manger Summary and Overview

(Luke 2:7, 12, 16), the name (Gr. phatne, rendered "stall" in Luke 13:15) given to the place where the infant Redeemer was laid. It seems to have been a stall or crib for feeding cattle. Stables and mangers in our modern sense were in ancient times unknown in the East. The word here properly denotes "the ledge or projection in the end of the room used as a stall on which the hay or other food of the animals of travellers was placed." (See INN T0001883.)

This word occurs only in #Lu 2:7,12,16| in connection with the birth of Christ. It means a crib or feeding trough; but according to Schleusner its real signification in the New Testament is the open court-yard attached to the inn or khan, in which the cattle would be shut at night, and where the poorer travellers might unpack their animals and take up their lodging, when they mere either by want of means excluded from the house.

fatnee only in Luke 2:7; Luke 2:12; Luke 2:16, where the infant Jesus was laid, Luke 13:15 "the stall." The open courtyard attached to the inn or khan, with arcades around and terraces over them. However there are limestone caverns in the narrow long gray hill on which stands Bethlehem; and Justin Martyr, born at Sichem, only 40 miles off, A.D. 103, states that "Joseph lodged in a cave near Bethlehem." The "manger" was a crib in a stable or lower enclosure (which was possibly a cave as Justin Martyr says) attached to the inn or khan. (See INN.) The inn had apartments or cells above for travelers, and stalls for the cattle below. The upper platform, reached by steps, was probably occupied by the inn and its occupants; the lower level, from which the steps arose, was usually appropriated to cattle and goats, and on this occasion was used by Joseph and Mary on account of the crowded state of the regular inn or khan. Early Christian artists represent the scene of the nativity as an open courtyard with a crib or long trough.