Bethlehem

Bethlehem (Hebrew Beth-lehem, "house of bread") was a small town in the hill country of Judah about six miles south of Jerusalem, anciently called Ephrath or Ephrathah (Genesis 35:19; Micah 5:2) and so distinguished from another Bethlehem in Zebulun. Modest in size and never of political importance, it holds a place in Scripture far out of proportion to its smallness, for it is bound up with the line of David and, supremely, with the birth of the Messiah.

Bethlehem first appears as the place near which Rachel died bearing Benjamin and was buried by the road (Genesis 35:19–20). It is the stage of the book of Ruth: there, when "the house of bread" had emptied in famine and filled again at the barley harvest, the Moabitess Ruth gleaned in the field of Boaz, who as kinsman-redeemer took her to wife — and the women of Bethlehem blessed the union from which sprang the royal line (Ruth 1:22; Ruth 4:11). Above all it is "the city of David": the home of Jesse, where the youngest son David kept the sheep and was anointed king by Samuel from among his brothers (1 Samuel 16:1, 13), and the town for whose well-water the exiled David once longed (2 Samuel 23:15).

From this royal association the prophet Micah drew his great oracle: "But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days" (Micah 5:2). The Gospels record its fulfilment. Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the days of Herod the Great, when Joseph went up from Nazareth to the city of David for the Roman census, so that the Son of David was born in David's town (Luke 2:4–7; Matthew 2:1). There the shepherds heard the angelic announcement of "a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord" (Luke 2:11), and there the Magi, guided by the star and by the priests' citation of Micah, came to worship him (Matthew 2:4–6).

The town's joy was pierced by sorrow when Herod, seeking to destroy the infant king, ordered the slaughter of all the boys of Bethlehem two years old and under — a horror in which Matthew heard the echo of Jeremiah's "Rachel weeping for her children" (Matthew 2:16–18; cf. Jeremiah 31:15). Yet the abiding significance of Bethlehem is its gospel irony: the "house of bread" became the birthplace of the Bread of Life (John 6:35), and the least of Judah's towns brought forth the everlasting King, a standing sign that God chooses the small and lowly to accomplish his greatest purposes. The traditional site of the Nativity has been honoured by Christians since antiquity in the Church of the Nativity.