Theme: A Christ for all nations

Exegetical note
Matthew here artfully pieces together elements drawn from specific Old Testament texts (foreigners drawn to a divine light and bringing gold and frankincense from Isaiah 60:1-6; foreigners bearing gifts and paying tribute to a new king from Psalm 72; Bethlehem from Micah 5:2), in order to express the common belief that the salvation under the Messiah would apply to all nations. Later popular imagination went back to those source texts in order to turn the Magi into kings, name their…