But it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census should be made of all the habitable world.
Luke dates the birth of Jesus by a Roman tax order. The verse names the most powerful man alive and moves a whole empire, yet says nothing about God — so why does the Saviour's story start here?
The man named here was a real ruler whose life can be traced in ordinary history. He came to sole power after years of civil war, and his reach touched the land of Israel through Herod:
The first Roman emperor... upon the death of Lepidus he shared the empire with Antony, but both were too ambitious to share the kingdom. The battle of Actium, B.C. 31, went in Caesar's favour, and he reigned alone. Four years later he was confirmed as 'emperor' and 'Augustus' in B.C. 27... He confirmed Herod as king, and added Samaria and Gadara to his territory... The Lord Jesus was born during his reign.
The phrase is not a mistake, and it is not a claim that the census reached every nation on earth. It was the way Rome talked about itself:
It is clear that a decree of Augustus or any other emperor could not take effect outside the empire. But it was the phrase of the day, as we see in Acts 24:5. To a Roman, the city of Rome ruled the whole earth. The world and the empire were the same; everything outside counted for nothing. But the apostles had a true and larger view, as we may see in Acts 17:31, Hebrews 2:5, Revelation 3:10, and elsewhere.
Commentators differ over how wide the underlying Greek word can stretch elsewhere in Scripture, but they agree it means the inhabited earth, and that here it is used with imperial pride.
Reading this verse, one writer notes the sheer strangeness of the scene: a pagan emperor issuing orders in the very country where God's throne should have stood.
Instead of God dealing with Israel in grace, we see first the pagan emperor of the world — the head of Daniel's last empire. He is using his power in Emmanuel's land, and over the people of God, as though God did not know them... What a strange state of things sin has brought in!
The order proved how far Israel had sunk. It also did exactly what God intended, moving one couple to the one village the prophets had named:
The power of the world is set in motion by an act that proves its supremacy over the people of God. As His people, they should have been free from every rule except the immediate government of their God, which was their glory. The act proves the complete degradation and servitude of the people. Because of their sins, they are slaves to the nations in their bodies and in their possessions (see Nehemiah 9:36-37). But this act only carries out the marvellous purpose of God. It causes the Saviour-king to be born in the village where, by the testimony of God, that event was to take place.
Verse one records a decree from a man. Behind it stands another will entirely, and the two could not look more different:
But if there was a decree from Caesar, there was a most gracious purpose in God. Caesar might indulge his pride and count the world his own, in the exaggerated style of human ambition and self-satisfaction. But God was now showing what He was — and oh, what a contrast! By this very act, and by God's providence, the Son of God enters the world at the promised place, Bethlehem.
The contrast goes further. At the height of his power, Augustus had no idea what his own order was doing:
While he enjoyed this supremacy, the Roman Emperor had no idea that his Master was born in a village in Judea. His Master came in the lowest ranks of life, among the most despised tribe in the Emperor's realm. That one event changed the whole course of the world's history.
If a tax order carried out God's word once, the same hand is at work now:
There seemed no likelihood that the child would be born at Bethlehem. But the Emperor commanded that everyone should go to his own town for the census. God arranged it this way in His providence, to fulfil His word. So it is today. There is not a movement in the world that God is not ruling directly or overruling indirectly.
This verse also touches how a Christian treats government:
We cannot ignore the days that a government decrees... We have to be aware of the commands of the government. We must give Caesar's days what is due to them. We must be subject to the governing authorities. This lies at the very start of Christianity.
- Decree. One order from Caesar Augustus set a whole empire moving, and Luke dates the birth of Jesus by it.
- Dominion. "All the world" was Rome's own way of speaking: to a Roman, the empire and the world were the same.
- Degradation. The census proved Israel's servitude: slaves in body and property to the nations, in their own land.
- Design. The same order brought the Saviour-king to birth in Bethlehem, so a proud man's decree served God's promise.
- Dependence. If a tax order served God's word then, no movement today falls outside His ruling or overruling.
The census itself first took place when Cyrenius had the government of Syria.
A governor's name and a "first registration" tie the birth of Jesus to a dated moment in Roman records. That one line explains how a couple from Nazareth ended up in Bethlehem, and it has been argued over ever since.
The empire that ordered the count believed it was asserting its own ownership of the world. One writer sets the emperor's pride against what God was doing.
That was the thinking of the world — of the imperial power of that day, the great Roman empire. But if there was a decree from Caesar, there was a most gracious purpose in God. Caesar could feed his pride and call the world his own, in the overblown style of human ambition and self-satisfaction. But God was now showing what He was. What a contrast! By this very act, God's hand brings the Son of God into the world at the promised place, Bethlehem.
What makes it striking is the scale. An empire-wide order sent people back to their home towns, and it all came down to two unknown people.
It is wonderful that the whole machinery of the Roman Empire started moving to bring this about. An unknown couple, as the world saw them, reached their home city, Bethlehem, just in time for the birth of the One who would be the Saviour of the world. Yet so it was.
Some writers read the verse this way: the registration was ordered then, but carried out later under Quirinius. On that reading, the decree accomplished God's aim and no more.
The decree was not carried out at the time we are looking at here. But it went far enough to call the parents of our Lord from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem. That did not complete man's census; it fulfilled God's prophecy. God took care that it should be just fulfilled enough to carry out His purposes.
What happened to the census afterwards matters too.
Despite all this, the power of the world is working, without knowing it, to fulfil a prophecy about One it does not know. Once that is done, the plan falls away as if it had never been: "the census itself first took place when Cyrenius (or Quirinius) was governor of Syria" — some years afterward.
The ESV reads "the first registration"; Darby's version reads "the census itself first took place." Darby reads the sentence as a note about timing, not as the first count in a series.
Read the phrase this way — "The census itself first took place when Cyrenius was governor of Syria." It cannot mean "this first census." The wording would have been different for that. It should be read: "This census first took effect when Cyrenius was governor." I lean to that sense, since the census was not put into effect when Mary and Joseph went up. They went to be registered, but it does not appear that they ever were.
Critics have long used this verse to attack the reliability of Scripture. No general census of this date shows up in surviving Roman records.
Verse 1 already gives hunting ground to writers who deny that Scripture is accurate and without error. Secular records tell us nothing about any general census at this time… The question comes down to whether Quirinius carried out any administrative duties at the earlier date or not.
The answer offered is simple. The same man held office in Syria twice, so there could be two separate registrations.
He was governor of Syria in A.D. 6, and he then carried out a census — most likely the one Acts 5:37 mentions. That long created a difficulty about Luke's statement that Cyrenius held a census when the Lord was born, in B.C. 4. But Prof. A. W. Zumpt of Berlin states, on what seems good authority, that Cyrenius was governor of Syria twice: the first time from B.C. 4 to B.C. 1, which fits Luke 2:2 well.
The count listed people, not property. The Jews were also allowed to run it their own way, by city and family line.
The "taxing" mentioned in Luke 2:1-5 was probably not a valuing of property but a registration of persons… The Roman emperor ordered it, but it seems the Jews were allowed to carry out the census their own way, by city and family line.
- Decree — Caesar's order claimed the world as his own. God used it to place His Son in Bethlehem.
- Detail — the registration was by name and family line, not property, which is why Joseph went to David's town.
- Dispute — critics target this verse, since no general census of that date survives in Roman records.
- Defence — the answer offered: Quirinius held office in Syria twice, and the earlier term fits Luke's date.
- Design — commentators differ on whether Luke dates the decree or its later carrying out. They agree on the outcome: the plan went just far enough to fulfil prophecy, then lapsed.
And all went to be inscribed in the census roll, each to his own city
Luke's third verse looks like a line of paperwork. A whole empire takes to the road because one emperor wants a headcount — yet God is using that machinery to bring one poor couple to one small town.
The census set roads, families and officials moving across the empire. None of them knew why. Caesar had one aim in his order; God had another:
Caesar Augustus acts with his own subjects in view. Yet without knowing it, he is the means of fulfilling the prophecy that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem. The whole course of the world runs outside the current of God's thoughts. The one great fact for Him and for His kingdom here is the baby's birth at Bethlehem, and the emperor has no thought of it. The decree puts the world in motion, and God makes good His thoughts here below. God is carrying out His purpose of love, and man is blind to it. Who cared to notice the poor Jew, even if he belonged to the house and family of David? The things that mean nothing at all to man fill the heart and eye of God.
Prophecy spoken centuries earlier needed a whole population on the move:
It happened so that an unknown couple living in Nazareth would be forced to travel to Bethlehem. And this at a time when a woman would want the quiet and shelter of her own home. In Bethlehem the prophecy could be fulfilled that Micah wrote seven centuries earlier: the Saviour of the world would be born there. Thousands of people were set moving to bring about this one prophecy.
The wording describes a census taken by ancestry, not by address. That is why the journey could not be avoided:
In this case the emperor wanted to know not only the numbers but the nationalities of the people he reigned over. So when the order for this census went out, every man went to his own city. The order was absolute. Every Jew, wherever he lived, had to go up to his own city to be enrolled, on pain of a terrible penalty.
Some claim that Luke and Matthew disagree about where Jesus belonged. Luke's own wording answers that, since he uses the same phrase for both towns:
Notice that the same phrase is used for Nazareth in verse 39 as here for Bethlehem. That should restrain the criticism which has tried to set this writer of the Gospel against Matthew… Matthew starts with Bethlehem, but not in a way that means Joseph normally lived there. Mark speaks only of Nazareth. Luke deals with both, and takes Nazareth as his starting point.
Being counted by Rome was no neutral event for Israel. It measured how far the nation had fallen:
The power of the world is set in motion. It moves by an act that proves its rule over the very people who, as the people of God, should have been governed by God alone — and that direct government was their glory. The act proves how completely the people have been brought low and enslaved. They are slaves, in their bodies and in their goods, to the pagan nations, because of their sins (see Nehemiah 9:36-37). But this act only accomplishes the marvellous purpose of God.
The order was never carried out in full at that moment. One writer sees in this how exactly God works:
It was not carried out at that time as proposed. But it was carried out far enough to call the parents of our Lord from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem. That accomplished not man's census, but God's prophecy. God took care that it should be fulfilled just enough to carry out His purposes. It was not until some years later that Quirinius was governor of Syria. Then it was carried out in full.
The child brought to Bethlehem came as a subject of the man counting heads:
The circumstances of His birth show how complete the humiliation is that He has come into. Caesar is lord of the world, and orders it as he pleases, for his own purposes. How different a world this is from the one He made at the beginning! Yet He is in it as one under Caesar's rule. Joseph and Mary are brought out of Nazareth to Bethlehem, to be enrolled as of David's line.
- Decree — Caesar orders a count for his own ends, with no thought of what God is doing through it.
- Movement — every Jew had to travel to his family's city. So an unknown couple from Nazareth had no choice but Bethlehem.
- Servitude — Rome's roll call proved the people were slaves in body and goods. God alone should have governed them.
- Precision — God let the count run just far enough to fulfil prophecy. It was finished only years later, under Quirinius.
- Person — an emperor's order brought the Lord to Bethlehem. He entered His own world under Caesar's rule, enrolled as of David's line.
and Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city Nazareth to Judaea, to David's city, the which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David,
God said through Micah that Israel's ruler would come from Bethlehem, yet Joseph and Mary lived far north in Nazareth. A tax order from a pagan emperor moves them to that one village, and Luke ties the journey to Joseph's descent from David.
Luke says the census itself first took place under Quirinius, years later. So the order was not fully carried out at this moment. One writer draws out what that shows about God's control of world events:
It was not carried out at the time in view here as first proposed. But it was enough to call the parents of our Lord from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem. That accomplished not man's census, but God's prophecy. God took care that it should be fulfilled just enough to carry out His purposes.
The same writer adds a striking detail. Even the mother of the Messiah and His legal father had to obey the decree of the Roman emperor. God's own people were under Rome.
The prophecy behind this journey was already ancient. It said more than where the child would be born:
The proud Roman Emperor, Caesar Augustus, set all the machinery in motion to bring this taxing about. He little thought that it was to fulfil the Scripture: "But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days" (Micah 5:2). That prophecy came more than seven centuries before the birth of our Lord. In it we see His manhood, the place of His birth, and also the careful assertion of His deity.
Luke gives the reason for the journey: Joseph belonged to the house of David. That short note settles a legal question about the throne:
From the time a woman among the Jews was engaged, she was considered legally the wife of the man she was betrothed to. So the Lord, while really the Son of His mother Mary, was legally of Joseph; and both Joseph and Mary were of the royal line. So the Lord Jesus represented David on both sides. But as the law required, He was the descendant of Solomon on the legal side. He was without question the Son of Mary, descended from the Nathan branch. Yet by law He could not be Messiah while a living representative of the Solomon branch remained. Being the legally reputed Son of Joseph as well as Mary's child, the Lord was descended exactly as He needed to be, in every required respect "David's Son," the Messiah.
Joseph is the heir of a throne. Yet he is a village workman, travelling under orders from a foreign power. That contrast fulfils Scripture too:
He was an obscure village carpenter. This proved the truth of the prophet's words that the tabernacle of David had fallen down and lay in ruins (Amos 9:11). Yet he showed marks of true royalty according to God: in his mercy toward the weak and, as he thought, the failing, and in his trust in the Word of God and his obedience to it.
Luke calls Bethlehem "the city of David," and the name of the town itself points forward:
Bethlehem is "the House of Bread," fittingly the birthplace, long afterward, of Him who as the "Bread of God" came down from heaven to give life to the world. Judah, "praise," is the royal tribe through which in grace the "King" was to come. Praise always flows from knowing the fullness of blessing that is ours in Christ. So food and worship are closely connected — Bethlehem is in Judah.
- Decree. Caesar ordered a census for his own glory. It went just far enough to move Joseph and Mary — accomplishing not man's census, but God's prophecy.
- Prophecy. Micah named Bethlehem more than seven centuries earlier. He named the child's manhood, birthplace and deity too.
- Lineage. Luke's phrase "of the house and lineage of David" gives the reason for the journey. Legally through Joseph and truly through Mary, Jesus represented David on both sides.
- Ruins. The heir of the throne was a village carpenter. David's house still lay in ruins when its true King arrived.
- Bethlehem. The house of bread and the city of David received the One who would come down from heaven as the Bread of God.
to be inscribed in the census roll with Mary who was betrothed to him [as his] wife, she being great with child.
Joseph travels to Bethlehem to register, and Mary goes with him, close to giving birth. Two questions sit in the verse: what did a betrothal mean in law, and why would a pregnant woman make that journey at all?
The verse calls Mary Joseph's betrothed, and that word carried legal weight. One writer explains what it meant for the Child's descent from David:
Once a Jewish woman was betrothed, the law counted her as the wife of the man she was promised to. So the Lord was really the Son of His mother Mary, and legally the son of Joseph. Both Joseph and Mary were of the royal line. The Lord Jesus, therefore, represented David on both sides; but as the law required, He was the descendant of Solomon on the legal side. He was the Son of Mary and descended through Nathan's branch of David's family. Even so, He could not be the Messiah under the law while a living representative of Solomon's branch remained. But the Lord was counted by law as Joseph's son, as well as being Mary's child. So His descent was exactly what was needed to make Him "David's Son," the Messiah, in every required respect.
The place of the Messiah's birth was named long before Mary was born:
More than seven hundred years before the birth of Christ the prophet Micah had said in the name of Jehovah, "But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days." The chief priests and scribes quoted these words when Herod asked where Christ should be born. So they took them as a prediction of the Messiah's birthplace. But Mary's home was at Nazareth in Galilee, and the time was drawing near for the birth of her holy Child.
The emperor issued his order for his own reasons. He was serving another purpose without knowing it:
Caesar Augustus acts for the sake of his subjects. Yet without knowing it, he is the means of fulfilling the prophecy that Jesus should be born in Bethlehem... All the world is in movement to bring about one event that prophecy required. The poor carpenter, with Mary, His betrothed wife, must be in the city of David, and David's heir must be born there and then... Who cared to notice the poor Jew, though he might be of the house and line of David? The things that are completely unimportant to man fill the heart and eye of God.
Enrolling meant admitting that Rome ruled them:
Even the people of God were placed in servitude. Remarkably, the mother of the Messiah had to obey the decree of the Roman Emperor, and so did His legal father. They went up for the census to their own city, the city of David, Bethlehem, and so fulfilled the prophecies... The decree was not carried out at the time proposed here. But it went far enough to call the parents of our Lord from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem. That accomplished not man's census, but God's prophecy.
Christ came into a world that Caesar governed:
The circumstances of His birth show how complete the humiliation is into which He has come. Caesar is lord of the world, and orders it as he pleases, for his own purposes... yet He is in it as under Caesar's rule, Joseph and Mary being brought out of Nazareth to Bethlehem to be enrolled as of David's line. Despite all this, the power of the world is working, without knowing it, to fulfil a prophecy about One it does not know. Once this is done, the plan drops as if it had never been.
A woman that near to childbirth would not travel by choice. One writer notes what met her when she arrived:
The virgin who lived at Nazareth had to be taken to Bethlehem. There she gave birth to Him whose kingdom would in time break the Roman empire in pieces and fill the whole earth. She was poor. Naturally she would not have left Nazareth at such a time. They seem to have been friendless too, at Bethlehem. The inn was crowded. No one offered them a home.
- Decree — Caesar orders a census for his own ends, and never knows what purpose he really serves.
- Journey — that decree lifts a poor couple out of Nazareth and puts them in Bethlehem just as Mary's time comes.
- Title — "betrothed wife" is a legal standing. Mary's Son is hers by birth and Joseph's by law, so David's line reaches Him on both sides.
- Fulfilment — Micah named the village seven hundred years earlier. The census accomplished not man's count but God's prophecy.
- Cost — they reached Bethlehem poor and friendless, and no one gave them a home. Once the decree had served its hidden purpose, it lapsed as though it had never been.