Now is a word that indicates a new section is starting and does not indicate time. Good News Translation does not find it necessary in English to have such a word or expression, but many other languages will, as in “Now then.”
Matthew identifies Bethlehem as the one in Judea (there was another Bethlehem in Zebulun); Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, 1st edition further identifies Bethlehem as “a place,” and Good News Translation as “the town of.” Herod the Great is the king referred to. The Roman Senate appointed him king in 40 B.C., but he actually reigned only from 37 B.C. to 4 B.C. Neither Bethlehem nor Judea will be known to many readers, and translators can help these readers by using classifiers, as in “the town of Bethlehem in the region of Judea.”
When translates a participial construction in Greek, which may also mean “After” (New Jerusalem Bible) or “Soon afterward” (Good News Translation, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). Some languages will say “After Jesus was born…” or “When Jesus was born…,” but others will find it more natural to do it this way: “Jesus was born in the town of Bethlehem in Judea when Herod was the king. After that….” However, when needs to be examined in its relationship with the word behold. This word will not be expressed at all in some languages, but in others the ideas “behold” and “when” come together in a phrase like “Soon afterward” as in Good News Translation, or “And it happened that…,” or simply as “Then.”
In the days of Herod the king may be “during the time when Herod was the king there.” But in some languages a separate sentence will be better, as in “At that time, Herod was king there” or “At that time, the king there was named Herod.”
Wise men translates a Greek noun which originally referred to Persian priests who were experts in astrology and in the interpretation of dreams. But the word may also be used in a derogatory sense of “magician” or “charlatan,” a meaning which it has in its only other New Testament occurrences outside Matthew’s nativity narrative (Acts 13.6, 8). Matthew most likely has Babylonian astrologers in mind. “Astrologers” (New American Bible, New English Bible, Phillips) is perhaps the nearest technical term, but in light of its intended readership Good News Translation has chosen the more lengthy phrase: “some men who studied the stars.” Note also Barclay (“scholars who were students of the stars”), which is very good because in the present context the word is not intended to have a derogatory or negative meaning such as “astrologers” may have. Moffatt‘s “magicians” misses the target in the present context, though it is well suited for the passage in Acts. It may not be sufficient to say “studied the stars,” since this would mean the wise men were astronomers, and translators in these languages will have to add “to know things.” This is even expressed sometimes as “men who knew things from studying the stars.”
What is meant by the East is not known precisely, though most commentators assume Babylonia is intended (present-day Iran).
East: “from the direction where the sun rises” is a very common way to express this, or “from a country that is in the direction where the sun rises.”
Jerusalem, as with “Bethlehem,” will not be known to some readers. In those languages the translators will specify “the city Jerusalem.”
Saying may be “They said” or “When they reached Jerusalem, they asked people….” But it can mean “They asked the authorities (or, responsible people).”
Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .