THE ANGELS’ ANNOUNCEMENT TO SHEPHERDS IN THE FIELDS

LUKE 2:8–20

Angels had been waiting excitedly to announce the good news that would forever change the world. When the time came, they appeared over the fields of Bethlehem. As the shepherds watched their flocks that evening, angels shattered the night air with shouts and singing that echoed through the hills. Brilliant lights and booming voices sent the fear-filled shepherds scurrying for cover. When they found their feet, the shepherds realized that angels had delivered the message to them in these fields for a reason (Luke 2:8–20).

The village of Bethlehem was well known for its grain fields. In most parts of Judea,5 the narrow valleys that wind between the mountains provide limited space for field crops. Not so in the areas just east of Bethlehem. Here the valleys open and widen allowing farmers to plant acres of barley and wheat.6 While that precious grain was growing in the fields, the shepherds with their hungry flocks were required to keep their distance. But following the harvest, the shepherds were invited to bring their animals to the fields to nose through the stubble in search of kernels that had fallen through the hands of the harvesters. In return, the flocks left behind a deposit of manure that fertilized the soil in advance of the next planting season. Shepherds tending flocks in these fields received the remarkable announcement of the Messiah’s birth.

Sarcophagus frieze (300–330 AD) of the adoration of the shepherds.

Caves in the Bethlehem area were used as sheepfolds.
© Direct Design

Why did the angels bring this announcement of the new King’s birth to shepherds, and why to shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem? On the one hand, shepherds might be regarded as representatives of those who needed the message more than most. On the social scale of first-century Judea, shepherds ranked very near the bottom. Traditional Jewish teaching discouraged children from becoming shepherds because “their trade is the trade of thieves.”7 For that reason, no family was to purchase wool, milk, or young goats directly from a shepherd since these products were most likely stolen from their rightful owner.8 From the first-century perspective, shepherds needed more forgiveness and acceptance than most, so it is fitting that the announcement came to those who might value it the most.

On the other hand, these shepherds also connect to another set of shepherds we met earlier in Scripture: Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and David (Gen. 13:7; 46:32; Exod. 3:1; 1 Sam. 16:11). In each case, these previous shepherds received key components of God’s plan to rescue the world and anxiously awaited the day of Jesus’s birth. They died without realizing that dream, but the shepherds of Bethlehem who heard the angels’ message saw the fulfillment of all the promises the Lord had made to those shepherds of an earlier time.

The angels could have appeared to shepherds who lived anywhere in the Promised Land. Why did they come to the shepherds watching their flocks in these fields around Bethlehem? There was something special about the fields east of Bethlehem for they were used to raise a unique set of animals. Historically, these were the fields where the Temple shepherds cared for the animals that were used for sacrifices in Jerusalem.9 If that is the case, we find the announcement of the angels taking on new meaning, for the lambs over which the announcement of Jesus’s birth was trumpeted—the lambs destined for sacrifice at the Temple—were about to find their true purpose as symbols of the Lamb of God, who would take away the sins of the world. No wonder these shepherds returned from the manger praising and glorifying God. They realized that the angels had come to announce the birth of Jesus to them in these fields for a reason.

“Shepherds’ Fields” is a generic term for the agricultural grain fields east of Bethlehem.