“When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.”
When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. The double intensification — exceedingly with great joy — communicates that this moment is the culmination of a journey that may have taken months or years. The Magi who saw the star rise from their homeland and followed it across hundreds of miles now see it again, stationary, directly above their destination. Luke 2:10 records the angels announcing great joy that will be for all the people when Jesus was born to the shepherds; Matthew records the same great joy in the hearts of Gentile foreigners when they arrive at the house. The joy of the gospel is not narrowly ethnic but comprehensively human — it reaches shepherds in a field and scholars from the east with equal intensity.
Church Fathers on Matthew 2:10
This service of the star is followed by the rejoicing of the Magi.
And it was not enough to say, 'They rejoiced,' but 'they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.'
They rejoiced, because their hopes were not falsified but confirmed, and because the toil of so great travel had not been undertaken in vain.
Read all 17 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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