Matthew 2:11 – ‘Gold, frankincense, and myrrh’
2:11 As [the magi] came into the house and saw the child with Mary his mother, they bowed down and worshiped him. They opened their treasure boxes and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
Summary. Rather than supposing that the gifts brought by the magi carry symbolic meaning, it is probably better to view them as gifts ‘fit for a king’.
Do the gifts have symbolic meaning? I have some hesitation about this, but I’ll put this out as a gentle warning to my fellow-preachers anyway.
Some of seen a symbolic significance in the individual gifts offered. An anonymous writer from the Patristic period was one of the first to attach symbolic meaning to the gifts:
‘They displayed their offerings, gifts in themselves fit for nations to give. For, realizing that he was king, they offered him their elegant and costly first fruits, fit for the Holy One. They offered him gold they had stored up for themselves. Moreover, recognizing his divine and heavenly coming to them, they made an offering of frankincense, a beautiful gift like the soothing speech of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, understanding as they did that human life is but a sepulcher, they offered myrrh.’ (ACCS)
According to the Orthodox Study Bible:
‘The significance of the Magi’s gifts is revealed in a hymn sung at Compline of the Nativity: “Gold is for the King of ages. Frankincense is for the God of all. Myrrh is offered to the Immortal One, who shall be three days dead.”’
Green remarks that gold is especially associated with royalty; incense with priestly worship, and myrrh with burial. ‘In those three gifts we see who he is, what he came to do, and what it cost him.’
Hendriksen, who is sympathetic to the view that each gift carries symbolic significance, quotes Origen who said that the Magi brought ‘gold, as to a king; myrrh, as to one who was mortal; and incense, as to God.’
It is better, however, to understand the significance of the gifts more generally, as gifts ‘fit for a king’.
Matthew Henry simply notes that
‘some think there was a significancy in their gifts; they offered him gold, as a king, paying him tribute, to Caesar, the things that are Caesar’s; frankincense, as God, for they honoured God with the smoke of incense; and myrrh, as a Man that should die, for myrrh was used in embalming dead bodies.’ More important, for this commentator, is that ‘providence sent this for a seasonable relief to Joseph and Mary in their present poor condition.’
JFB similarly express caution:
‘That the gold was presented to the infant King in token of his royalty; the frankincense in token of his divinity, and the myrrh, of his sufferings; or that they were designed to express his divine and human natures; or that the prophetical, priestly, and kingly offices of Christ are to be seen in these gifts; or that they were the offerings of three individuals respectively, each of them kings, the very names of whom tradition has handed down-all these are, at the best, precarious suppositions. But that the feelings of these devout givers are to be seen in the richness of their gifts, and that the gold, at least, would be highly serviceable to the parents of the blessed Babe in their unexpected journey to Egypt and stay there-that much at least admits of no dispute.’
Blomberg thinks that all of the gifts are associated with royalty, and therefore honour Jesus as King.
Osborne agrees that these are the kinds of gifts that would be given to a future king. He adds that they reflect OT precedent: ‘in fact, there is a fulfillment sense in these passages (see Ps 72:10–11, 15, in which “all kings” fall down in homage and give gifts [gold] to the king; Isa 60:3–6, where the nations rejoice and bring their riches [gold and frankincense]; and 1 Kgs 10:2, 10, where the Gentile Queen of Sheba gave gold, spices, and precious stones to Solomon, the son of David). The message is that when the nations are blessed and brought to Zion by the Messiah, they will bring gifts to the true and final King (Isa 60:3, 5, “Nations will come to your light … the riches of the nations will come”).
France says,
‘The homage of these learned Gentiles is intended to indicate the fulfilment of such passages as Ps 72:10ff, Isa 60:1ff (these passages probably account for the later Christian tradition that these Magi were “kings”), and two of the gifts are specifically mentioned in Ps 72:15 (gold); Isa 60:6 (gold and frankincense). They are gifts fit for a king, as is also myrrh, Ps 45:8; Song 3:6; and they remind the reader of the homage of the Queen of Sheba to the son of David, with her gifts of spices and gold, 1 Kings 10:2. The use of myrrh in the crucifixion, Mk 15:23 and burial, Jn 19:39, of Jesus has led to the tradition that it symbolises his suffering, but in the Old Testament it is rather a symbol of joy and festivity (see references above, and Prov 7:17; Song 5:5.’
WBC concurs:
‘The offering of gold and precious spices is not extraordinary but does suggest that the magi who could give these gifts were of some wealth. The “decoding” of the three gifts – that gold reflects Christ’s kingship, frankincense his deity, and myrrh his suffering – is irrelevant to Matthew’s intention.’
Again:
‘It is obvious that the magi symbolize the Gentiles who, unlike the Jews, prove receptive to the king and God’s purposes in him. The realization of eschatological salvation means blessing for all the nations and not simply Israel-this in accord with God’s promise to Abraham and the universalism of the prophets. The Church, in the West at least, did not miss the import of the magi, and before they began to celebrate Christmas, they already celebrated Epiphany (Jan. 6), the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles.’
Wilkins agrees that symbolic interpretations read too much into the text.