Manger

Manger (Greek phatne) refers to a feeding trough for animals, the object in which the infant Jesus was laid at his birth in Bethlehem (Luke 2:7, 12, 16). Luke uses the manger three times as a sign: the angels tell the shepherds that they will find the baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger — the specific, otherwise undignified detail that identifies the right child. The manger's presence implies Jesus was born in a space where animals were kept, whether a cave used as a stable (as early Christian tradition held) or a room in a house where animals were brought in at night.

The manger as a place for the infant Jesus carries rich theological irony: the creator of heaven and earth is placed in an animal's feeding trough. This is the first instance of the Lukan motif of reversal — the mighty brought low, the humble exalted (Luke 1:52–53). Luke also uses phatne in 13:15 for the stall from which an ox or donkey is loosed to be watered on the Sabbath, in Jesus's argument that loosing a bound woman on the Sabbath is even more fitting. Isaiah 1:3 — "the ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's manger" — has been read as an implicit prophecy of the nativity scene by early Christian interpreters.