In my last post – Son of David, Son of Abraham, we began to look at the Gospel according to Matthew. We only covered one verse last time, and so I hope to cover a little more ground this time. In that post, I also encouraged you to take a glance at the list of names found in today’s passage. You will see it reads like a “cast list” and something you might find at the start or end of a movie. The text scrolls and we skim over it, wanting to rush ahead to the action. If we do that though, we miss out on some hidden treasures.
I won’t share all the verses from this passage here, but refer to specific ones as we go. A list of names like this is called a “genealogy” and you can find many examples throughout the Bible. They are important for a variety of reasons. In the Jewish culture of the time, your family heritage was incredibly important, and none more so than if you were claiming to be the long-awaited Messiah!
Like me, when you read these names you might recognise a few of them – particularly at the top. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob for instance, are well known to us as key figures from the Old Testament. Similarly, King David, and his son, King Solomon stand out too. Each name however, represents the life of a person, and while we may gloss over them, God does not. He knows each person deeply.
The first thing to note is that Matthew’s genealogy is a list of the ancestors of Jesus through Joseph – his adopted father. The Bible is very careful to never call Joseph Jesus’ father, as Jesus’ true Father is God Himself.
16 and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.
Matthew 1:16 (NIV)
We see this here in verse 16, where Joseph is described as the husband of Mary, and Mary the mother of Christ. Later on in Matthew 2, when the family flees to Egypt, likewise we will see the angel telling Joseph to take the Child and His mother Mary and not “your” Child (Matthew 2:13).
This is not because Joseph is unimportant – far from it! In fact, he legally adopts Christ in essence and that means that Jesus is a descendent of David in the legal sense.
Luke’s Gospel also presents a genealogy, and yet it is different. Firstly, it is arranged in reverse order and is an ascending genealogy. Secondly, there are a number of different names and it traces a different path up through the family lines. Does that matter? Absolutely it does! Luke’s genealogy is in fact traced through Mary, and is the bloodline of Christ. Matthew’s is the legal line of Christ.
and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.
Matthew 1:11 (NIV)
When I asked you to look over the list of names, I wonder if this one stood out to you? Jeconiah. This particular king in David’s line is important, and holds the secret to why there should be a Virgin Birth.
Jeremiah 22 says:
This is what the Lord says:
Jeremiah 22:30 (NIV)
“Record this man as if childless,
a man who will not prosper in his lifetime,
for none of his offspring will prosper,
none will sit on the throne of David
or rule anymore in Judah.”
So awful is this king of Judah, that God curses his bloodline and says that none of his descendants shall ever sit on David’s throne! Did God not just shoot Himself in the foot? If He curses the kingly line, how can the Messiah ever be brought forth? The answer – a virgin shall conceive.
Had Joseph’s blood contributed to Jesus’ lineage, then God’s curse on the bloodline would have applied to Him. What the comparison to Luke’s genealogy shows us is that instead of tracing Mary’s line through David and Solomon, it instead goes via David and another of his son’s – Nathan. This means Jesus carries the blood of the king, and yet avoids the curse. Jesus is both a legal and blood relative of King David, and does so without failing foul of the curse.
Another interesting feature of the genealogy as presented by Matthew is the presence of the following women.
- Tamar in verse 3
- Rahab in voice 5
- Ruth in verse 5
- Uziah’s Wife – that is, Bathsheba – in verse 6
If you are not too familiar with the Old Testament, then these names might not mean a great deal to you. Tamar’s story is more complex than meets the eye, and having been let down by her father-in-law Judah, she essentially tricks him into sleeping with her and becomes pregnant. Rahab, although served the people of Israel, was a prostitute. Ruth was from a place called Moab, an enemy of Israel. Bathsheba, although likely had little choice in the matter, was an adulteress. All of their stories are complex, and often they were mistreated at the hands of more powerful men. Yet, whichever way you cut it, you find Christ’s heritage is made up of one sinner after another.
The passage concludes with the following:
Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah
Matthew 1:17 (NIV)
We see that Matthew’s genealogy is divided into three sections, each with 14 names. It is not the only 7 or multiple of 7 we see in this passage, and in fact, the number 7 crops up time and time again. This is not to say that there is some secret code hidden in the biblical text, but instead infers that there is some kind of design weaved into the generations. For example, I am told that the number of vowels are a multiple of seven. This, alone, may be coincidental, but there are those who believe there are many such things in this genealogy and while any one of them could be a coincidence on its own, taking them together makes the odds astronomically small that this happened by accident. I’ll leave you to study that out for yourself and decide if there’s anything in it.
For us, the key thing is the text itself, not anything subtly underneath. Matthew’s aim here is to demonstrate the heritage of Christ. These records are evidence of who Jesus is, and that He descends from both Abraham and David – as we discussed last time. For the Jewish people today still awaiting their Messiah, no one could demonstrate their ancestral line to any degree as clearly as this.
So, with that in mind, let us press on and find out what else we can learn about Jesus from Matthew’s Gospel.
- Counting the Cost of Comfort (Matthew 8:19-20)
- A Determined Desire: Choosing a Life of Integrity (Psalm 101:2)
- A Heart Captivated: The Foundation of a Godly Life (Psalm 101:1)
- The Richness Within: Christ, Chorus and Christian Community (Colossians 3:16)
- The Sovereign’s Vow (Introduction to Psalm 101) 
Andy Brown 