Luke 2:3

And all went to be taxed, (enrolled,) every one to his city “When the census was made in any country, the inhabitants were obliged to attend in the cities to which they belonged, Livy, 50. 42. c. 10. The reason was, without a precaution of this kind, the census would have been excessively tedious, and people who were abroad might have been omitted, or registered among the inhabitants of other cities, where they would not have been found afterward, or they might have been enrolled twice, which would have produced confusion in the registers.” In the dominions of Herod, however, probably by his order, a small alteration seems to have been made in the method of executing the census. For instead of the people being directed to appear, as usual, in the cities where they resided, or to whose jurisdiction the places of their abode belonged, they were ordered to appeal according to their families; every one in his native city, or the place where his paternal inheritance lay, to be there enrolled; a circumstance wisely ordered by Providence to verify the truth of ancient prophecies; for thus the parents of Christ were providentiatly brought to Bethlehem, the place where the Messiah was to be born, without leaving any room to suspect them of artifice and design. And thus, also, by their coming to be registered among the subjects of the Roman empire, the subjection of the Jews to the Romans was very remarkably manifested.