MAGI — a hereditary PRIESTLY CASTE of the Medes and Persians: keepers of ritual, interpreters of dreams, and readers of the sky. The Greek translations of Daniel use the word for one of the classes of Babylonian diviners a king summons, the guild over which Daniel himself was set (Daniel 2:48). By the first century it had also loosened into plain 'sorcerer' (so Acts, of Bar-Jesus), which is where English 'magic' comes from. ⚠ So the men of Matthew 2 are neither philosophers nor monarchs but foreign astrologer-priests, and Matthew never says how many there were: three GIFTS became three givers, and Psalm 72:10-11 with Isaiah 60:3-6 made the givers kings. KJV/Geneva/Douay 'wise men'; ASV 'Wise-men'; NIV 'Magi'; NWT 'astrologers' — the bluntest about the trade, though it also passes a judgment the Greek does not. → first discussed at Matt 2:1