Three Wise Men Carrying Their Gifts

About this drawing

Few gift lists are as famous as the one carried by the three wise men with gifts. The Gospel of Matthew says that visitors from the East followed a star to Bethlehem, knelt before the child, and offered gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Those lines are short, but Christians have been studying them for centuries.

Each present came to carry its own meaning. Gold, the metal of rulers, points to Jesus as a king. Frankincense, burned in temples, suggests worship and divinity. Myrrh is the surprising one. This bitter resin went into perfumes, medicines, and burial ointments, so it has long been read as a sign of human suffering and death.

In the ancient world, the last two were worth a fortune. They came from trees growing in southern Arabia and the Horn of Africa, and traders carried them along desert caravan routes to markets in Rome and beyond. The Gospel never says exactly how many visitors there were, but the three gifts led later Christians to imagine three men. The carol "We Three Kings," written by an American clergyman in the 1850s, gives each gift its own verse. So when children sing about them in a holiday pageant, they are repeating a tradition of interpretation that is well over a thousand years old.

• wise men
• three kings
• gold
• frankincense
• myrrh