Luke 2:7, No Room at the Inn

We can work with that number, though. How many of these 3.5 million came from David? He had 19 sons that we know of. God only knows how many kids David’s son Solomon had, with his hundreds of wives and concubines and his legendary sexual prowess. But for now, let’s concentrate on just King David. If archaeological estimates are correct that David reigned over a nation of about 20,000 people, that would be about 10,000 males, and David and his sons accounted for 20 of them – .1%.

So, if estimates of the number of Jewish descendants in the time of Jesus are correct at 3.5 million, then a rough guess is that .1%, or 3,500, were descendants of David alone.

If Bethlehem housed around 300 people, and had 3,500 descendants of David alone traveling there for registration, then how many thousands more would there be? This number doesn’t even count anyone else living in Bethlehem at the time of David! No wonder there was no room at the inn for Joseph and Mary.