Luke 2:7

καὶ ἔτεκεν. See note on Luke 1:9. The belief in a painless birth, clauso utero, and similar miracles, which are found in some Fathers, are apocryphal fictions which derive no countenance from the Gospels. See Luke 2:23.

πρωτότοκον. The word has no decisive bearing on the controversy as to the ‘brethren of Jesus,’ as it does not necessarily imply that the Virgin had other children. See Hebrews 1:6, where first-born = only-begotten.

ἐσπαργάνωσεν αὐτόν. Ezekiel 16:4. In her poverty she had none to help her, but (in the common fashion of the East) wound the babe round and round with swathes with her own hands.

ἐν φάτνῃ. If the Received Text were correct it would be ‘in the manger,’ but the article is omitted by ABDL. φάτνη is sometimes rendered ‘stall’ (as in Luke 13:15; 2 Chronicles 32:28, LXX[58]); but ‘manger’ is probably right here. It is derived from πατέομαι, ‘I eat’ (Curtius, Griech. Et. II. 84), and is used by the LXX[59] for the Hebrew אֵבוּם ‘crib,’ in Proverbs 14:4. Mangers are very ancient, and are to this day sometimes used as cradles in the East (Thomson, Land and Book, II. 533). The ox and the ass which are traditionally represented in pictures are only mentioned in the apocryphal Gospel of Matthew 14, and were suggested by Isaiah 1:3, and Habakkuk 3:2, which in the LXX[60] and the ancient Latin Version (Itala) was mistranslated “Between two animals thou shalt be made known.”

[58] LXX. Septuagint.
[59] LXX. Septuagint.
[60] LXX. Septuagint.

οὐκ ἦν αὐτοῖς τόπος ἐν τῷ καταλύματι. Κατάλυμα may also mean guest-chamber as in Luke 22:11, but inn seems to be here the right rendering. There is another word for inn, πανδοχεῖον (Luke 10:34), which implies an inn with a host. Bethlehem was a poor place, and its inn was probably a mere khan or caravanserai, which is an enclosed space surrounded by open recesses of which the paved floor (leewan) is raised a little above the ground. There is often no host, and the use of any vacant leewan is free, but the traveller pays a trifle for food, water, &c. If the khan be crowded the traveller must be content with a corner of the courtyard or enclosed place among the cattle, or else in the stable. The stable is often a limestone cave or grotto, and there is a very ancient tradition that this was the case in the khan of Bethlehem. (Just. Martyr, Dial. c. Tryph. c. 78, and the Apocryphal Gospels, Protev. xix., Evang. Infant. iii. &c.) If, as is most probable, the traditional site of the Nativity is the real one, it took place in one of the caves where St Jerome spent so many years (Ep. 24, ad Marcell.) as a hermit, and translated the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate). This fact must not, however, be connected with Isaiah 33:16, which has nothing to do with it. The khan perhaps dated back as far as the days of David under the name of the House or Hotel (Gérooth) of Chimham (2 Samuel 19:37-38; Jeremiah 41:17).

The tender grace and perfect simplicity of the narrative is one of the marks of its truthfulness, and is again in striking contrast with the endlessly multiplied miracles of the Apocryphal Gospels. “The unfathomable depths of the divine counsels were moved; the fountains of the great deep were broken up; the healing of the nations was issuing forth; but nothing was seen on the surface of human society but this slight rippling of the water.” Isaac Williams, The Nativity.