A Royal Line with Its Wounds Still Showing

“The book of the generation” is biblos geneseos, the Greek wording of Genesis 5:1, “This is the book of the generations of Adam”, and of Genesis 2:4. Matthew’s first words are borrowed from the first book of the Bible. “Christ” is the Greek for Messiah, the anointed one, used here almost as a name.

Each link passes over an older son: Isaac rather than Ishmael, Jacob rather than Esau, the choice Malachi 1:2–3 had put as “I loved Jacob”, and Judah rather than Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn. “And his brethren” keeps all twelve tribes in view though only Judah’s line is followed.

Phares and Zara were twins. Zara’s hand came out first and the midwife tied a scarlet thread on it, but his brother broke through ahead of him, and was named Pharez, breach (Genesis 38:27–30). From Phares to David Matthew follows the list at the end of the Book of Ruth (Ruth 4:18–22) name for name.

Aminadab’s daughter Elisheba married Aaron (Exodus 6:23), so the royal line is tied to the priestly one by marriage. Naasson, Nahshon, was prince of Judah in the wilderness and brought the first offering at the dedication of the tabernacle (Numbers 7:12). The line runs through the years of the wilderness.

No Old Testament text says that Rahab of Jericho married Salmon; Matthew is the only source for it. Obed’s name means servant, and he was named not by his parents but by the women of Bethlehem, who said, “There is a son born to Naomi” (Ruth 4:17). Jesse is the last private citizen of the list.

David is the only person in the whole genealogy given a title, and he is given it twice in one verse: “David the king.” Solomon was not the first child of that union; the first died in infancy (2 Samuel 12:18), and Solomon was born after it. Uriah was a Hittite in David’s army.

Under Roboam, Rehoboam, the kingdom split in two (1 Kings 12), and his mother Naamah was an Ammonitess (1 Kings 14:21), another foreign woman in the line though Matthew does not name her. The oldest Greek manuscripts spell the third king “Asaph”, the name of the psalmist, where the King James has Asa.

Josaphat, Jehoshaphat, made an alliance with Ahab of Israel, and his son Joram married Athaliah, daughter of Ahab and Jezebel (2 Kings 8:18, 26). One old explanation for the gap after Joram is that Matthew passes over three generations of her descendants. Ozias is Uzziah, called Azariah in 2 Kings 15.

Achaz, Ahaz, is the king to whom Isaiah spoke the sign of the virgin’s son (Isaiah 7:14), which Matthew quotes in verse 23, so the prophecy’s first hearer stands in the genealogy it is applied to. Ezekias, Hezekiah, reformed the temple and survived Sennacherib’s siege of Jerusalem.

Manasses reigned fifty-five years, longer than any king of Judah, and is remembered as the worst of them, though Chronicles records his repentance in captivity (2 Chronicles 33:12–13). Amon was assassinated after two years (2 Kings 21:19–23); some manuscripts spell him “Amos”. Josias, Josiah, died at Megiddo.

Jechonias was Josiah’s grandson, not his son; his father Jehoiakim is left out. “His brethren” may cover Josiah’s other sons who reigned, Jehoahaz and Zedekiah. Jechonias, also called Jehoiachin and Coniah, was taken to Babylon in 597 BC after reigning three months (2 Kings 24:8–15).

Jeremiah had said of Coniah, “Write ye this man childless… for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David” (Jeremiah 22:30). Clay ration tablets from Nebuchadnezzar’s palace list oil for “Ya’ukinu, king of Judah” and for five of his sons. Zorobabel is Zerubbabel, the governor of Haggai and Zechariah.

Abiud is not among the sons of Zerubbabel listed in 1 Chronicles 3:19–20, and from here to Joseph not one name appears in the Old Testament. Matthew is drawing on records outside Scripture, perhaps family lists of the kind Josephus says he consulted for his own priestly descent. Eliakim means God raises up.

Sadoc is the Greek form of Zadok, the name of the priest who anointed Solomon (1 Kings 1:39), though this Sadoc is of Judah. Achim may be a shortened form of Jehoiakim or Jachin. Eliud means my God is majesty. These names cover the Persian and Greek centuries, when Judah had no king at all.

Eleazar bears the name of Aaron’s son and successor. Joseph’s father is named Jacob, so, like the patriarch in Genesis, this Joseph is a son of Jacob, and like him he will be guided by dreams and go down to Egypt. Luke 3:23 names Joseph’s father as Heli, one of several differences between the two genealogies.

In Greek “of whom” is feminine singular: Jesus was born of Mary, not of the couple. “Who is called Christ” is the phrase Pilate uses at the trial, “Jesus which is called Christ” (Matthew 27:17, 22), so the title given here at the start is repeated by the man who sends him to the cross.

In Hebrew each letter is also a number, and David’s name, DWD, adds up to fourteen (4, 6, 4), a widely suggested reason for Matthew’s arrangement. A known puzzle remains: the third group, from Jechonias to Jesus, lists only thirteen generations unless Jechonias is counted twice or Mary and Joseph are counted separately.

Betrothal was a binding marriage contract made before the couple lived together, usually about a year before the wedding. A betrothed woman was already called a wife and could only be released by divorce; Deuteronomy 22:23–24 treats a betrothed woman as “his neighbour’s wife”. “Came together” refers to the wedding and home-taking.

“Make her a publick example” is a rare Greek verb, deigmatizo, which Paul uses in Colossians 2:15 of Christ making “a shew” of the powers “openly”. “Put her away privily” means a quiet divorce: a written bill (Deuteronomy 24:1) delivered before two witnesses, without a public trial.

This is the first of five dreams in Matthew’s opening chapters (1:20; 2:12, 13, 19, 22), and every one of them steers someone away from danger or toward obedience. “Thought on these things” is a verb for pondering or turning over in the mind; the dream comes while he is still deciding, before he acts.

Jesus is the Greek form of Yeshua, Joshua, meaning the LORD saves, so “he shall save” explains the name through a Hebrew pun the Greek hides. Psalm 130:8 says of the LORD, “he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.” The high priest cleansed of iniquity in Zechariah 3 bore the same name.

This is the first of about ten formula quotations in Matthew, “that it might be fulfilled”, a pattern peculiar to this Gospel (for example 2:15, 2:23, 4:14, 8:17, 21:4). “Of the Lord by the prophet” distinguishes the speaker from the channel: the Lord speaks, the prophet passes it on.

“Virgin” is parthenos, the word the Greek translators of Isaiah used for the Hebrew almah, a young woman of marriageable age. Isaiah’s Hebrew has “she shall call”; Matthew has “they shall call”. The Gospel ends with the same promise in other words: “I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (28:20).

“Being raised from sleep” uses the Greek verb for rising, the one Matthew will use of the resurrection. Joseph’s obedience is reported in the words of the command, as the Book of Genesis reports Noah’s: “according to all that God commanded him, so did he” (Genesis 6:22). Joseph never speaks in Matthew.

The oldest Greek manuscripts read simply “a son” here; “her firstborn son” was brought in from Luke 2:7 in later copies, which the King James followed. By naming the child, Joseph acknowledges him as his legal son, as Zacharias did when he wrote “His name is John” (Luke 1:63).