The birthplace and the birth.
Two travelers, coming up from Galilee, approach the city of David. The knowledge they possessed of the event in which the glories of David's house were to culminate must have invested every feature with a peculiar sacredness of interest. Note Dean Stanley's description of Bethlehem, on the crest of a ridge of black hills terraced with vineyards. As beheld by Joseph and Mary, what a stream of patriotic memories, mixed with the inspirations which spring from the sense of ancestry, must have flowed over their souls! There is the scene of the notable gleaning of the gentle Moabitess who had accompanied Naomi from those mighty hills which rear their pinnacles in the distance behind. There, Jesse with his seven stalwart sons had lived. In those fields and gorges the youngest of the seven had learned to sling his stones and sing his psalms—had been prepared for the future which lay before him. From that city had come the mightiest of David's warriors—Joab and Abishai and others. Lo! there, too, by the gate is the famous well of Bethlehem, of which David had longed to drink, but, faint as he was, would not, because the drawing of its water had been at the cost of life, strength, and blood. Manifold is the appeal to the heart of the pilgrims, who, lowly as their condition is, are scions of Israel's royal house. They are nearing the place of which prophecy had said (Micah 5:2), "Out of thee shall One come forth unto me that is to be Ruler in Israel; whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting." They know that the fulfillment is at hand. Whither shall they go? High time that one should be at rest. Shall they go to the inn—the khan or caravanserai? (See Farrar's sketch of that strange shelter for man and beast.) But the inn is full. There is no place in it for such as they. The necessity is urgent. And their refuge—so a tradition mentioned by Justin Martyr says—is a grotto or cave in the limestone rock on which the village stands, used as a stable for horses and a pen for cattle. The horses' manger is the cradle for the King of kings. Born there and thus, the precise date of the birth is not apparently determinable.