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[Note on the Date of the Nativity of Christ.—The fact mentioned by Luke, that the shepherds pastured their flock in the field of Bethlehem, is of itself not inconsistent with the traditional date of our Saviour’s birth. Travellers in Palestine differ widely in their meteorological accounts, as the seasons themselves vary in different years. But Barclay, Schwartz and others who give us the result of several years’ observations in Jerusalem, agree in the statement that during the rainy season from the end of October to March there generally occurs an interregnum of several weeks’ dry weather between the middle of December and the middle of February, and that during the month of December the earth is clothed with rich verdure, and sowing and ploughing goes on at intervals. Schubert says that the period about Christmas is often one of the loveliest periods of the whole year, and Tobler remarks, that the weather about Christmas is favorable to the feeding of flocks, and often most beautiful. The saying of the Talmudists, that the flocks were taken to the fields in March and brought home in November, had reference to the pastures in the wilderness far away from the cities or villages. Comp. on this whole subject S. J. Andrews: The Life of our Lord upon the Earth, p. 16 ff.
But while the statement of Luke cannot disprove the tradition of the Nativity, it can as little prove it. This tradition is itself of late origin and of no critical value. The celebration of Christmas was not introduced in the church till after the middle of the fourth century. It originated in Rome, and was probably a Christian transformation or regeneration of a series of kindred heathen festivals, the Saturnalia, Sigillaria, Juvenalia, and Brumalia, which were celebrated in the month of December in commemoration of the golden age of universal freedom and equality, and in honor of the unconquered sun, and which were great holidays, especially for slaves and children. (See my Church History, N. Y., vol. ii. p. 395 ff.) In the primitive Church there was no agreement as to the time of Christ’s birth. In the East the 6th of January was observed as the day of His baptism and birth. In the third century, as Clement of Alexandria relates, some regarded the twentieth of May, others the twentieth of April, as the birth-day of our Saviour. Among modern chronologists and biographers of Jesus there is still greater difference of opinion, and every month, even June and July (when the fields are parched from want of rain), have been named as the time when the great event took place. Lightfoot assigns the Nativity to September, Lardner and New-come to October, Wieseler to February, Paulus to March, Greswell and Alford to the 5th of April, just after the spring rains, when there is an abundance of pasture, Lichtenstein places it in July or December, Strong in August, Robinson in autumn, Clinton in spring, Andrews between the middle of December, 749, to the middle of January, 750 A. U. On the other hand, Roman Catholic historians and biographers of Jesus, as Sepp, Friedlieb, Bucher, Patritius, also some Protestant writers, defend the popular tradition, or the 25th of December. Wordsworth gives up the problem, and thinks that the Holy Spirit has concealed the knowledge of the year and day of Christ’s birth and the duration of His ministry from the wise and prudent to teach them humility.
The precise date of the Nativity can certainly be no matter of vital importance, else it would have been revealed to us. It is enough for us to know that the Saviour was born in the fulness of time, just when He was most needed, and when the Jewish and Gentile world was fully prepared for this central fact and turning point in history. For internal reasons the 25th of December, when the longest night gives way to the returning sun on his triumphant march, is eminently suited as the birth-day of Him who appeared in the darkest night of sin and error as the true Light of the world. But it may have been instinctively selected for this poetic and symbolical fitness rather than on historic grounds.—P. S.]
Luk_2:9. And, lo, an angel.—The whole narrative is evidently designed to impress us with the sudden and unexpected manner of the angelic apparition; while, at the same time, it is not denied that the susceptibility of the shepherds for the reception of the heavenly message may have been enhanced by their waiting for the redemption of Israel, their mutual discourse, and their sojourn, in the quiet solemn night, beneath the starry heavens. Meanwhile, the first preacher of the gospel stands suddenly before them.—The glory of the Lord which shone round them ( äü îá Êõñßïõ ðåñé Ýëáìøåí áὐôïýò ), is the ëְּáåֹã éäåָֹä , already known to them from the Old Testament. And it was the sight of this that filled them with fear.
Luk_2:9. And they were sore afraid or feared greatly ( ἐöïâÞèç óáí öüâïí ìÝãáí ).—The fear which we so often find mentioned in the sacred narrative, when man comes into immediate contact with the supernatural and the holy (comp., e.g., Luk_5:8; Luk_24:5), is not to be wholly attributed to the fact, that such contact was unexpected, and still less to a conviction of moral impurity before God, only. It seems rather, that the old popular belief, that he who had seen God would die (Jdg_13:22), had by no means disappeared even after the Babylonian captivity. This belief might also have been strengthened by traditional remembrance of the cherubim with the flaming sword at the gate of Eden. In any case, this superstitious fear is surely a better ὀóìὴ åὐùäßáò before God, than the incredulous scepticism of modern days concerning any angelic visitations.
Luk_2:10. To all the people.—Namely to Israel, to whom they belonged, as is expressed with the same particularity, Luk_1:33; Mat_1:21. The announcement of this truth to the shepherds, indirectly intimates, that other pious Israelites were soon to hear from them of the birth of their King. In Luk_2:17 we are told of the first fulfilment of this indirect command.
Luk_2:11. Christ, the Lord.—Not the Christ of the Lord, as He is called Luk_2:26, but the Messiah, who equally with the Jehovah of the Old Testament, bears the name Êýñéïò (com. Luk_23:2, and Act_2:36). The intimation that He was born in the city of David would recall Micah 5, which, according to Mat_2:5, was in those days universally understood to refer to Messiah.
[Alford: “This is the only place where these words ( ×ñéóôüò and Êýñéïò ) come together. In Luk_23:2, we have ×ñ . âáóéëÝá , and in Act_2:36, Êýñéïí êáὶ ×ñ . And I see no way of understanding this Êýñéïò , but as corresponding to the Hebrew Jehovah.” So also Wordsworth. This reference is the more probable, since Luke in Luk_2:9 uses Êýñéïò twice of Jehovah. The connection of Christ with Lord occurs also in Col_3:24, though in a somewhat different meaning, ôῷ Êõñßῳ ×ñéóôῷ äïõëåýåôå .—P. S.]
Luk_2:12. And this shall be the sign to you.—It happens here, as in the annunciation of the birth to Mary (Luk_1:36). A sign was vouchsafed, where none was asked,—God seeing that it was indispensably necessary, on account of the extraordinary nature of the circumstance; while Zachariah, who requested a sign, was visited with loss of speech. The sign now granted, is as wonderful as the occurrence just announced, yet one suited to the capacity of the shepherds, and at the same time infallible. The fear, as to whether they may approach the new-born King, and offer Him their homage, is dispelled by the intimation of His lowly condition, while their carnal views of the nature of His kingdom are thereby counteracted. Unless we suppose that the shepherds forthwith made inquiry in all the possible öÜôíáé of Galilee, whether a child had lately been born therein, we must conclude that their own well-known, and perhaps not far distant öÜôíç , was the one pointed out. If they would naturally have hastened thither first, we are not left to suppose, with Olshausen, that they were led by some secret influence upon their minds. Conjectures, which give offence to the sceptical, are best avoided, when not indispensably necessary.
2. It will not seem without significance, to any who appreciate the symbolic element of the Scriptures, that the first announcement was made to shepherds. Jehovah had Himself borne the name of the shepherd of Israel, and the Messiah had been announced under this designation by the prophets (Psalms 23; Ezekiel 34). David had pastured his flocks in this very neighborhood; and since the rich and mighty in Jerusalem were looking only for an earthly deliverer, it was undoubtedly among these humble shepherds that the poor in spirit and the mourners would be found, to whom the Lord Himself afterwards addressed His own preaching. There is something indescribably divine and touching in the care of God to satisfy the secret yearnings of individuals, at the same time when He is occupying Himself with the eternal salvation of millions. Man overlooks the masses in the individual, or neglects the individual in the masses; God equally comprehends the interests of both in His arrangements.
3. The glory of the Lord, which shone round the shepherds, consisted not alone in the dazzling brightness of the angel, but was manifested by the fact of his appearing, at such a moment, in such a place, to such men. An angel announces the birth of Jesus; no such announcement distinguishes the birth of John; and thus it is made evident from the very first, how much the King surpasses the forerunner. But for this angelic manifestation, how could the glad tidings have been communicated with infallible certainty, and who could have been more worthy of so august a proclamation than the Word made flesh? Yet the angel appears not in the manger, but visits the shepherds in the silent night-watches, in the open field; a circumstance which powerfully testifies, that the greatness which is to distinguish the Lord’s coming is a silent and hidden greatness. He appears to shepherds: God has chosen the mean things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. He speaks too in a manner suited to their comprehension and to their need, and impresses on the first preaching of the gospel that character indelebilis of all its after-announcements: “Great joy.” Surely we can hardly fail to perceive here also, somewhat of the ðïëõðïéêéëïò óïößá ôïῦ Èåïῦ , spoken of in Eph_3:10.
4. The Redeemer is here called Saviour, not Jesus. This name was first to be bestowed upon Him eight days later, in the rite of circumcision.—Born unto you: the word must have directed the attention of the shepherds to the fact, that a supply for the felt necessity of each individual soul was now provided. The sign granted to them is so peculiarly an exercise of their faith, that we might almost imagine we heard the new-born Saviour exclaim to those who were the first to come unto Him: “Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in Me.”
[5. From Dr. Richard Clerke (abridged): God has in every birth His admirable work. But God to be a child, Èåὸò ἐããÜóôñéïò , God in a woman’s womb, that is the miraculum miraculorum. The great God to be a little babe ( ìÝãáò Èåὸò ìéêñὸí âñÝöïò , St. Basil); the Ancient of days to become an infant (co-infantiari, St. Irenæus); the King of eternity to be two or three months old ( âáóéëåὺò áἰþíùí to be bimestris, trimestris), the Almighty Jehovah to be a weak man; God immeasurably great, whom heaven and earth cannot contain, to be a babe a span long; He that rules the stars to suck a woman’s nipple (regens sidera—sugens ubera, Augustine); the founder of the heavens rocked in a cradle; the swayer of the world swathed in infant bands;—it is ἔñãïí ἀðéóôüôáôïí , a Greek father says, a most incredible thing. The earth wondered, at Christ’s Nativity, to see a new star in heaven; but heaven might rather wonder to see a new Sun on earth.—P. S.]
Starke:—With God is no respect of persons.—Majus:—The glory of the Lord, of which the proud see nothing, shines round about the lowly.—The servants and messengers of the Lord must walk in the light.—Osiander:—The birth of Christ a remedy against slavish fear.—Divine revelation does not supersede our own diligence, investigation, and research, but extends to them a helping hand.
Heubner:—Everything here turns upon, 1. Who the new-born child Isaiah 2. for whom He is born; 3. and where.—Christmas joys, a foretaste and pledge of the joys of heaven.
Harless:—In Christ is joy for all the world; viz., 1. the divine message for the lowly; 2. the consolation for the fearful; 3. the satisfying of the individual yearnings; and 4. the appearance of the Salvation of the whole world.
Palmer:—The three embassies of God: He sends, 1. His Son to redeem us; 2. His angels to announce Him; 3. men to behold Him.
Hofacker:—The extensive prospect opened to our faith at Christ’s birth: 1. How far backward; 2. how high upward; 3. how far forward, it teaches us to look!—What should a heart filled with the devout spirit of Christmas consider? 1. The excellence of the first Christmas preacher; 2. the humility of the hearers; 3. the importance of the angelic Christmas sermon.
Couard:—Unto you is born this day a Saviour: 1. A Saviour is born; 2. a Saviour is born; 3. a Saviour is born unto you; 4. a Saviour is born unto you to-day.
Van Oosterzee:—The light appearing in the night.—The birth of Jesus a light in the darkness, 1. of ignorance; 2. of sin; 3. of affliction; 4. of death.
Thomasius:—The birth of the Lord in its relation to the history of the world: 1. As the end of the old world; 2. as the beginning of the new.
Arndt:—The first Christmas sermon. Nothing less is incumbent upon us than, 1. to understand it; 2. to believe it; 3. to obey it.
Footnotes:
Luk_2:10.— Ðáíôὶ ôῷ ëáῷ . The omission of the article in the Authorized Version unduly generalizes the sense. The people of Israel are here meant, for whom the angelic message was first, though, of course, not exclusively, intended.
Luk_2:12.—̓ ÅóðáñãáíùìÝíïí , swathed, or wrapped up in swaddling clothes or swathing bands. The paraphrastic rendering of the English Version from Tyndale to James was perhaps suggested by that of Erasmus: fasciis involutum. See Luk_2:7.
Luk_2:12.—The usual reading êáὶ before êåßìåíïí has no sufficient critical authority and was inserted to connect the two participles. Cod. Sinait. omits also êåßìåíïí and reads simply âñÝöïò ἐóðáñãáíùìÝíïí ἐí öÜôíῃ .
Luk_2:12.—The definite article ôῇ before öÜôíç in the text. rec. is wanting in the best authorities, also in Cod. Sin., and cancelled by the modern critical editors.—P. S.]