The Songs Tell the Story: A Family Advent DevotionalSample

The Song with the Wrong Number

This Christmas carol is about the magi, the wise men who traveled from the East, to find the newborn King. We often think of the “Orient” as Japan or China, but the wise men were probably from the part of Asia known as Persia.

“We Three Kings” was composed in 1857 and probably has a lot more to do with our thinking than the actual passage of Scripture. The story of the magi is found in Matthew 2:1–12. Did you know that nowhere in that passage does the Bible say there were three kings?

In fact, it is much more likely there would have been about twelve magi. So why did this Christmas carol say there were three?

Probably because of the three gifts the Bible speaks of: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Why do we call these men “wise”?

The word magi actually meant skilled magician or astrologer. We know these men followed the star, so we believe them to be astrologers. How did these men know to follow the star?

That is a more difficult question to answer, but it’s possible that, while the prophet Daniel was held captive in Babylon, he might have taught men about the promised Messiah of Israel. Daniel was considered a wise man in one of the most educated and advanced cultures of that time. Babylon was the eastern area that would be called Persia, which is known as Iran today.

The distance from Babylon to Bethlehem is 107 miles. The wise men probably lived near that region and traveled the long distance, riding camels and walking. The magi were wealthy men, and the gifts they brought were expensive. They would have brought servants to protect them, and they would have packed food, water, and tents.

When you picture the arrival of the magi, you need to think about all that the arrival meant, especially in the tiny village of Bethlehem! Jesus wasn’t a baby in a manger by the time the magi arrived. The Bible uses a different word for “boy” when describing a child under the age of two. The magi might not have begun their trip until after Jesus had been born.

And one more fun fact about those “three” kings is the gifts they brought. Those valuable gifts are probably the reason Joseph, a poor man, was able to care for his family when the angel told him they all needed to flee to Egypt.

A popular saying reads: “Wise men still seek him.”

Will you be wise today?