from haRold Smith
based in Jerusalem, Israel
"In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
"And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, 'Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all, the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.' And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!'
"When the angels went away from them, the shepherds said to one another, 'Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.' And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them." Luke 2:1-20
Luke’s original audience would have immediately picked up on the religious significance of the Bethlehem shepherds watching their flocks by night. Aware of the Tanakh (Old Testament) and the Jewish Temple worship of the day, they would have known that when you said Bethlehem, you said "sacrificial lambs". The hills around Bethlehem were home to the thousands of lambs used in ritual worship in the Temple. David, as a boy from Bethlehem, likely tended sheep destined for the daily offerings or used in the sacrifices on the high holidays in these very hills. Every day, according to the Torah, two lambs were required for sacrifice in the Temple, meaning that 730 were needed each year plus the tens of thousands more lambs needed by families at Pesach (Passover) and for other religious rituals. When you say Bethlehem, you say sacrificial lambs.
The twice-daily offering of a male lamb as commanded in the Torah was known as the tamid (meaning the continuous offering). It was the first offering and the last offering of each day (Numbers 28:1-8 click on highlighted verse to see scripture). The Hebrew word tamiym, (translated for lambs "without spot or blemish") means complete, whole, entire, sound and is the same word used as "perfect" describing Noah in Genesis 6:9 and by YHVH to Abraham in Genesis 17:1. It was during the hour of the final sacrifice of the day that Yeshua was offered up as that sacrificial lamb, once and for all, continually, as the atonement for the ignorance of what it means to be separated from the Presence of YHVH, becoming the motivation behind Yeshua's words, "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:33-35).
Hearing that Yeshua was born in Bethlehem would have automatically triggered an image of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, the sin of the choices of men which result in a separation from the Presence of the Holy One of Israel beginning with Adam in
Genesis 3.
With that in mind, it’s easy for us to imagine one of Luke’s listeners saying, “Of course the Lamb of God would originate in Bethlehem - all the lambs for sacrifice came from there.” It would be natural for them to pick up on this imagery.
Every event in Yeshua's life moved toward His prophesied death. On the night of His birth, an angel appeared to the shepherds who were out in the fields, "keeping watch over their flock by night" and instructed them: "…you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger" (Luke.2, above). The shepherds immediately responded, "Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which haShem (the Name) has made known to us" (v. 15). Where would they have known to go?
Micah, the Jewish prophet who foretold of haMashiach's (the Messiah's) birth in Bethlehem, also prophesied, "And you, O Tower of the Flock (in Hebrew Migdal Eder), the stronghold of the daughter of Zion, unto you shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem" (Micah 4:8). Although obscure and often overlooked, Micah disclosed that the Messiah, who embodied the hope of the Kingdom, "was to be revealed from Migdal Eder, `the Tower of the Flock'."
Close by where the shepherds were camped that night, in the northern part of Bethlehem on the road to Jerusalem (less than an hour's journey by foot), was the tower known as Migdal Eder, the "watch-tower of the flock." This was the station where shepherds cared for their flocks destined for sacrifices in the Temple. For animals found as far from Jerusalem to the north of Bethlehem and within that circuit on every side, the males were offered as burnt-offerings, the females as peace-offerings.
On the night in which Yeshua was born, the angel's message came to those priests of the Temple whose duties had been designated, often from their youth, to "keeping watch over their flock." These were not just any flock and herd. The shepherds who kept them were men who were specifically trained for this royal task. They were educated in what an animal that was to be sacrificed had to be and it was their job to make sure that none of the animals were hurt, damaged or blemished. These lambs were apparently wrapped in "swaddling cloths" (a gauze-like cloth - not a birthing cloth) to insure protection from injury - also used to wrap Yeshua haMashiach. During lambing season the sheep were brought to the tower from the fields, as the lower level functioned as the birthing room for sacrificial lambs. Being themselves under special rabbinical care, these priests would strictly maintain a ceremonially clean birthing place. Once birthed, the priestly shepherds would routinely place the lambs in the hewn depression of a limestone rock known as a "manger" and "wrap the newborn lambs in swaddling clothes," preventing them from thrashing about and harming themselves "until they had calmed down" so they could be inspected for the quality of being "without spot or blemish" (ibid, Mishnah. the Jewish oral tradition & Alfred Edersheim, the Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah).
There was no need for the angels to give these shepherds directions to the birth place because they already knew. These were the men who raised sacrificial lambs that were sacrificed in the Temple. When the angelic announcement came, they knew exactly where to go, as Luke 2 indicates, for the sign of a manger could only mean their manger at the base of the Tower of the Flock! You cannot explain the meaning or direction of the sign they were given or their response unless you have the right manger and the right shepherds.
Tradition would have us believe that Joseph and Mary were "stuck" in a stable as a means of last resort to give birth to the Son of haShem. However, there is no evidence found anywhere in scripture to support that assertion. Boaz was the great-grandfather of King David (1Chronicles 2:12-15, Matthew 1:5-6). of whose lineage came Joseph, wedded to Mary, who gave birth to Yeshua known as haMashiach (the Messiah). Boaz owned a threshing floor in Bethlehem which, by right of inheritance, was handed down to succeeding generations within the lineage of David (Ruth 2:4, Ruth 3:1-2). Herod may have been King in Israel, but the Caesar (emperor) was Augustus. Augustus ordered a census of the entire Roman world, which meant that all people had to return to their place of birth. Joseph was a descendant of the house and line of David and so returned from Nazareth in Galilee, to the family home in Bethlehem in Judea which had subsequently been turned into an inn (Bethlehem was the town of David). Mary, betrothed to Joseph, went with him.
According to the Torah, when a woman had an issue of blood for any reason, she was ritually unclean for that time and for seven days thereafter. She remained ceremonially unclean until she was purified by entering a mitzvah (water immersion) in the witnessing presence of a rabbi. While she was ritually unclean, she had to live separately from the rest of the family so as not to defile the people in the household and by her presence rendering them ceremonially unclean. Therefore, during those times, the woman would leave and stay in a nearby area where she would not defile the home. (Leviticus 15:19-23). During childbirth and with the issue of blood loss, the same rule applied to women giving birth. If she were to give birth in the common living area, she would defile the family and make it necessary for them to be ceremonially purified by both a ritual immersion and a sacrifice; therefore, women would leave the home and give birth elsewhere. After the cessation of blood and the required time of waiting for purification, the woman and child would perform the necessary rituals of purification to be ceremonially clean and return to the household with the rest of the family. Thus, with this understanding, there being "…no place for them in the inn" would be regarded as appropriate. But this is no indication that she would be summarily ostracized to reside in a stable of animals by her family who cared for her well-being.
Just above the shepherd’s field, northeast of modern Bethlehem, lie the ruins of ancient Bethlehem Ephratah (Micah 5:2); Genesis 35:19 and 48:7 both state that Rachel was buried at "Ephrath, which is Bethlehem." Ephrath or Ephrathah was the ancient name for the area that was also called Bethlehem. According to Moshe Bronstein, prominent Israeli archeologist, this site can only be called “an alternative site for the birth of Christ, because of the classified 'official site' in the Church of the Nativity." A modern map shows the traditional place of the Shepherd's Field as being about 300 meters from the Basilica of the Nativity. This church has a long history in tradition as the place of the birth of Christ going back to Origen of Alexander in the 2nd Century who said that Jesus was born in a cave located in Bethlehem. It is entirely possible that this cave or grotto under the Basilica was used to keep sheep. However, based on the biblical record of Micah 4:8 and the other evidences, we must conclude that Yeshua was not born in the stable of an inn where donkeys and other animals were kept. Bronstein said that in 1981, a mosaic tile inscription, written in Greek, was found in these more recently discovered ruins that revealed, “Christ was born here.” Unfortunately, shortly thereafter, the inscription disappeared and no one knows what happened to it.
Dr. Carl Baugh, president of Creation Evidence Museum in Glen Rose, Texas, is currently excavating this site. When first approached by Moshe Bronstein, Dr. Baugh was offered the opportunity to excavate his choice of several sites in Israel. He chose to excavate at the site of the "Tower of the Flock". When Bronstein asked him why he wanted to dig there, Dr. Baugh said that he believed Christ was born at the "Tower of the Flock" - rather than in the cave beneath the church of the Nativity. What makes the "Tower of the Flock" so important, he said, is that it was the place where the Temple sacrifices were proven. Because Bethlehem was famous for its sheep and goats (the animals used for Temple sacrifices), the "Tower of the Flock" was thought to be the inspection station for the sacrificial lambs.
Dr. Baugh told of a huge door, weighing some 600 pounds that was found at this site. On it were carvings of ancient Israeli Temple motifs - four sets of angel’s wings, a menorah, a picture of the Urim and Thummim and the symbol for the house of David. Behind the door, the archeologists found three underground chambers, and surmised that they were used for inspecting the sacrificial animals. They also found the mosaic tile inscription previously mentioned, saying that it was the birthplace of Yeshua. It seems reasonable that Joseph and Mary would have come to their family’s ancestral home hoping that the Savior would be born in the place where David was born. The archeologists are also convinced that they have found the ruins of an inn about forty yards up the hill. It does not take a leap of imagination to envision how Joseph and Mary, coming from a family whose local roots went back centuries and contained the seed of royalty, could have found her birthing place in the sacrificial birth room of the Temple of YHVH. It is so like the Father to arrange it.
Yeshua was born earlier, in the fall, during the festival of Sukkoth, "the Feast of Tabernacles." John 1:14 tells us that the Word (Yeshua) became flesh and "dwelt" among us. The Hebrew word for dwell is shakan and means "tabernacle". By inserting the proper wording, the scripture now reads, "The Word became flesh and Tabernacled among us" (Exodus 29:45).
Yeshua was 33½ years old at the time of his death. He began His ministry at age 30 (Luke 3:23) lasting for 3½ years. His baptism by John the Baptist came several months prior to the first Passover of His ministry (John 1:33-34, John 2:13, John 2:23). In John 4:35, Yeshua mentions that the harvest was four months away. Therefore, at this time, He is coming up to the second Passover as the harvest happens at about the same time as Passover. John 6:4 mentions another Passover, the third, followed by Tabernacles and the Dedication. The final, fourth, Passover is mentioned in John 11:55. Using this chronological information, it appears that Yeshua's ministry lasted around 3½ years. He was crucified at Pesach (John 19:13-15) which occurs in the spring. Dialing back six months puts us into early fall which is when Sukkoth is marked in late September to early October (depending on the lunar cycle).
It is noteworthy to observe that in this time of wide spread celebration of the birth of the Son of Truth nothing about marking this event is celebrated IN Truth. In fact, this event, coming to be known as Christmas, has become the complete antithesis of Truth. Regardless of where your belief reference lies regarding Yeshua, there were some simple instructions given to Gentile believers coming into the faith of this One True God of Israel in
Acts 15:20.
We are told, in no uncertain terms, to not partake of anything sacrificed to idols - period. And, yet, my email box has been stuffed from people who say they believe in Truth that are full of references and well wishes to this modern idol of mammon, trees and to other gods
(Exodus 20:3,
Jeremiah 10:1-5,
Matthew 6:24).
For centuries, this has been the tradition of "Christian-think" - we are free by God's "grace" to do whatever we want. If we embrace something that is clearly against His standards but not quite reprehensible enough to us, we can "pray" over it enough, use the "right" lingo and "presto", it becomes transformed into something YHVH "winks at" for us to partake of. Yeshua, "Jesus", is not the reason for this season. He has nothing to do with it.
What we give obeisance to is what we worship. Pagan rituals of any sort (Christmas, Easter, Valentine's Day, Halloween, etc) are an indication of worship. Most believers and scholars agree that Christmas is not based in Yeshua's birth. Regardless of from where it has its roots (a quick Google search on "the origins of Christmas" will show where) - if we know the Truth, then why would we want to compromise what we know as Truth to settle for something less than Truth regardless of how attractive it may seem? And then, by extension, by the acquiescence of our actions, teach our children to believe a lie? The world does not acknowledge God and Yeshua during Christmas, they fall at the feet of and worship the idol mammon. When believers in Yeshua attempt to paint a false face on this blatant idol worship to try and make it more palatable for them so they can participate in it and not feel ostracized, they are not worshipping the One True God of Israel. You cannot serve two masters.
| "But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth: for the Father seeks such to worship him." John 4:23 |