2:16 lying in a manger. The fact that the babe was in a manger does not necessarily mean that the manger was in a barn or cave. In Luke 2:7, the word for “inn” (Greek kataluma) was the same as the word for “guestchamber” (Luke 22:11), the upper room where Christ and His disciples ate the last supper. Many homes of that time kept their animals on the ground floor, with the residents sleeping in rooms on the second floor. It may have been, in the ancestral home of Joseph’s family, the guest-chamber(s) were already occupied, so that Joseph and Mary had to stay on the ground floor where animals were usually housed.