Mathew the line of jesus

The Lineage of the King

1:1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham:

² Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot Judah and his brothers. ³ Judah begot Perez and Zerah by Tamar, Perez begot Hezron, and Hezron begot Ram. ⁴ Ram begot Amminadab, Amminadab begot Nahshon, and Nahshon begot Salmon. ⁵ Salmon begot Boaz by Rahab, Boaz begot Obed by Ruth, Obed begot Jesse, ⁶ and Jesse begot David the king.

David the king begot Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah. ⁷ Solomon begot Rehoboam, Rehoboam begot Abijah, and Abijah begot Asa. ⁸ Asa begot Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat begot Joram, and Joram begot Uzziah. ⁹ Uzziah begot Jotham, Jotham begot Ahaz, and Ahaz begot Hezekiah. ¹⁰ Hezekiah begot Manasseh, Manasseh begot Amon, and Amon begot Josiah. ¹¹ Josiah begot Jeconiah and his brothers about the time they were carried away to Babylon.

¹² And after they were brought to Babylon, Jeconiah begot Shealtiel, and Shealtiel begot Zerubbabel. ¹³ Zerubbabel begot Abiud, Abiud begot Eliakim, and Eliakim begot Azor.
¹⁴ Azor begot Zadok, Zadok begot Achim, and Achim begot Eliud. ¹⁵ Eliud begot Eleazar, Eleazar begot Matthan, and Matthan begot Jacob. ¹⁶ And Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ.

¹⁷ So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, from David until the captivity in Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the captivity in Babylon until the Christ are fourteen generations.

—Matthew 1:1–17

In Jewish history the most natural and essential way to begin the story of a man’s life is to give his genealogy. This passage, which might appear uninteresting, is of great importance in Jewish history. Josephus, the great Jewish historian, writing his own autobiography, began with his personal pedigree. King Herod the Great was despised by the pure-blooded Jews because he was half Edomite. As a consequence, Herod destroyed official registers so that others could not prove a more authentic pedigree than his own!

Matthew begins by calling this “The Book of the Genealogy of Jesus Christ,” a common phrase among the Jews when giving reference to the record of a man’s lineage.

During a preaching mission in India in 1969, I learned of a young Hindu man who came to Christ by reading the first chapter of Matthew. When asked what there was about the genealogy which led to his conversion, he stated that for the first time he had found a religion which is actually rooted in history in contrast to the mythology of Hinduism and Buddhism. Matthew roots his Gospel in history, beginning with the lineage of the King. It is the lineage of salvation history, of Heilsgeschichte. This salvation history expresses the acts of God in history, His unfolding of a revelation of Himself, having chosen the people of Israel as the channel through whom He would bring the Messiah as Savior for the world.

Matthew’s first reference is to Jesus Christ as “the Son of David,” a reference to the royal kingly line; and as “the Son of Abraham,” a reference to the line of promise or line of grace. Matthew begins his genealogy with Abraham, the man who was called the friend of God, the father of the way of faith, showing that Jesus fulfilled Israel’s hopes.

We are reminded in verse 2 of the many occasions in the Old Testament when God identified Himself as the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. A personal friend of mine, Dr. Robert Lamont, for twenty years pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, once gave me the following very stimulating sermon outline to elaborate the significance of this Old Testament reference: He is the God (1) of differing personalities; (2) of varying circumstances; and (3) of succeeding generations.

The lineage of Jesus is presented in three sections with fourteen periods for each. This distinctive grouping has a functional purpose. The three groupings correspond to the three great stages of Jewish history. The first stage is the history from Abraham to David, a stage which moves from the call of faith to the period in which David welded Israel into a nation. The second stage covers the history of Israel down to the exile in Babylon, a stage which deals with the interplay between man and God, exposing man’s unfaithfulness and the consequent captivity. Interspersed with the captivity was the prophetic word of judgment, of grace, and of hope. The third stage carries the history of Israel from the Babylonian captivity to the birth of Jesus Christ. It shows how the salvation history continued through a remnant of the faithful, focusing on the family of faith through which God entered the world in the Incarnation, in Jesus of Nazareth.

The summation in verse 17 marks off fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the captivity, and fourteen from the captivity to the coming of Christ. This use of generations is a teaching method on the part of Matthew to help persons grasp and memorize this sweep of history. Actually, the listings are not harmonized with Luke’s list, nor with the Old Testament accounts. Rahab appears much later in the line than in the Old Testament account (v. 5). In comparing 1 Chronicles 3 with the genealogical listing in Matthew, we discover that in verse 8 Matthew skips across several persons we might call generations (i.e., Joash, Amaziah, and Azariah). Matthew goes from grandfather to grandson in moving from Josiah to Jeconiah (v. 11). He moves from Shealtiel to Zerubbabel as though this is father and son (v. 12), while 1 Chronicles 3:19 and Ezra 3:2 together state that while these are in a close family lineage, Shealtiel is actually Zerubbabel’s uncle.

This suggests that Matthew’s use of generation is not as literalistic as ours when we go from father to son, but rather that it is a method he used to mark off periods of time in salvation history. We need to leave this part uninterpreted (how Zerubbabel carries on the lineage of his uncle Shealtiel) with awareness that in the Old Testament, to safeguard a heritage and lineage in family experience, it was not unknown for a man to have his brother or his brother’s son carry on his inheritance and lineage in the stream of history.

Prominence is given to four women who are named in the Messiah’s lineage. William Barclay says, “It is not normal to find the names of women in Jewish pedigrees at all. Woman had no legal rights; she was not regarded as a person, but as a thing.” The presence of these names in the lineage of Christ is a significant affirmation of woman. When God created man He “created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Gen. 1:27, niv), a biblical witness to equality.

But why mention these women in contrast to Sarah? First, all four were aliens, Gentiles. Second, three of four were suspected of adultery. Including these women in the lineage of Christ highlights the message of divine grace. God forgave and accepted persons in the lineage of Christ whose history was clouded, men and women. The fact that these particular women are named makes clear that God in grace does not discriminate against persons because of past mistakes. Verse 3 refers to Tamar, of whom Judah begot Perez and Zerah. Tamar was actually Judah’s daughter-in-law, and the conception of these sons from Judah took place in an immoral relationship outside of the bonds of matrimony. In verse 5 we find Rahab, who is spoken of as the harlot of Jericho in Joshua 2:1–7. Tradition tells us that she later became the wife of Joshua. In verse 5 Ruth is included, who was not Jewish, but was a Moabitess, a special expression of God’s grace in that the Law said, “No Ammonite or Moabite …may enter the assembly of the Lord” (Deut. 23:3, niv). And fourthly, Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba, the mother of Solomon is included—the woman whom David seduced, and whose husband Uriah he afterwards killed in an attempt to cover his sin. The presence of these four persons in the lineage of the King emphasizes a genealogy of grace.

Through this lineage God fulfills His promise to Abraham that, in his seed, all the earth would be blessed; that the “Earth Blesser,” the Messiah, would come through the seed of Abraham. Also, Matthew is showing Jesus as born of Mary and not begotten by Joseph, evident in verse 16. An outline for this passage can be expressed in four basic points. It is a genealogy that demonstrates: (1) a faith rooted in history, (2) a faith expressing God’s grace, (3) a faith recognizing divine providence, (4) a faith which focuses on the Messiah.¹

The Heredity of the King (Matt. 1:1–25)

Since royalty depends on heredity, it was important for Jesus to establish His rights to David’s throne. Matthew gave His human heredity (Matt. 1:1–17) as well as His divine heredity (Matt. 1:18–25).

His human heredity (vv. 1–17). Genealogies were very important to the Jews, for without them they could not prove their tribal memberships or their rights to inheritances. Anyone claiming to be “the Son of David” had to be able to prove it. It is generally concluded that Matthew gave our Lord’s family tree through His foster father, Joseph, while Luke gave Mary’s lineage (Luke 3:23ff).

Many Bible readers skip over this list of ancient (and, in some cases, unpronounceable) names. But this “list of names” is a vital part of the Gospel record. It shows that Jesus Christ is a part of history; that all of Jewish history prepared the way for His birth. God in His providence ruled and overruled to accomplish His great purpose in bringing His Son into the world.

This genealogy also illustrates God’s wonderful grace. It is most unusual to find the names of women in Jewish genealogies, since names and inheritances came through the fathers. But in this list we find references to four women from Old Testament history: Tamar (Matt. 1:3), Rahab and Ruth (Matt. 1:5), and Bathsheba “the wife of Uriah” (Matt. 1:6).

Matthew clearly omitted some names from this genealogy. Probably, he did this to give a systematic summary of three periods in Israel’s history, each with fourteen generations. The numerical value of the Hebrew letters for “David” equals fourteen. Matthew probably used this approach as a memory aid to help his readers remember this difficult list.

But there were many Jewish men who could trace their family back to King David. It would take more than human pedigree to make Jesus Christ “the Son of David” and heir to David’s throne. This is why the divine heredity was so important.²

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ (v. 1). Here is a Jew writing principally for Jews, and his first assertion is that he is writing about Jesus Messiah. Christ is not the name of Jesus. His name is Jesus bar Joseph or Jesus of Nazareth. The term Christ is His title, and it means “Jesus the Anointed One” or “Jesus the promised Messiah.” Matthew mentions another important title that would resonate with his Jewish audience: the Son of David (v. 1). This title for Jesus, Son of David, is used more by Matthew than by any other Gospel writer, because the Messiah was to come from the loins of the greatest king of the Old Testament; He would be of the seed and lineage of David. So from the very beginning of his Gospel Matthew calls Jesus “Christ, the Son of David.”

Matthew then adds, the Son of Abraham (v. 1). One of the great difficulties of harmonization in sacred Scripture is the relationship between the genealogy presented by Matthew and that presented by Luke in his Gospel. There are many places where these two genealogies do not agree. The first point of difference is that Luke traces the genealogy of Christ back to Adam, indicating that this Christ is not simply the Savior of the Jews but that the scope of Jesus’ redemptive activity is universal. He is the new Adam, who recovers the promise that God made originally to Adam and Eve in the garden. Matthew, on the other hand, goes only as far back as Abraham because he is writing to a Jewish audience, to people who would want to know about the ancestry of Jesus as well as that of Matthew. It is important that His ancestry can be taken back to Abraham.

Ancestry was important to Jewish people, as it has been to people of all cultures throughout history. Probably the culture that is least concerned about ancestry is our own, which is why we often fail to understand the import of lists such as this.

When I enrolled as a student at the Free University of Amsterdam, I had to fill out a form with personal information. One of the questions on the form asked, “What was your father’s station in life?” The university wanted to know my cultural class standing. That was also important for the Jew, which is why Matthew begins by giving us Jesus’ ancestry. Additionally, the ancestry was important to demonstrate that Matthew’s Gospel did not pertain to a mythical character or hero. To the Jew, the ancestry testified to historical reality.

Several years ago a friend of mine, a missionary with Wycliffe Bible Translators, worked among a people who had never heard the gospel in their language. The people could not write or read, so all their communication was oral. The missionary’s first task was to learn the language of the tribe. Then she had to change that oral language into written form and teach the people to read and write it. It was a laborious task that took many years. Only after all that was accomplished could she undertake the task of translating the Bible into this language. She began with the Gospel of Matthew. To expedite the project she skipped the genealogy to get to the meat and substance of the story of Christ, and then she sent her translation work off to be printed by a publisher in a distant city. She waited months for the first copies of Matthew to arrive at the compound, and when the trucks came in with the Bibles, or, at least, the Gospel of Matthew, the people were much more interested in the trucks than they were in the translation. After having spent ten years on the project, she was crushed when she saw that the people didn’t care at all. Nevertheless, she persevered in her task, and in the second edition of Matthew she included the genealogy. When that arrived the missionary explained the genealogy to the tribal chief, and he said, “Are you trying to say that this Jesus you’ve been telling us about for ten years was a real person?”

She replied, “Yes, of course.”

He said, “I thought you were telling us a story about some mythical character.”

Once he understood that this Christ was real in space and time, the chief came to Christ, and shortly thereafter the whole tribe came to Christ.

There are three sections in the genealogy, and Matthew divides these three sections into three groups, each of which has fourteen names. The significance of that has puzzled New Testament scholars. The Hebrew language uses a gematria, which is a kind of numerological symbolism. We find an example of this in the book of Revelation, where we read that the number of the beast is 666 (Rev. 13:18). Those numbers can be applied to real persons to identify the beast. If you look at this same kind of structure in the genealogical table, you will see that the number fourteen is the number of David. David is the central character of the ancestry, and Matthew is taking great pains to show that Jesus is from the line and lineage of David and that He has come to restore the fallen booth of the great king of the Old Testament.

Another difference between the genealogy in Matthew and the genealogy in Luke is that Matthew lists the father of Joseph as Jacob; in Luke’s Gospel it is Eli. However, Luke does not use the term begat; he uses simply of someone. If you look through the genealogies, you will see that both the lists are selective, and that Matthew and Luke do not select the same people. The most notable difference is that in Matthew, the list moves from David to Solomon, whereas in Luke, it moves from David to Nathan. Solomon and Nathan were both sons of David, and, actually, the elder son was Nathan, not Solomon. Nevertheless, the kingship passed from David to Solomon rather than to Nathan. This gives us a clue as to why these genealogies are different.

What scholars tend to agree on is that Matthew’s genealogy is the royal lineage of the kings of David. When Matthew gets to the sons of Jacob, he lists not the firstborn, Reuben, but Judah. The tribe of Judah was given the kingdom: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah … until Shiloh comes” (Gen. 49:10). In Matthew’s genealogy the heirs to the throne of David come down finally to the father of Joseph, whose name is Jacob. In Luke’s Gospel the genealogy does not come through the lines of the kings but from the son of Nathan.

The genealogies differ past David, and we do not know why. Suggested repeatedly throughout church history is that Matthew is giving us the genealogy of Joseph, and Luke is giving us the genealogy of Mary. This suggestion is highly disputed, but I am inclined to think it is the right solution. We have every reason to believe that Mary also was descended from David, and Jesus, of course, gets His human nature not from Joseph but from Mary. However, in Jewish society the fatherhood of Joseph, even though he was merely Jesus’ stepfather, as it were, is important for legal genealogical considerations.

So why does Luke tell us that Joseph is of Eli while Matthew tells us that Jacob begot Joseph? Obviously Joseph didn’t have two different fathers. I think Matthew is giving us the physical descendants from Jacob to Joseph. In Luke’s Gospel, Joseph is not called “the son of Eli” but “of Eli.” In other words, Joseph is “of Eli” in the sense that he was Eli’s son-in-law. Noticeable by its absence in Luke’s genealogy is any reference to King Jeconiah, who is mentioned twice in Matthew’s list. Jeconiah came under the curse of God such that his seed would never be on the throne of David. This means that if Luke had traced Jesus’ genealogy through Joseph, Jesus couldn’t have been king, but since Jeconiah does not appear in Luke’s list, it is likely that Luke’s list traces the line through Mary.

Significant about the genealogies is the reference to four women. Although not the norm, including women in such lists was not unheard of in Jewish genealogies. The four women mentioned are all non-Jews. Perhaps the most significant one is Ruth the Moabite, who was the grandmother of David. We see here the promise to Abraham, that through his seed all the nations of the world would be blessed, including Gentiles like Rahab and Ruth.

In Martin Luther’s study of the genealogies, he sees Jesus as the Son of David who restores the kingdom to Israel, but as the Son of Abraham He brings the kingdom of God to the whole world. All of that is pointed to by what appears, in the beginning, to be nothing but a list of names.³

1 Augsburger, M. S., & Ogilvie, L. J. (1982). Matthew (Vol. 24, p. 18). Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.

2 Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 1, p. 13). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.

3 Sproul, R. C. (2013). Matthew (pp. 16–19). Wheaton, IL: Crossway.