Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - Luke 2:8 - 2:8
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Shepherds
Luke's Gospel is the gospel of the poor and lowly. This revelation to the shepherds acquires additional meaning as we remember that shepherds, as a class, were under the Rabbinic ban, because of their necessary isolation from religious ordinances, and their manner of life, which rendered strict legal observance well-nigh impossible.
Keeping watch (φυλάσσοντες φυλακὰς)
Φυλακή is sometimes used of a watch as a measure of time, as in Mat 14:25; Mar 6:48; Luk 12:38. So possibly here. See Rev. in margin, night-watches. There is a play upon the words: watching watches. There was near Bethlehem, on the road to Jerusalem, a tower known as Migdal Eder, or the watch-tower of the flock. Here was the station where shepherds watched the flocks destined for sacrifice in the temple. Animals straying from Jerusalem on any side, as far as from Jerusalem to Migdal Eder, were offered in sacrifice. It was a settled conviction among the Jews that the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem, and equally that he was to be revealed from Migdal Eder. The beautiful significance of the revelation of the infant Christ to shepherds watching the flocks destined for sacrifice needs no comment.
Their flock (τὴν ποίμνην)
May not the singular number fall in with what has just been said? - the flock, the temple-flock, specially devoted to sacrifice. The pronoun their would furnish no objection, since it is common to speak of the flock as belonging to the shepherd. Compare Joh 10:3, Joh 10:4.