One precious metal and two tree resins from the south of Arabia and the Horn of Africa. Matthew names them and says nothing more. Here is what they were, where they came from, and why the story does not end at the house.
Gold, frankincense and myrrh were the three gifts the Magi brought to Jesus in Matthew 2:11. Gold is the metal of kings. Frankincense is a fragrant resin from Boswellia trees, burned as incense. Myrrh is a bitter resin from Commiphora trees, used in perfume, anointing oil and burial.
The famous meanings, gold for a king, frankincense for God, myrrh for death, are real and very old, but they come from the church fathers, not from Matthew. Matthew lists the gifts and lets his Scriptures do the talking.
That distinction does not shrink the story. Once you see what these things were and where Matthew had already met them in the Hebrew Bible, the scene gets bigger.
Here is the whole of it. One verse.
“On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.”
Matthew 2:11 (NIV)Read it slowly and two things stand out that the Christmas card blurs. And notice what is missing: Matthew, usually quick to say a thing happened to fulfill Scripture, explains none of the gifts.
Matthew says they came to the house and saw the child. The shepherds and the manger belong to Luke. This is a later visit, and Herod's order about boys two and under suggests it may have been well over a year later.
They bow down before anything is opened. The gifts follow the worship. They are an expression of it, not a payment for access.
We cover who these visitors were in who were the three wise men. The short version is that they were magi, a word for astrologer priests and court scholars from the east, and Matthew never calls them kings.
Gold needs no introduction. The other two are less familiar, so start with the words.
Greek libanos, from Hebrew lebonah, which comes from the word for white. Good frankincense dries into pale, almost translucent drops, and the name probably describes that color.
Greek smyrna, from Hebrew mor, connected to the root for bitter. It smells sweet when burned and tastes bitter on the tongue, and the name kept the second half.
Greek chrysos. The one gift that needs no processing, holds its value anywhere, and fits in a traveler's bag.
Both resins are tree sap. Frankincense comes from trees in the genus Boswellia and myrrh from trees in the genus Commiphora, small, tough trees that grow in the dry country of southern Arabia and the Horn of Africa. Harvesters cut the bark, the sap seeps out, and it hardens on the tree into lumps called tears before it is collected.
The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew notes that Boswellia sacra grows in Oman, Yemen and Somalia, with other species in Ethiopia and Sudan, and that heavy over-tapping today is harming the trees' ability to produce seed. These were never cheap, and they were never easy to get.
Exodus 30 includes pure frankincense in the sacred incense, and Leviticus 2 has it laid on the grain offering. For a Jewish reader it smelled like worship.
Exodus 30 also puts liquid myrrh first in the recipe for the holy anointing oil used on priests and on the tabernacle.
Esther 2:12 mentions months of treatment with oil of myrrh. Psalm 45 and the Song of Songs use it as a royal and wedding perfume.
Aromatic spices were used in preparing bodies for burial, which is where myrrh turns up again at the end of the Gospels.
One boundary. This is about what these things meant in Scripture and the ancient world. It makes no claims about modern remedies or oils, and the story is not a health endorsement for anything.
Frankincense and myrrh did not grow anywhere near Jerusalem. Everything burned in the Temple had crossed a desert first.
Resin is cut and gathered in what is now Oman, Yemen, Somalia and Ethiopia. UNESCO's Land of Frankincense in Dhofar preserves the groves and ports of this trade.
Camel caravans carry it up the length of Arabia. UNESCO describes the Incense Route running from Yemen and Oman to the Mediterranean, controlled by the Nabataeans from roughly the third century BC to the second century AD.
Caravan towns in the desert south of Judea handled the goods, right on Herod's southern border.
The resins end up on altars, in royal courts and in burial rites, marked up at every stage of the trip.
So when foreigners from the east carry these goods into a small house in Bethlehem, the gesture belongs to a royal court. This was tribute for kings.
These were luxury imports that had crossed a desert. Setting them down in front of a toddler in an ordinary house is the whole surprise of the scene.
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Manage My Giving"Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."2 Corinthians 9:7
Matthew was writing for readers soaked in the Hebrew Scriptures. He did not have to spell out the meaning of foreigners bringing gold and incense, because two passages would already be ringing in their ears.
“Herds of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah. And all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the Lord.”
Isaiah 60:6 (NIV)“May the kings of Tarshish and of distant shores bring tribute to him. May the kings of Sheba and Seba present him gifts. May all kings bow down to him and all nations serve him.”
Psalm 72:10 to 11 (NIV)Isaiah 60 opens with light rising over Jerusalem and the nations coming to that light. Psalm 72 is a prayer for the king, asking that far off rulers bow and bring gifts. Sheba sat in the south of Arabia, the very region the resins came from.
Put those beside Matthew 2 and the picture is clear. A star, people from far away, gold and incense, bowing down. Matthew is telling his readers that the thing Isaiah and the Psalm hoped for has started, and it has started with a child.
Now notice what Matthew adds. Isaiah 60:6 has gold and incense. It does not have myrrh. The third gift does not come from the prophecy, and that is the gift that will show up again at the end of the Gospel story.
Which gift is missing from Isaiah 60:6?
Isaiah has camels, Sheba, gold and incense. Myrrh is not in the verse. Matthew includes it anyway, and myrrh is the one gift that appears again at the burial of Jesus in John 19:39.
The three meaning reading most of us learned is ancient. Around AD 180, Irenaeus of Lyons wrote that the magi offered “myrrh, because it was He who should die and be buried for the mortal human race; gold, because He was a King”, and frankincense because he was God.
Origen, writing in the next century, put it even more compactly. The magi brought their gifts to one who was both God and mortal man, “gold, viz., as to a king; myrrh, as to one who was mortal; and incense, as to a God”.
Later preaching and hymns often turned frankincense toward priesthood, since incense belonged to the priests at the altar. The earliest readers said God. Both readings grow out of how frankincense was used.
Three named gifts, offered after worship, in a scene built on Isaiah 60 and Psalm 72. No interpretation attached.
A meaning for each gift, three visitors to match three gifts, royal crowns, and eventually names. Some of it good reading, none of it in Matthew.
At Sound of Heaven we think king, God and death is a good reading of the gifts. It fits how each substance was actually used, and it fits the Jesus the rest of the Gospels reveal. We teach it gladly, as tradition.
What we will not do is present it as something Matthew wrote. He did not, and pretending otherwise teaches people to read things into the Bible that are not there. That habit does damage well beyond Christmas.
A couple of popular claims need correcting too, even the ones that sound devotional. The idea that the gold paid for the escape to Egypt is a reasonable guess, and it is only a guess. The text does not connect them. And the claim that the magi knew they were foretelling the crucifixion goes past anything we can know. They brought costly gifts to a king. The meaning grew as the story unfolded.
The opposite error is just as real. Some people hear “that is tradition” and conclude the gifts mean nothing. That misses the Isaiah echo entirely. The gifts carry meaning. It simply comes from the Scriptures Matthew was drawing on, not from a code attached to each box.
Here is the detail that makes the third gift land. The Greek word for myrrh, smyrna, appears only twice in the whole New Testament. Once in Matthew 2:11, at the house. Once in John 19:39, at the tomb.
“He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds.”
John 19:39 (NIV)Foreigners bring myrrh to a child alongside gold and frankincense. It is a luxury gift, fit for royalty.
Mark 15:23 says Jesus was offered wine mixed with myrrh, and he did not take it. Mark reports it without comment.
Nicodemus, the Pharisee who first came to Jesus by night, brings an enormous amount of myrrh and aloes, a burial fit for a king.
Matthew and John are different writers, and neither points to the other, so we are not claiming a hidden design. Still, the one gift Isaiah did not mention is the one that follows Jesus to the grave. The tradition that tied myrrh to his death was paying attention.
And the grave did not hold him. The burial spices were prepared for a body that walked out three days later. That is why the story of these gifts is finally about the resurrection. The king who was given myrrh as a child is the king who conquered death, and he reigns now.
Myrrh greets Jesus at the house and meets him again at the tomb. The one who received it is the one who rose, and his kingdom is here.
Strip away the crowns on the card and the scene is still remarkable. Outsiders with the wrong religion and partial information cross a long distance and set their most valuable things down before a small Judean boy. The experts in Jerusalem knew the verse about Bethlehem and did not make the trip.
Jesus is the King Psalm 72 prayed for and the light Isaiah 60 saw rising. His kingdom is not a future event you are waiting for. It is here, and people from every nation are still walking into it.
You do not need gold or imported resin. What Jesus is after is the same thing the magi gave first, before they opened anything. They bowed down. The gifts followed.
For more on the story around these gifts, read who the wise men were, what the Bible says about Jesus' birthday, what ethnicity Jesus was, Nicodemus in the Bible, what Emmanuel means, the origin of Christmas, King of kings and Lord of lords and what the Kingdom of God is.
Gold, frankincense and myrrh were royal tribute from the incense lands of Arabia, echoing Isaiah 60 and Psalm 72, read by the church as king, God and death, with the myrrh returning at the tomb of the King who rose.
If you are trying to work out what following Jesus looks like for you, or you just want someone to pray with you, send it in. Somebody at Sound of Heaven will reply.
The long standing Christian reading is gold for a king, frankincense for God and myrrh for death. Irenaeus and Origen both taught versions of it in the second and third centuries. Matthew himself gives no meanings. He lists the gifts in a scene that echoes Isaiah 60:6 and Psalm 72:10 to 11, where nations and kings bring gold and incense to Israel's king. The tradition is a good reading of the story, and it should be taught as tradition rather than as the words of the text.
Both are dried tree resins. Frankincense comes from Boswellia trees and myrrh from Commiphora trees, which grow in the dry lands of southern Arabia, including Oman and Yemen, and in the Horn of Africa, including Somalia and Ethiopia. Harvesters cut the bark and let the sap seep out and harden into tears. In the ancient world the resins were carried north by caravan along the Incense Route to the Mediterranean, which made them costly by the time they reached Judea.
They were the kind of costly tribute brought to kings in the ancient Near East, and the magi came looking for the one born king of the Jews. Gold was royal wealth, frankincense was used in worship, and myrrh was a prized perfume and anointing spice. Matthew also clearly has Isaiah 60 and Psalm 72 in view, where foreigners bring gold and incense and bow before Israel's king. The gifts were an act of worship. Matthew says they bowed down first.
Yes. John 19:39 says Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds, to prepare Jesus' body for burial. The Greek word for myrrh appears only twice in the New Testament, there and in Matthew 2:11. Mark 15:23 also says Jesus was offered wine mixed with myrrh at the cross and did not take it. That bookend is why the church came to connect the magi's myrrh with his death, though Matthew does not make the link himself.
Matthew never says. He counts three gifts and never counts the visitors. The number three was inferred from the gifts, and Origen is the earliest writer usually credited with it. Eastern Christian traditions preserved other numbers, including twelve. The names Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar arrived centuries later, and so did the crowns. What Matthew does tell us is that they were magi from the east, astrologer priests and scholars, and that they came to a house, not the manger.