The Road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem
The Holy Family returned from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. How long they remained at Bethlehem, and how they lived while there, we do not know. It was sometime between this and the day of their departure for Egypt that the Wise Men arrived in Jerusalem from the Far East asking the question which was strange and startling tidings to Herod and to the people of Jerusalem. They came saying: “Where is He that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen His star in the East, and are come to worship Him.” Herod gathered the chief priests and scribes together and learned from them that Bethlehem was to be the birth-place of the Messiah according to the prophet; and he then sent the Wise Men to make further inquiry concerning the child and then to report the result of their investigation to him. And “when they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the East, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.” Our view above of the present road to Bethlehem is very fine, as it presents the present appearance of the highway from the Jaffa gate to the gate of Bethlehem. When the writer went from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, in 1863, he was compelled to ride on horseback, there being neither carriage road nor carriage in the land of Palestine. In 1887 we found a broad and smooth macadamized road on which were carriages, and horses, mules and camels, men and women, all making a very busy scene. The picture looks toward the south. We stand just outside the Jaffa gate on the west. Beyond us are the hills of Judea.
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