Luke 10:35 - "And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ "

There is little allusion to inns in the Old Testament, since the rigid laws of hospitality among the Hebrews made them unnecessary. It was a sacred duty to offer refuge within the home to any traveler. The first mention that we find of an inn is in the story of the return of Jacob’s sons from their visit with Joseph in Egypt. But, there too, the inn itself was in Egypt, not Palestine.

Whatever inns they had were located close to watering places and were probably just camping grounds, or, perhaps, just niches in the walls. The people who stayed there had to provide their own food, cooking utensils, and other provisions for living and sleeping. So, in the Old Testament period, we cannot speak of innkeepers, because there were none such.

However, by New Testament times, travel had increased, and it became necessary for stopping places to be provided for these travelers. Many of them provided accommodations for animals as well as people, since sometimes whole families, with all their possessions, would be on the move. We think at once, of course, of the first Christmas night, when Mary delivered her Child in the stable, because the innkeeper couldn’t find room for her in the inn.

Even at that, the innkeepers provided only the barest of necessities, and as absolute minimum of food and shelter. And, unfortunately, they were often thieves, who weren’t above stealing everything possible from their guests. In fact, the Mishnah (Yeb 16:7) says that the word of an innkeeper was doubted and (Ab Zar. 2:1) places them on the lowest scale of society. The same was true of female innkeepers. They certainly weren’t known for their high moral standards. In fact, Josephus and the rabbis considered Rahab an innkeeper, rather than a harlot, but it comes down to the same thing in the end.

Isn’t it nice to know that today, when we travel, we have clean, commodious hotels and motels at which we can stop to rest and refresh ourselves. We don’t have to worry about the hotel manager sneaking in in the middle of the night and stealing our wallets! And certainly the food and accommodations that are offered to us are designed with our comfort and well-being in mind.

I have wondered frequently what the innkeeper who cared for the man left lying by the wayside would have thought if he had been sent ahead to the twentieth century and given a hotel to manage. Pipe dreams? Perhaps, but intriguing, don’t you think? If we were given the choice, I don’t imagine any of us would take his inn over that managed so competently by the hotel or motel managers today.