Christmas Gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh
Po New Christian Bible Study Staff
In the Christmas story, the wise men bring gifts to the Lord: gold, frankincense and myrrh.
The gold is listed first, because it is the inmost - signifying good, e.g. the good that we do when we love the Lord and the neighbor.
The frankincense is next. It signifies rational truth, which is the set of true ideas that we know, not about external things like cars or cooking, but about what is really good, and what is really true.
These rational truths are built on earlier knowledges that we learn, before we have really made them our own. Those early knowledges about spiritual things - often learned in childhood - are represented by the myrrh.
In a way, these gifts are really a reciprocation. We can't actually give them to the Lord until the Lord has given them to us. We necessarily start out by learning and doing the Lord's law (myrrh). The Lord can then call up those memories to become rational truths (frankincense). Then, over time, and with effort, those truths can be transformed into good (gold). The wise men from the East had gone through this process of learning and becoming vessels that could receive truths and goods. They were able to perceive the Lord's birth, and find him, and bring gifts to him.
2 Samuel 24:1-15
1
Again the anger of Yahweh was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them, saying, "Go, number Israel and Judah."
2
The king said to Joab the captain of the army, who was with him, "Now go back and forth through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan even to Beersheba, and number the people, that I may know the sum of the people."
3
Joab said to the king, "Now may Yahweh your God add to the people, however many they may be, one hundred times; and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king delight in this thing?"
4
Notwithstanding, the king's word prevailed against Joab, and against the captains of the army. Joab and the captains of the army went out from the presence of the king, to number the people of Israel.
5
They passed over the Jordan, and encamped in Aroer, on the right side of the city that is in the middle of the valley of Gad, and to Jazer:
6
then they came to Gilead, and to the land of Tahtim Hodshi; and they came to Dan Jaan, and around to Sidon,
7
and came to the stronghold of Tyre, and to all the cities of the Hivites, and of the Canaanites; and they went out to the south of Judah, at Beersheba.
8
So when they had gone back and forth through all the land, they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days.
9
Joab gave up the sum of the numbering of the people to the king: and there were in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men who drew the sword; and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand men.
10
David's heart struck him after that he had numbered the people. David said to Yahweh, "I have sinned greatly in that which I have done. But now, Yahweh, put away, I beg you, the iniquity of your servant; for I have done very foolishly."
11
When David rose up in the morning, the word of Yahweh came to the prophet Gad, David's seer, saying,
12
"Go and speak to David, 'Thus says Yahweh, "I offer you three things. Choose one of them, that I may do it to you."'"
13
So Gad came to David, and told him, and said to him, "Shall seven years of famine come to you in your land? Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days' pestilence in your land? Now answer, and consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me."
14
David said to Gad, "I am in distress. Let us fall now into the hand of Yahweh; for his mercies are great. Let me not fall into the hand of man."
15
So Yahweh sent a pestilence on Israel from the morning even to the appointed time; and there died of the people from Dan even to Beersheba seventy thousand men.
