The interest attached to this word is in connection with the birth of Christ (Luke 2:7-16). The word is φάτνη, which in classical Greek is used for a “manger” or “feeding trough”; but it has been doubted whether the modern manger was introduced into Palestine so early. Sehleusner contends that the word implies in scripture “any enclosure, but especially a vestibule to the house, where the cattle were, not enclosed with walls, but wooden hurdles.” With this agrees the Vulgate præsepe and the Peshito-Syriac. The word φἀτνη occurs in the LXX (2 Chron. 32:28; Job 6:5; Job 39:9; Prov. 14:4; Isa. 1:3; Joel 1:17; Hab. 3:17).