Matthew 2:4

After assembling all the chief priests and experts in the law, ¹  he asked them where the Christ ²  was to be born.

When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born.

Gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born.

He called a meeting of the leading priests and teachers of religious law. "Where did the prophets say the Messiah would be born?" he asked them.

Herod lost no time. He gathered all the high priests and religion scholars in the city together and asked, "Where is the Messiah supposed to be born?"

And he got together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, questioning them as to where the birth-place of the Christ would be.

and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born.

And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.

After assembling all the chief priests and experts in the law, ¹  he asked them where the Christ ²  was to be born.

¹ tn Or “and scribes of the people.” The traditional rendering of γραμματεύς (grammateu") as “scribe” does not communicate much to the modern English reader, for whom the term might mean “professional copyist,” if it means anything at all. The people referred to here were recognized experts in the law of Moses and in traditional laws and regulations. Thus “expert in the law” comes closer to the meaning for the modern reader.

² tn Or “Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”

sn See the note on Christ in 1:16.