Where was Jesus Born? Your answer will no doubt be Bethlehem, and you are correct, but did you know we can get closer than that, a lot closer in fact. Why is this important, because if we ignore facts that are written in the Bible then we risk missing out on other important facts that are also in the Bible.

Let me start with a slightly less well known few verses of the Bible.
King James Bible : Micah 5: 2: But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.
and whilst we are in Micah let us go back a few verses and see
King James Bible : Micah 4: 8: And thou, O tower of the flock, the strong hold of the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem.

In Youngs Literal Translation the "tower of the flock" is written as "tower of Eder" in the Hebrew it is Migdal Eder, Migdal in Hebrew means Strong Tower, that may not mean much at the moment but keep it in mind as you read on. Verse 5 told us Bethlehem Ephratah, this is the agricultural area in Bethlehem, so we have the area and the building name, but that wont mean a lot to most people, unless we go back 2000 years, so...

Hang onto that for a while and let me go through the Gospel story to fill out all the details. This time I am going to use Youngs Literal Translation of Luke 2 because Young translated one word in this version literally which is different to the King James version, so the Birth of Jesus as told by Luke:
1: And it came to pass in those days, there went forth a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world be enrolled —
2: this enrolment first came to pass when Cyrenius was governor of Syria —
3: and all were going to be enrolled, each to his proper city,
4: and Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, that is called Bethlehem, because of his being of the house and family of David,
5: to enrol himself with Mary his betrothed wife, being with child.
6: And it came to pass, in their being there, the days were fulfilled for her bringing forth,
7: and she brought forth her son — the first-born, and wrapped him up, and laid him down in the manger, because there was not for them a place in the guest-chamber.
8: And there were shepherds in the same region, lodging in the field, and keeping the night-watches over their flock,
9: and lo, a messenger of the Lord stood over them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they feared a great fear.
10: And the messenger said to them, 'Fear not, for lo, I bring you good news of great joy, that shall be to all the people —
11: because there was born to you to-day a Saviour — who is Christ the Lord — in the city of David,
12: and this is to you the sign: Ye shall find a babe wrapped up, lying in the manger.'
13: And suddenly there came with the messenger a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying,
14: Glory in the highest to God, and upon earth peace, among men — good will.'

The one word I want you to notice is "the", in the context of "the manger". The word "the" when you are talking about something refers to a specific something, when we point to an object and say the object you are defining it from every other object the same in the room, it is The object not just any object. So "The Manger" in Hebrew is referring to a specific Manger, this is also important as you will see very soon. But first notice another thing in the text what did the angels say to the shepherds, what directions did they give for the location of the babe? All they said was "Ye shall find a babe wrapped up, lying in the manger." Notice "the manger", obviously the shepherds must have a knowledge of what "the manger" is and where. They didn't have to search through the houses and streets of Bethlehem, looking into every stable for a newborn babe, they knew exactly where to go from that minimal description.

A few things to mention here, Bethlehem is the home town of Joseph, so you can be fairly certain that he has some relatives in the area. You can be certain Joseph had plenty of relatives in Bethlehem and the surrounding areas. In the middle east, even today if you are visiting a town in which you have relatives, you are not booking into the local Hyatt Hotel. Those relatives already have a guest room available and waiting for you.
Read the above verses again, notice how Young has translated the word Inn as Guest Chamber. In Greek, the word for Inn is "pandocheion" and guest chamber is "kataluma". We can see an example of the word Inn used in the parable of the good Samaritan, who paid for a room in Luke 10:34. So why did Joseph and Mary not stay with relatives around the area for the birth?
In Jewish law a woman who gives birth to a male child is unclean for 7 days due to the issue of blood, but not just the mother, it is everyone who is in the dwelling place and everyone who comes into contact with her, this is found in the Torah, Leviticus 12:2. This means that you cannot mix with anyone or go to the Temple, you cannot go shopping, you cannot go out anywhere for any reason, so Joseph has to find somewhere away from people, but it has to be clean and secure.

Let me give you a few more facts that anyone who is curious to know can find out for themselves and will be readily told if they ever visit Bethlehem and ask.
King David as a boy before he became King was a shepherd in the fields around Bethlehem (1 Samuel 17:15)
The manger would not have been made from wood, it would have been carved out of stone.
We are just a few miles away from Jerusalem and The Temple.

Every day 2 lambs were needed in the Temple for that daily sacrifice, 1 in the morning and 1 for the evening, so that is 730 lambs per year, plus the tens of thousands required for the festivals such as Passover. In the "History of the Jews" by Josephus he estimates the number of Lambs sacrificed as two hundred and fifty-six thousand in the Year that Jesus was crucified. How many ewes do you need to produce that number of lambs, and not just for one year but every year. Everyone in Israel knew that these sacrificial lambs came from Bethlehem and knew that they had to be 1 year old or under and without blemish Those lambs when they are born are stood in the manger and wrapped in swaddling cloth to protect them from injury in their early days. For those who do not know, swaddling cloth are the old priests garments that have become unsuitable for wearing in the temple and so those garments are torn into strips of cloth and called swaddling cloth.

Youngs Literal Translation : 2 Chronicles 26:10 "and he (King Uzziah) buildeth towers in the wilderness, and diggeth many wells, for he had much cattle, both in the low country and in the plain, husbandmen and vine-dressers in the mountains, and in Carmel; for he was a lover of the ground."
Here we see that King Uzziah built towers all over the countryside to water and protect his cattle. He may not have built the Tower of the Flock but this shows they were a common feature when looking after both cattle and sheep.

The story of Rachel and the birth of Benjamin in Genesis 35:16-21 we are told that Ephrath is Bethlehem we are told that Jacob set his tents just past "the Tower of Edar". Rachel died whilst giving birth and was buried, her tomb is still marked in that place today. This is slightly to the North of Bethlehem on the Hebron Road back towards Jerusalem. There is a memorial building built over the spot today. If you read the story in Genesis you will see that Rachel named her son Benoni which means in Hebrew "son of my pain or son of my sorrow" after Rachel died Jacob changed the babies name to Benjamin which means "son of the right hand". This also matches prophecy in the Bible for Benoni, Isaiah 53:3 " He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows..." and for Benjamin, Acts 2:34 "sit thou on my right hand...". Whilst we are still in the story of Rachel, in Hebrew Rachel means "ewe, a mature female sheep".

Swaddling cloths, are strips of cloth that have been torn into strips from the old robes of the Temple priests. That could be because they are worn out or stained in some way but they are no longer usable in the Temple.

OK let me piece this altogether for you, if you havnt already worked it out.

The Pregnant Ewes in these fields surrounding Bethlehem, would be taken to this Tower of the flock to give birth, there they would be afforded the best treatment as they gave birth and as soon as the lambs were delivered, the shepherds would clean and inspect them, remember there has to be no blemish. As a precaution the new born lambs are wrapped in swaddling cloths, this is done by standing them in the manger as they are wrapped, notice "The Manger", every new born lamb would have been placed into this same manger. They are then at a later date checked over by a priest from the temple to make sure that they are suitable and without blemish and suitable for sacrifice. As you may guess the shepherds were not the normal shepherd, but employed by the Temple to look after this flock, they were the first to inspect the new born lambs and so were the first to inspect the new born babe. They knew exactly where to go from that simple message from the angels, it was all they needed to hear, simply "The Manger" gave them the full detailed address. This tower of the Flock would have seen every lamb born to these ewe's, the place would have included both the tower and a secure compound. The tower so that look outs could keep watch and the secure enclosure to house the sheep during birth. With a little more understanding about the birth of Jesus, it places a whole new understanding and relevance on the events. O and just in case, the Wise men did not arrive for about another year to 18 months, but that will be another article.

So we in the gentile church have sanitised the birth into something so far removed from the truth that we have no idea about the symbolism and meaning of that birth. Another reason why I shout it out loud that we need to get back to the Jewishness of the Bible, because we are missing out on so much. Those shepherds, the so called lowest of the low, were the first to meet the Messiah, they inspected the lamb of God and made sure He was wrapped according to their high standards so that no injury came apon him and that He was without blemish. No priest would come for this birth, only those who got the news first from the angels and then from the shepherds themselves. They knew the prophecy from Micah, they knew the location of Migdal Eder, they knew the meaning of "the manger" and the chief priests the scribes and the leaders missed it because they were not watching even though they have studied the text and were able to tell the Wise men later when they arrived asking.