The Lord would not allow the birth of His Son to go without praise and celebration. So after the darkness of night set in, the Lord sent angels to shepherds who were watching their flocks in the nearby agricultural fields of Bethlehem (meaning “house of bread”) so that the praise to God for the Messiah’s arrival might commence (Luke 2:8, 11–14).

Several pieces of evidence in Luke’s Gospel help us understand the events surrounding this angelic birth announcement. First, these shepherds were staying in the agricultural fields (Greek: agruleo). Those spending time on or near a farm are aware of the importance of keeping livestock separated from field crops. Our expectation is that the people in Bethlehem would have had a similar concern, particularly since Bethlehem was famous for its grain fields.

One would not expect to see livestock in these grain fields before the harvest. However, after the harvest was complete, the shepherds were welcome to bring their hungry animals into the fields so that they could nose through the stubble for leftover kernels the harvesters had missed. In return, the sheep left behind valuable manure that improved the quality of the soil, increasing the yield of those fields in the following season. That is why the shepherds would have been “living out in the fields” near Bethlehem.

Knowing these facts helps us place the probable date of Jesus’s birth between the months of June through September when the sheep would be in the agricultural fields of Bethlehem. Most scholars think the birth of Jesus took place in September or October.