Search diligently for, &c.— Make exact inquiry about, &c. It is an amazing thing that so suspicious and artful a prince as Herod should put such an important affair on so precarious a footing; when, if he had notgone himself, it would have been so easy, under pretence of doing honour to these learned strangers, to have sent a guard of soldiers with them, who might, humanly speaking, without any difficulty, have slaughtered the child and his parents on the spot. Perhaps he might have been unwilling to commit such an act of cruelty in the presence of these sages, lest their report of it might have rendered him infamous abroad: or rather, we must refer it to a secret infatuation with which God, whenever he pleases, canconfound the most sagacious of mankind. See Doddridge and Calmet.
Related Commentaries of Matthew 2:8
Matthew 2:8
8 And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also.