Birth and Infancy of Jesus

122:6.1The home of Je­sus was not far from the high hill in the northerly part of Naz­a­reth, some dis­tance from the vil­lage spring, which was in the east­ern sec­tion of the town. Je­sus’ fam­ily dwelt in the out­skirts of the city, and this made it all the eas­ier for him sub­se­quently to en­joy fre­quent strolls in the coun­try and to make trips up to the top of this near-by high­land, the high­est of all the hills of south­ern Gal­i­lee save the Mount Ta­bor range to the east and the hill of Nain, which was about the same height. Their home was lo­cated a lit­tle to the south and east of the south­ern promon­tory of this hill and about mid­way be­tween the base of this el­e­va­tion and the road lead­ing out of Naz­a­reth to­ward Cana. Aside from climb­ing the hill, Je­sus’ fa­vorite stroll was to fol­low a nar­row trail wind­ing about the base of the hill in a north­east­erly di­rec­tion to a point where it joined the road to Sep­pho­ris.

122:6.2The home of Joseph and Mary was a one-room stone struc­ture with a flat roof and an ad­join­ing build­ing for hous­ing the an­i­mals. The fur­ni­ture con­sisted of a low stone ta­ble, earth­en­ware and stone dishes and pots, a loom, a lamp­stand, sev­eral small stools, and mats for sleep­ing on the stone floor. In the back yard, near the an­i­mal an­nex, was the shel­ter which cov­ered the oven and the mill for grind­ing grain. It re­quired two per­sons to op­er­ate this type of mill, one to grind and an­other to feed the grain. As a small boy Je­sus of­ten fed grain to this mill while his mother turned the grinder.

122:6.3In later years, as the fam­ily grew in size, they would all squat about the en­larged stone ta­ble to en­joy their meals, help­ing them­selves from a com­mon dish, or pot, of food. Dur­ing the win­ter, at the evening meal the ta­ble would be lighted by a small, flat clay lamp, which was filled with olive oil. Af­ter the birth of Martha, Joseph built an ad­di­tion to this house, a large room, which was used as a car­pen­ter shop dur­ing the day and as a sleep­ing room at night.