Had the visit of the wise men occurred, as some think, six, or twelve, or eighteen months after the birth, the question of Herod to “the chief priests and scribes of the people” where “Christ should be born”—­would have been quite vain, as the infant might have been removed long before to another part of the country.  The wise men manifestly expected to see a newly born infant, and hence they asked—­“where is he that is born King of the Jews?” (Matt. ii. 2.) The evangelist also states expressly that they came to Jerusalem “when Jesus was born” (Matt. ii. 1).  At a subsequent period they would have found the Holy Child, not at Bethlehem, but at Nazareth.

The only plausible objection to this view of the matter is derived from the statement that Herod “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 enquired of the wise men" (Matt. ii. 16).  The king had ascertained from these sages “what time the star appeared” (Matt. ii. 7), and they seem to have informed him that it had been visible a year before.  A Jewish child was said to be two years old when it had entered on its second year (see Greswell’s “Dissertations,” vol. ii. 136); and, to make sure of his prey, Herod murdered all the infants in Bethlehem and the neighbourhood under the age of thirteen months.  The wise men had not told him that the child was a year old—­it was obvious that they thought very differently—­but the tyrant butchered all who came, within the range of suspicion.  It is highly probable that the star announced the appearance of the Messiah twelve months before he was born.  Such an intimation was given of the birth of Isaac, who was a remarkable type of Christ (Gen. xvii. 21).  See also 2 Kings iv. 16, and Dan. iv. 29, 33.

The presentation of the infant in the temple occurred after the death of Herod.  This follows as a corollary from what has been already advanced, for if the wise men visited Bethlehem immediately after the birth, and if the child was then hurried away to Egypt, the presentation could not have taken place earlier.  The ceremony was performed forty days after the birth (Luke ii. 22, and Lev. xii. 2, 3, 4), and as the flight and the return might both have been accomplished in eight or ten days, there was ample time for a sojourn of at least two or three weeks in that part of Egypt which was nearest to Palestine.