And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city - The Roman census was an institution of Servius Tullius, sixth king of Rome. From the account which Dionysius of Halicarnassus gives of it; we may at once see its nature.
"He ordered all the citizens of Rome to register their estates according to their value in money, taking an oath, in a form he prescribed, to deliver a faithful account according to the best of their knowledge, specifying the names of their parents, their own age, the names of their wives and children, adding also what quarter of the city, or what town in the country, they lived in." Ant. Romans. l. iv. c. 15. p. 212. Edit. Huds.
A Roman census appears to have consisted of these two parts:
1. The account which the people were obliged to give in of their names, quality, employments, wives, children, servants, and estates; and
2. The value set upon the estates by the censors, and the proportion in which they adjudged them to contribute to the defense and support of the state, either in men or money, or both: and this seems to have been the design of the census or enrolment in the text.
This census was probably similar to that made in England in the reign of William the Conqueror, which is contained in what is termed Domesday Book, now in the Chapter House, Westminster, and dated 1086.

And all went to be taxed,.... Throughout Judea, Galilee, and Syria; men, women, and children,
every one into his own city; where he was born, and had any estate, and to which he belonged.

went . . . to his own city--the city of his extraction, according to the Jewish custom, not of his abode, which was the usual Roman method.

Every one to his own city. It was the Jewish custom to enroll by tribes and families. Joseph was of the family of David, and would have to be enrolled where that family had its landed inheritance.