Born In Bethlehem

"But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, are only a small village in Judah. yet a ruler of Israel will come from you, one whose origins are from the distant past." - Micah 5:2

Bethlehem was (and still is) a nowhere village located about five miles south of Jerusalem. Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth. Near the end of her pregnancy Augustus Caesar declared that a tax be paid and every man had to return to his home town to pay the tax. That meant that Joseph and Mary had to go to Bethlehem.

Joseph was a skilled craftsman and there is no reason to think he had no money to rent a room. However, when they arrived in Bethlehem all the rooms had been rented (Luke 2:7), so they found a place where they would be warm and comfortable for the night, and Jesus--the one who fullfilled all the prophecies about the Messiah in the Old Testament--was born into humble beginnings spending his first night on earth in a animal feed trough (a manger).