“Three wise men visited Jesus in the manger on the night He was born.”
Matthew never gives a number. He records three kinds of gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh, brought by an unnumbered company of wise men who came to a house, not a stable, and found a young child rather than a newborn.
And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. — Matthew 2:11
Every nativity set on every mantel has three crowned figures kneeling at the manger, and the picture is so familiar that most people assume they read it in Matthew. What Matthew records is that wise men from the east came seeking Him that was born King of the Jews, and that when they came into the house they saw the young child with Mary His mother and presented gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Three gifts. No count of men, no crowns, no names, and no stable. Herod's later order concerning children two years old and under, calculated from the time he had diligently inquired of the wise men, suggests a real gap between the birth and this visit. None of this diminishes the account. If anything it makes it stranger and better, that Gentile scholars traveled a great distance and fell down and worshipped a toddler in an ordinary house.
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