And all they that heard it
What the shepherds related of what they had heard from the angel,
and from Joseph and Mary, and what they had seen themselves;
wondered at those things that were told them by the
shepherds:
for though they expected the Messiah, and that he would be born
at Bethlehem, yet they did not imagine that he would be born of
such mean parents, and appear in such mean circumstances, and in
so contemptible a place; and that shepherds, and not the princes
of Israel, should have the first notice of it; and yet the
account which these shepherd, who were plain hearted men, and
could never be thought to invent such a story, and spread it, and
impose on men, without any interest in it, was very surprising;
so that they knew not what to say to it, neither to deny, nor
believe it; accordingly, the Persic version renders the whole
thus, "and whoever heard, wondering, stuck at it"; hesitated
about it, and yet astonished at the particulars of it; just as
Christ's hearers were in ( Luke 4:22 ) who wondered
at his ministry, and the manner of it, and yet objected the
meanness of his parentage and education.