And Jesus himself was beginning to be about thirty years old; being as was supposed son of Joseph; of Eli,
Luke gives the family record of Jesus not at His birth, but at the moment He steps into public life. Two questions press. Why wait thirty years? And why does Luke's list run backwards to Adam while Matthew's runs forward from Abraham?
The largest part of the Lord's life on earth left no record of public work at all. One commentator draws the lesson from the delay itself:
"Thirty years old." He is still presented here as the Man. Jesus did nothing till thirty. What patience there is in divine obedience! At twelve He was conscious of His power, His Person, and His mission, and He said so openly. But here He acts in the order of divine direction in the land.
Those quiet years were not empty. They set a proportion worth noticing:
When we look at the Divine Servant, we find that He spent nearly ten times as long in private as He spent in public. He was perfect in understanding and in will. Yet He spent nearly thirty years hidden away in a carpenter's house at Nazareth before He appeared in public.
The number is not random. It matches the age at which the tribe of Levi entered God's sanctuary service. One writer sees the pattern in the way God had the Levites counted:
The count of the Levites was not for military service, but for service to God. They were not to serve in the sanctuary until they were thirty to fifty, yet they were trained with that service in view. This reminds us that the Lord Jesus Himself did not begin His public service until He was about thirty. His earlier years were an important preparation for it.
Luke names Joseph, then says Jesus was "the son of Heli." One commentator argues that the bracket around Joseph runs wider than most translations mark it. He keeps the older spelling "Eli":
The true way of taking Luke 3:23 is: "And Jesus Himself, when He began, was about thirty years old (being, as was supposed, son of Joseph); of Eli, of Matthat, of Levi," and so on. Mary was, as even the Talmud admits, daughter of Eli in descent from Nathan. Most have gone wrong by treating the mention of Joseph as the starting point of the line. It is plainly a parenthesis. The line itself begins with Eli, Mary's father.
Two family lines meet in Him. Three relationships have to hold at once:
Joseph was the son of Jacob, in the line of Solomon. Mary was the daughter of Heli, in the line of Nathan. Our Lord had to be born this way to be, beyond question, the heir of David and a true man. Had He really been Joseph's son, which He was not, the whole truth of His person would have been denied. Had He been Mary's son only, which He was not, He would have been true man but not true Messiah. So He must be Joseph's son legally, Mary's son truly, and God's Son supremely. Only so could He satisfy the word of God and carry out God's purposes.
Matthew and Luke are not competing. They answer different questions:
In Matthew we have the descent of Christ from Abraham and David down to Joseph, the man supposed to be His father. This proves His legal right to the throne of David. In Luke we have His ascent through His mother up to Adam, "the son of God." This shows His natural right to the throne, and His manhood. Luke's Gospel presents Christ as the blessed Man down here, doing God's will and blessing man.
The direction of the list carries its own message. Luke does not build Jesus up out of His ancestors; He traces the line back to where the whole race began:
The stream flows back even as far as Adam. Luke is the gospel of the Son of Man; it is the humanity of Christ that stands out in Luke... The blessed One has come to minister among men. He is not building on the names of those who went before Him. He shows them as people His grace serves, and to whom He is bringing back the blessings they have lost. Adam closes the genealogy instead of opening it, and he is called "the son of God." Christ's work has restored him, as if the fall had never happened — that, and more.
- Silence — Jesus did no public work until He was thirty. His private years outnumbered His public ones nearly ten to one. They were preparation, not waste.
- Service — Thirty was the age for entering the sanctuary work of God. He steps forward just when God's own pattern called for it.
- Supposed — The words "as was supposed" fence Joseph off from the line. The list itself begins with Heli, Mary's father.
- Sonship — He is Joseph's son legally, Mary's son truly, and God's Son supremely. Take away any one, and either His manhood or His title as Messiah falls.
- Stream — Luke's list runs backwards to Adam. Christ draws nothing from His ancestors. He carries grace back to the race that lost it.
of Matthat, of Levi, of Melchi, of Janna, of Joseph,
Luke 3:24 sits inside a long chain of names that runs from Jesus back to Adam. Scripture tells us nothing else about the five men listed here, so why record them at all, and whose line is this?
These men appear only here. Reference works can say little more than where each one stands in the chain. The names even repeat: Luke's list has two men called Matthat and two called Levi.
Matthat. Two men: one the son of Levi, and one the son of another Levi, in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus. Luke 3:24, 29.
Luke's list does not run down to Jesus. It runs back from Him. That direction explains why the names of unknown men are here at all.
The stream flows back even as far as Adam. What do you want it for? Luke is the gospel of the Son of man; it is the humanity of Christ that stands out in Luke... Does anybody need a genealogy to prove He is a son of man? Of course not... You don't want the record of all the names in between. They are just worth nothing, and yet here they are, all carefully listed. The stream is flowing back. The blessed One who has come to serve among men is not building on the names of those who went before Him. He is showing them as those His grace serves, and to whom He is bringing back the blessings they have lost.
Verse 23 names Joseph. Verse 24 starts the men behind him. But commentators hold that the line which follows is really Mary's, traced through her father Heli.
The Lord was legally Joseph's son, and only that. He was really Mary's son, and even the Talmud says Mary was the daughter of Heli. So Luke gives the natural line, which fits his purpose exactly, but it would not prove Jesus to be the Messiah. Matthew traces down... to Joseph, the Solomon branch, which held the full legal title to Messiahship for the Jews; and that line too stands in its right place... Matthew had already stated plainly that Jacob, not Heli, fathered Joseph. Heli was not of Solomon's line but of Nathan's, and so could not give the true succession to David's throne.
Commentators differ on how the wording of verse 23 works. Others reach the same conclusion by a different route. They take "the son of Heli" to mean son-in-law.
Matthew 1 keeps to the official line, coming down to Joseph. It has no connection with the actual line, which Luke 3:23-38 gives. There, Joseph is called "the son of Heli" (v.23), where it clearly means "son-in-law," for Matthew's Gospel says that Jacob was "the father of Joseph." So Luke records the genealogy of Mary.
Both readings guard the same thing. Two separate descents meet in Christ, and each is needed for a different reason.
He must therefore be Joseph's son legally, Mary's son truly, and God's Son supremely, to satisfy God's word and carry out His purposes.
Matthew opens with a family tree. Luke holds his back until the Father has owned Jesus as His Son.
We might think the natural place for such an account of our Lord's ancestry would be when He was born, or even before His birth, as we have it in Matthew... but here it is brought in when He is baptized. The reason is this. The genealogy is not here so much to show where Jesus came from, naturally or rather legally, to meet a Jew's difficulties and prove He was truly the Messiah according to the flesh. It is here to bring out the Person of Jesus on the human side, just as the Father had just owned Him on the divine side. So the genealogy is very unusual in this — it traces Him up to Adam and to God... It is the genealogy of grace, as Matthew's is of law.
Verse 24 is one link on the way to the last name in the list. Where the chain ends gives every link its point.
The genealogy of Christ is traced here not to Abraham and David, so that He should be the heir of the promises after the flesh, but to Adam. This shows the true Son of God as a man on earth, in the place where the first Adam lost his title, such as it was. The last Adam, the Son of God, was there, accepted by the Father, and preparing to take upon Himself the troubles into which the sin and fall of the first Adam had brought those of his race who drew near to God under the working of His grace.
- Backward — Luke's list runs up from Jesus, not down to Him; He is not building on the men before Him but reaching back to them.
- Names, kept anyway — Matthat, Levi, Melchi, Jannai and Joseph add nothing to His standing. God lists them with care, because these are the people His grace serves.
- Two lines, one Person — Joseph's son legally, Mary's son truly, God's Son supremely. Luke gives the natural line through Mary; Matthew gives the royal line through Joseph.
- Grace, not law — the list comes after the baptism, where the Father owned Him as Son, and it shows the human side of that same Person.
- Adam — the chain ends where the race began, so that the last Adam may take up what the first Adam lost.
of Mattathias, of Amos, of Naoum, of Esli, of Naggai,
Luke 3:25 lists five names — Mattathias, Amos, Nahum, Esli, Naggai — links in the family line Luke records after His baptism. Scripture tells us nothing else about these men, so why does the Gospel include them at all, and why does Luke's line differ from Matthew's?
A Bible dictionary can say no more than this about the Mattathias of verse 25. Note also that a second man of the same name appears in the next verse:
1, 2. Son of Amos, and son of Semei, in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus. Luke 3:25-26.
Matthew's list moves forward, from ancestors down to Christ. Luke's runs the other way. One writer draws out what that reversal means for names with no fame of their own:
The stream flows back even as far as Adam... You don't want the record of all the names in between. They are just worth nothing, and yet here they are, all carefully listed. The stream is flowing back. The blessed One who has come to serve among men is not building on the names of those who went before Him. He is showing them as those to whom His grace ministers, and to whom He is bringing back the blessings they have lost.
So the obscurity of Mattathias, Amos, Nahum, Esli and Naggai is not a flaw in the record. They are among the people the grace of Christ reaches back to touch.
The two Gospel writers are proving different things, and that is why the two lists differ:
Matthew traces His descent down from Abraham, who held the promise, and David, who held the royalty. Luke traces Him up to Adam and to God, for it is simply His Manhood that is the point. And that came through Mary, since Joseph was only supposed to be His father. He is truly a Man though the Son of God. He is the Second Man, the Lord from heaven, the One overflowing with the grace of God.
The names of verse 25 belong to a line that runs through Heli, not through Joseph's father Jacob. Much turns on where the bracket falls in verse 23 — whether Joseph stands inside the list or outside it:
It is surprising that few yet see where the true parenthesis falls in verse 23. It is not merely "as was supposed" but "being the son as was supposed of Joseph". That links the genealogy which follows directly to the Lord through Mary. For Joseph was the son of Jacob, in the Solomon line, while Mary was daughter of Heli, in the Nathan line. Our Lord needed to be born this way to be unmistakably heir of David and true man... He must therefore be Joseph's son legally, Mary's son truly, and God's Son supremely, to satisfy the word of God and carry out His purposes.
Commentators differ here, and one writer says so plainly:
Many learned men think that the genealogy in Luke is that of Mary followed in the order of nature up to Nathan. I am well aware others have thought it that of Joseph also.
If Mary's line runs through Nathan and not Solomon, these unknown men stand outside the official succession to the throne. That turns out to be necessary. The royal line through Jeconiah had a problem:
No child of Jeconiah could succeed him on the throne, and none of his descendants could ever rule in Judah. How then could it be brought about that the Messiah must be of this line? Only by a man of this line (Joseph) marrying a virgin of another line from David. That virgin would bear the Messiah, whom the Spirit of God conceived in her. Officially therefore Christ came from the line of Jeconiah, but not actually. He was actually the child of Mary, who descended from Nathan, son of David. Wonderful is the wisdom of God, so high above all that men could have conceived.
- Names. Scripture says only that each of these five men was son of the next. Their whole recorded importance is to be a link toward Christ.
- Direction. Luke's list runs backwards. Christ does not build on the men before Him; His grace reaches back to them.
- Manhood. The point of a line running up to Adam is not royal title but real humanity: He is truly a Man though the Son of God.
- Mother. Verse 25 sits in the line that runs through Heli. That makes Christ Joseph's son legally, Mary's son truly, and God's Son supremely — though commentators differ over whose line Luke records.
- Wisdom. God's purpose needed an obscure branch through Nathan, not the official line of Jeconiah. That wisdom is higher than anything men could have planned.
of Maath, of Mattathias, of Semei, of Joseph, of Juda,
Luke 3:26 adds five more links to the chain Luke traces backwards from Jesus: Maath, Mattathias, Semein, Josech and Joda. Scripture tells us nothing else about these men. Commentators ask why the list appears here, whose family line it is, and what use a string of unknown names can be.
Luke does not open with the family record, as Matthew does. He places it after the baptism, and after the Father's voice from heaven.
The Spirit of God must have good reason for bringing it in here. We might expect such an account of our Lord's ancestry at His birth, or even before it, as we have one in Matthew. A Jew would need it there, and has it there in the first Gospel. But here it comes in when He is baptised. The reason is this. The genealogy is not brought in mainly to show where Jesus came from naturally, or rather legally — to meet the difficulties of a Jew, and to prove He was truly the Messiah according to the flesh. It is brought in to bring out the Person of Jesus on the human side, as the Father had just owned Him on the Divine… It is there to show One whose heart was toward the whole human race. It is the genealogy of grace, as Matthew's is of law.
Verse 26 sits in a line that runs back to Heli. One writer takes Heli as Mary's father, not Joseph's.
Joseph was the son of Jacob, in the line of Solomon. Mary was the daughter of Heli, in the line of Nathan. Our Lord had to be born this way to be beyond question the heir of David and true man… If He had really been Joseph's son, which He was not, all the truth of His person would have been denied. If He had been only Mary's son, which He was not, He would have been true man but not true Messiah. So He must be Joseph's son legally, Mary's son truly, and God's Son supremely, to satisfy the word and carry out the purposes of God.
Commentators differ on how firmly to state this.
Luke's record and Matthew's agree in places and part company in others. Luke's is by far the longer, which is why names like those in verse 26 appear at all.
Both lists are the same from Abraham to David. Then they differ until they reach Shealtiel and Zerubbabel, whose names are in both lists. After that they differ again. The list in Luke is much fuller, having forty-one names from David to Joseph, where Matthew has only twenty-six.
What are all these middle names for? One writer asks that question outright.
What do you want His genealogy for? Does anybody want a genealogy to prove Him a son of man? Why, of course not… You don't want the record of all the intermediate names; they are just worth nothing, and yet here they are, all carefully listed. The stream is flowing back. The blessed One who has come to serve among men is not building on the names of those who went before Him. He is showing them as those His grace serves, and to whom He is bringing back the blessings they have lost… When you come to Adam himself, who closes the genealogy instead of opening it, you find him named the son of God. Christ's work has reinstated him, as if the fall had never happened — and more than that.
One commentator will not treat any single name as filler.
If we only had eyes to see it, every name in this list may well prove significant, with its own story to tell about Him… Of these so carefully numbered generations, I cannot believe there is one that is not worth caring for in this way.
The list does not stop at Abraham or David.
The genealogy fits perfectly with the thought that God is showing grace in man and to man. Jesus, the beloved Son of God, is traced up to Adam and to God. Jesus is Son of man; He is heir in this sense. He takes up the inheritance God gave to man. What a truth! Where could one's heart turn for rest, if it had not Jesus to rest in?
- Placed late. The record comes after the baptism, so it shows the human side of the One the Father had just owned as His Son.
- Traced upward. Matthew runs down from Abraham and David to prove legal title. Luke runs back to Adam and to God. That makes his a genealogy of grace, where Matthew's is one of law.
- Traced through Mary. Set the words about Joseph aside, and the line starts with Heli. He is Joseph's son legally, Mary's son truly, and God's Son supremely.
- Traced through unknowns. The unknown names of verse 26 are not credentials He builds on. They are people His grace serves, who receive back what they had lost.
- Traced to rest. The chain ends where man began. Jesus takes up the inheritance God gave to man, and a heart with nothing else can rest in Him.
of Joannes, of Resa, of Zorobabel, of Salathiel, of Neri,
This part of Luke's list takes us into the years of the exile, naming Neri, Shealtiel, Zerubbabel, Rhesa and Joanan. Shealtiel and Zerubbabel are the only two names Luke shares with Matthew, which raises a question: why do the two family trees of Jesus meet here and then part again?
Matthew and Luke both trace the Lord's family line, but the two lists only partly agree.
Both lists are the same from Abraham to David. Then they differ, until they reach Shealtiel and Zerubbabel, which are in both lists. After that they differ again. Luke's list is much fuller: from David to Joseph it has forty-one names, where Matthew has only twenty-six.
The split goes back to God's sentence on King Jeconiah, also called Coniah or Jehoiachin. God told the prophet to write this man down as childless (Jeremiah 22:30).
The meaning of this verse is not that he would have no family, for it speaks of his descendants; and Matthew 1:11-12 shows them. What we are told is this. As far as the throne of David was concerned, God had decreed that he was to be written down as childless. None of his descendants would rule any more in Judah. God had determined the end of this sinful stock.
David had other sons besides Solomon, and one of them becomes the road forward.
A curse was thus pronounced upon the house of David in the line of Solomon. But there was still the line of Nathan the son of David. Messiah, the Son of David, could therefore not spring from the line of Solomon; He must come from the line of Nathan. Joseph, the husband of the virgin Mary of Nazareth, was a son of David through the line of Solomon, the disinherited line; but Mary of Nazareth was a daughter of David through the line of Nathan.
This is where Luke 3:27 does its work. Matthew has Jeconiah fathering Shealtiel. Luke names Neri instead.
Jeconiah, then, was not the natural father of Shealtiel. Matthew gives the succession, not the strict birth line. The heir to David's throne must now be looked for in the line of another of David's sons. Turn to Luke 3:27, and we learn that Shealtiel's actual father was Neri, who came down from Nathan (verse 31), son of David.
The throne rights, then, do not travel in a straight father-to-son line at this point.
In Luke 3:27, Luke calls Shealtiel the son of Neri. This is supposed to be the true descent, and Shealtiel the heir of Jehoiachin. The royal line would so pass back from the descendants of Solomon (Jeremiah 22:30) to those of David through Nathan.
Rhesa may not be a person's name at all.
We now know that "Rhesa" in verse 27 was not a personal name. In Aramaic it stood for some "prince" of the captivity. His own name appears to have been Abiud (Matthew 1:13), and he was the son of Zerubbabel — the most notable descendant of David since the exile.
Joanan is tied back to the Old Testament record. The same dictionary's entry for Hananiah reads:
Son of Zerubbabel. 1 Chronicles 3:19, 21. This Hananiah is supposed to be the Joanna of Luke 3:27 in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus.
Ancient family records do not work the way modern ones do.
The truth is that in these Jewish genealogies grandsons are called sons, and nephews and cousins are called brothers. Children raised up to a man by his brother marrying his widow are then counted as the dead man's seed. And the registers we have are defective as a mere human testimony. So no objection is of much weight, and answers can only be suppositions. But these last are quite enough. When someone has to prove a contradiction, a case that is possible by supposition shows for certain that there is no contradiction.
Zerubbabel is more than a link in the chain of names.
God will take the true seed of David — here still called "Zerubbabel my servant," a picture of Christ as "the prince of the house of David" — and make Him as a signet. Coniah, or Jeconiah, the faithless king of Judah, was like a signet ring pulled off God's right hand (compare Jeremiah 22:24). Christ is the opposite. He is the signet on God's right hand, to seal all His purposes for the nations, and for His chosen people Israel.
- Curse. God had Jeconiah written down as childless. He still had children, but none of them would ever rule in Judah again.
- Detour. Solomon's branch is barred, so the line runs through David's other son Nathan. Luke 3:27 is where that shows.
- Father. Matthew records the legal succession. Luke names Neri, Shealtiel's actual father.
- Meeting point. Shealtiel and Zerubbabel are the one place where the two lists touch. Then they part again.
- Signet. God pulled the ring off His hand in Jeconiah. Christ, the true seed of David, is the signet back on His hand, sealing God's purposes for Israel and the nations.
of Melchi, of Addi, of Cosam, of Elmodam, of Er,
Verse 28 gives five names: Melchi, Addi, Cosam, Elmadam and Er. They sit in the middle of the family line Luke gives Jesus at the start of His public ministry. Why record men no one remembers, and why does Luke run the line backwards instead of forwards?
These men left no story and no throne. A dictionary of Bible names can say almost nothing about the first of them:
Addi. Descendant of Cosam in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus. Luke 3:28. The name cannot be traced in the Old Testament.
They belong to a branch of David's family that had slipped out of public view. One writer describes what happened to the royal house after the kingdom collapsed:
The kingdom sinks under waves of judgment. Yet, as we have seen in the genealogies (1 Chron. 3:19, 24), weak representatives of the royal line still live on — with no titles, no rights, no authority and no kingdom. After them the line goes on in silence, more and more obscure and brought low, until we reach a poor carpenter. He becomes the supposed father of the "woman's Seed." Christ is born!
Luke's list runs through Nathan, a son of David, while Matthew's runs through Solomon. God had passed sentence on the reigning line:
So a curse was pronounced on the house of David in the line of Solomon. But there was still the line of Nathan, the son of David. Messiah, the Son of David, could therefore not come from the line of Solomon. He had to come through the line of Nathan. Joseph, the husband of the virgin Mary of Nazareth, was a son of David through Solomon's line, the line that had lost its inheritance. But Mary of Nazareth was a daughter of David through the line of Nathan.
If the line belongs to Mary, then Melchi, Addi and the rest are her ancestors, not Joseph's. One writer explains what hangs on that:
Joseph was the son of Jacob, in Solomon's line, and Mary was the daughter of Heli, in Nathan's line. Our Lord had to be born this way, so that He was beyond question the heir of David and a real man... If He had been Joseph's own son — which He was not — the whole truth about His person would fall. If He had been only Mary's son — which He was not — He would be a real man but not the true Messiah. So He had to be Joseph's son in law, Mary's son in fact, and God's Son above all, to keep God's word and carry out God's purposes.
Luke waits until the Father's voice has owned Jesus at His baptism before he gives the family line. Why there, and why traced upward?
Any thoughtful mind should be struck that the Spirit of God must have good reason for bringing it in here... here it comes in when He is baptized. The reason is simply this. The genealogy is not put here mainly to show where Jesus came from by birth, or by legal right, to answer a Jew's difficulties and prove He was truly the Messiah according to the flesh. It is here to bring out the Person of Jesus on the human side, just as the Father had owned Him on the Divine side. So the genealogy is unusual in this — it traces Him up to Adam and to God... It is the genealogy of grace, as Matthew's is of law.
A list that flows backwards changes what the names are doing there. They are not credentials He inherits:
The stream is flowing back. The blessed One who has come to serve among men is not building on the names of those who went before Him. He is showing them as people His grace serves, people to whom He is bringing back the blessings they have lost. So when you come to Adam himself, who closes the genealogy instead of opening it... "Adam, the son of God." Christ's work has restored him, as if the fall had never happened — and more than that.
So a forgotten name like Cosam or Er is not filler. Each one is a link in a chain that ends at the Jordan:
The Son of man is also the Second Man, and each link in the chain at least suggests a link of salvation. So the genealogy is not tied to His birth. It is tied to His coming forward to be baptized by John in the Jordan, where He entered His ministry of salvation.
- Unknown — a name like Addi cannot be traced in the Old Testament. The line carrying Messiah ran on quietly, stripped of title and throne.
- Uncursed — the reigning line through Solomon fell under God's sentence, so the Christ came through Nathan's branch instead.
- Real — the line reaches Him through Mary. Joseph gave the legal claim to David's throne, Mary gave true manhood, God gave the Sonship.
- Backwards — Matthew's list is the genealogy of law. Luke traces Him up to Adam and to God: the genealogy of grace.
- Linked — set at His baptism, every name becomes a link of salvation. The grace of the Second Man flows back as far as Adam.
of Joses, of Eliezer, of Joreim, of Matthat, of Levi,
Luke 3:29 gives five names in a chain that runs from Jesus back to Adam. None of these men appears anywhere else in the Bible, so why does Luke list them, and whose family line is he tracing?
Luke places the family record right after the baptism. He also runs it in the opposite direction from Matthew's.
The Father's voice has just owned Him as the beloved Son. Luke now introduces His genealogy through Mary, to show how truly He is also Man. Matthew traces His descent down from Abraham, who held the promise, and David, who held the royal line. Luke traces Him up to Adam and to God, because His Manhood is the whole point here. That came through Mary, since people only supposed that Joseph was His father.
That direction changes what the list of names means.
You do not need the record of all the names in between; they are worth nothing, and yet here they are, all carefully listed. The stream is flowing back; and the blessed One who has come to minister among men is not building on the names of those who went before Him, but showing them as those to whom His grace ministers, and to whom He is bringing back the blessings they have lost. So when you have come to Adam himself (who closes the genealogy, instead of opening it), the stream flowing back from Christ to Adam, what do you find here? "Adam, the son of God." Christ's work has reinstated him, as if the fall were not — done that and more.
Matthew and Luke give different names between David and Joseph. Commentators explain this by saying the two lists follow two different people.
Matthew gives the Messianic genealogy proper, from Solomon down to our Lord as the legal heir of Joseph. Without it the promise would have failed, and He would have had no legal title. Luke gives His real line as Son of man, and Son of God here below. That line runs through Mary — not down from Abraham and David, but up to Adam and God. Mary, as the Talmud allows, was Heli's daughter.
The reason lies in the words Scripture uses for Christ.
Women are never listed as forming a line of succession. Yet Scripture speaks of Christ as the "offspring" of the woman, Gen. 3:15; "born of woman," Gal. 4:4; "the offspring of Abraham," Heb. 2:16; "descended from David according to the flesh," Rom. 1:3; 2 Tim. 2:8; "the descendant of David," Rev. 22:16. The Lord was not actually the son of Joseph. So these scriptures can only be fulfilled through His mother, who must have been a direct descendant of David and Abraham.
Verse 29 sits in a stretch of unknown men rather than famous kings. That is because Luke follows David's son Nathan, not Solomon. One writer ties this to a judgment spoken over a king in Solomon's line.
Then there is a prediction about Jeconiah: "Write this man down as childless, a man who shall not succeed in his days, for none of his offspring shall succeed in sitting on the throne of David and ruling again in Judah." So a curse fell on the house of David in the line of Solomon. But there was still the line of Nathan the son of David. Messiah, the Son of David, could therefore not spring from the line of Solomon; He must come from the line of Nathan.
A reference work can say no more about one of them than where he stands in the chain:
Jorim. Son of Matthat in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus. Luke 3:29.
One of the five, though, carried a famous name. The ESV calls him "Joshua"; older versions read "Joses." It is the same name the Lord Himself bore.
"Jesus." The name (Jeshua, Neh. 8:17) was very common among the Jews of that time. Col. 4:11 mentions a Jesus, also called Justus, who was a Jew. One of the Lord's ancestors, according to the flesh, bore the same name; see Luke 3:29 in the Revised Version.
These records mattered more then than now — and no one found a fault in them.
No one seems ever to have found an actual error in either genealogy — only the "technical" mistakes that critics allege. Men like Celsus (about A.D. 150) and Porphyry (about A.D. 300) did not question these lists, back when such records mattered in a way they no longer do for us.
- Backward — Luke's list runs from Jesus back to Adam. The names are not His credentials; they are people His grace reaches.
- Through Mary — commentators read this line as Mary's. Scripture calls Christ the offspring of the woman and a descendant of David, and only His mother could fulfil that, since Joseph was only His supposed father.
- Around the curse — the line skips Solomon's kings and runs through David's son Nathan. A curse shut Jeconiah's descendants out of the throne.
- Nobodies included — these five men are known from nothing but this verse. One of them carried the very name Jesus would bear.
- Ending in God — the chain closes at "Adam, the son of God," not at a king. That is where Christ brings the whole race back.
of Simeon, of Juda, of Joseph, of Jonan, of Eliakim,
Five names stand in this line — Simeon, Judah, Joseph, Jonam, Eliakim — and not one of them is famous. They sit in a list that Luke places after the Lord's baptism, not at His birth. Commentators ask two questions: why is the list here at all, and why does it run backwards?
A reference work that lists every name in the Bible has only one line for the last of them:
Eliakim. Son of Melea in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus. Luke 3:30-31.
Readers tend to hurry past lists like this. One writer admits he has felt the same:
I have no doubt that most of us have read these genealogies, thinking it was high time to skip over them. I have no doubt we have often wondered why they were ever written at all, and why they should be in the Bible... I am quite sure that relatively few people have a clear, settled grasp of why God has attached so much importance to these genealogies.
Matthew opens his Gospel with a family tree. Luke holds his back until after the baptism, when the Father has owned His Son. That placement explains what the list is for:
Any thoughtful mind should see that the Spirit of God must have good reason for putting it here... here it comes in when He is baptized. The reason is simply this: the genealogy comes in here... to bring out the Person of Jesus on the human side, as the Father had just owned Him on the divine side. So the genealogy is very unusual in this — it traces Him up to Adam and to God... It is the genealogy of grace, as Matthew's is of law.
The reversed direction changes what the forgotten names mean. Jesus is not borrowing standing from Simeon or Jonam; the movement runs the other way:
You don't want the record of all the names in between; they are just worth nothing, and yet here they are, all carefully listed. The stream is flowing back. The blessed One who has come to serve among men is not building on the names of those who went before Him. He is showing them as people His grace serves, and to whom He is bringing back the blessings they have lost... So when you come to Adam himself, who closes the genealogy instead of opening it, what do you find? "Adam, the son of God." Christ's work has reinstated him, as if the fall had never happened — and it has done more than that.
Several writers take the line from verse 23 onward as Mary's, through her father Heli. Matthew gives Joseph's line. One writer sets out what each line secures:
Joseph was the son of Jacob, in Solomon's line, and Mary was the daughter of Heli, in Nathan's line. Our Lord had to be born this way to be, beyond all question, the heir of David and true man... If He had really been Joseph's son — and He was not — the whole truth of His Person would have been denied. If He had been Mary's son only — and He was not — He would have been true man but not true Messiah. So He had to be Joseph's son by law, Mary's son in truth, and God's Son in the highest sense.
Commentators differ on this. One writer answers the charge that Luke and Matthew contradict each other:
Many learned men think that the genealogy in Luke is Mary's, traced in the order of nature up to Nathan. I am well aware that others have thought it is Joseph's... The truth is that in these Jewish genealogies grandsons are called sons, and nephews and cousins are called brothers, while the registers we have are defective as merely human testimony. So no objection carries much weight, and answers can only be suppositions. But these answers are quite enough. When a contradiction has to be proved, a case that is possible even by supposition shows beyond doubt that there is no contradiction.
Names like these are only links. The weight of the list rests on the One at its head:
He is truly a Man, though the Son of God. He is the Second Man, the Lord from heaven, the One overflowing with the grace of God.
One writer gives the reason for reaching past Abraham and David to Adam:
Notice that the genealogy of Christ is traced here, not to Abraham and David, so that He should be the heir of the promises after the flesh, but to Adam. The purpose is to show the true Son of God as a man on earth, where the first Adam lost his title.
- Grace, not law. Matthew's list runs down from Abraham and David to prove legal title. Luke's runs up to Adam and God — "the genealogy of grace, as Matthew's is of law."
- Grace placed. It comes after the baptism. The Father has just owned Him as Son, and the list now shows Him on the human side.
- Grace flowing. Read backwards, the line gives Jesus no standing from Simeon or Jonam. It shows the men His grace reaches, and the blessings He brings back to them.
- Grace reaching. Going past Abraham and David to Adam sets Him in the human race itself, where the first Adam lost his title.
- Grace secured. Joseph's son by law, Mary's son in truth, God's Son in the highest sense. All three were needed, and unknown names like these are the quiet links in the chain.
of Meleas, of Menan, of Mattatha, of Nathan, of David,
Luke's list of names reaches David here, and at this point it parts company with the list in Matthew 1. Matthew comes down through Solomon. Luke comes up through Nathan, another son of David. That one difference raises a question about the throne, about a curse on a later king, and about how Jesus could be David's heir at all.
Both accounts start from David. But they follow different sons.
It is well known that Matthew and Luke give two different family lines from David. Luke gives Nathan's line. Matthew gives Solomon's, which was the elder branch and, for a Jew, of course the more important one. As was usual in legal family records, Matthew gives the line of the husband. For the same reason he also records the supernatural dreams of Joseph. In Luke, Mary is everywhere the more prominent of the two. So the family line given here is His mother's, and it shows where His human nature came from.
Nathan's name here is not a random detour. Solomon's royal line ran into a judgment spoken against King Jeconiah.
Then there is a prediction about Jeconiah: "Write this man down as childless, a man who shall not succeed in his days, for none of his offspring shall succeed in sitting on the throne of David and ruling again in Judah." In this way a curse fell on the house of David in the line of Solomon. But there was still the line of Nathan the son of David. The Messiah, the Son of David, could therefore not spring from the line of Solomon; He had to come from the line of Nathan.
Luke's own list shows the same thing a few verses earlier. He calls Salathiel the son of Neri, not of Jeconiah.
That king's childlessness (Jeremiah 22:30) barred the claim to David's throne through Solomon's line, represented by Jeconiah. So the succession passed to Nathan's line (compare 2 Samuel 5:14 and Zechariah 12:12), represented by Salathiel, whose actual father was Neri (verse 27).
One line still held the legal right to the throne. The other held the natural descent. Both had to meet in one Person.
As far back as Irenaeus, writers drew this conclusion. Here the direct line of descent is struck with a curse, yet it is not stripped of the legal title. So it could hand on to another what could be of no advantage to itself. The marriage of Joseph and Mary was, in the wisdom of God, the means of accomplishing this. The Lord's birth from Mary made Him the real Son of David, while His mother's marriage made Him David's legal heir.
The two lists are often read as clashing.
So Luke calls Him the son, as was supposed, of Joseph — that is, by reputation, or in the eye of the law, Joseph's son, but in fact Mary's, as the earlier chapters had carefully shown. So it is plain that there is nothing contradictory in these accounts. Each is where it ought to be, and stands in the Gospel whose character demands it, and there only.
Matthew's list runs down to Christ. Luke's runs back from Him, past David here, and on to Adam.
The stream flows back even as far as Adam... Luke is the Gospel of the Son of Man; it is the humanity of Christ that stands out in Luke... The stream is flowing back. The blessed One who has come to serve among men is not building on the names of those who went before Him. He is showing them as people His grace serves, and to whom He is bringing back the blessings they have lost.
The throne of Solomon's descendants collapsed and never returned. But the promise to David did not fail.
He renewed His pledge that David would never lack a man to sit on the throne of Israel. But He was careful to add that this was no guarantee to the line of Solomon. That line has vanished, but Christ is God's resource. Men indeed crucified the One they hailed as "Son of David"; but God raised Him from among the dead. He came of the Nathan branch of David's royal house. It will be a great day for Israel when they learn in the school of affliction that all their hopes are centred in Him.
- Two lines. From David the record splits. Matthew follows Solomon and the legal claim. Luke follows Nathan and the descent through Mary.
- The curse. A judgment on Jeconiah barred his descendants from the throne. So the Messiah could not come from Solomon's branch.
- The detour. Nathan's line escaped that judgment and carried the real descent. Joseph's marriage to Mary passed on the legal title he could not use himself.
- The direction. Luke's list runs backwards from Christ. He does not rest on the names before Him; His grace reaches back to them.
- The result. Solomon's line vanished. God raised Christ from the dead out of Nathan's branch. Every promise to David now stands in Him.
of Jesse, of Obed, of Booz, of Salmon, of Naasson,
Five names stand in this verse: Jesse, Obed, Boaz, Sala and Nahshon. Why does Luke list them at all, and why does his list differ from Matthew's?
One explanation is that Luke gives Mary's line and Matthew gives Joseph's. Each fits the Gospel it stands in.
It is well known that Matthew and Luke give two distinct pedigrees from David. Luke's is Nathan's line and Matthew's is Solomon's, which was the elder branch and, from a Jewish standpoint, the more important one. As was usual in legal genealogies, Matthew gives the line of the husband... In Luke, Mary is everywhere the more prominent of the two. So the genealogy here is His mother's, and it shows the source of His human nature.
There was also a legal reason for the line to run through Nathan and not Solomon.
Solomon's line, represented by Jeconiah, held the claim through David (verse 31, compare 2 Samuel 5:14, Zechariah 12:12). That king's childlessness barred it (Jeremiah 22:30). So the succession passed to Nathan's line, represented by Salathiel, whose actual father was Neri (verse 27).
Luke's list climbs from Jesus back toward Adam. It does not run down to Him. The direction itself carries a message.
The stream flows back even as far as Adam... Luke is the gospel of the Son of man; it is the humanity of Christ that stands out in Luke... The blessed One who has come to minister among men is not building on the names of those who went before Him. He is showing them as people to whom His grace ministers, and to whom He is bringing back the blessings they have lost... So you come at last to Adam himself, who closes the genealogy instead of opening it. What do you find there? Adam is "the son of God." Christ's work has reinstated him, as if the fall had never happened — that, and more.
Boaz married Ruth, a widow from Moab, a nation outside Israel.
Here in Boaz and Ruth we meet the direct line of His ancestry. A poor widowed Moabite stranger was lifted up to share in this blessed privilege, and from that we learn how completely all is of grace... And most strikingly of all, it was grace which raised poor Ruth out of the dust, and lifted her from the ash heap, to set her among princes.
Boaz's part in this story reaches beyond his own lifetime into Israel's future.
A wealthy man of Bethlehem from the tribe of Judah, who married Ruth the Moabite and was great-grandfather of David. Boaz is a picture of Christ, who in a future day will raise up the name of the dead in Israel through the returned but desolate remnant... The name Boaz means "in Him is strength."
The son of Boaz and Ruth carries a name that points ahead to his famous descendants.
Obed (servant), the son of wealthy Boaz, bore a quiet witness by his name at least — and perhaps also by an obedient and dedicated life. That witness pointed to his coming grandson David, who "served the purpose of God in his own generation" (Acts 13:36), and beyond him to David's Son and David's Lord, whose service to God is unequalled... Outside Ruth his name occurs nowhere else but in 1 Chronicles 2:12, and in Matthew 1:5 and Luke 3:32 as the ancestor of the Messiah of Israel. But what remarkable honour for the son of a Moabite woman, to be linked in this way with the Anointed of Jehovah in His family line!
Prophecy names the Messiah as a shoot from Jesse's stock and not as David's son. Writers find that wording deliberate.
One cannot help thinking, with others, that the reference to the stem of Jesse is significant. Elsewhere Messiah is viewed as David's son, or called David himself. Here He is a Shoot from the stock of Jesse, and a Branch out of his roots... There seems to be a purpose in drawing attention to the lowly condition into which the royal race had sunk by the time of the birth of the Christ. It was from that family, when it counted for nothing in Israel, that David was anointed for the throne.
The last name in the verse belonged to the prince of the tribe of Judah.
Judah is mentioned with Nahshon, the son of Amminadab, as its prince... Amminadab (the father of Nahshon) means "the people of the liberal giver." Certainly God is the Liberal Giver.
- Two lines. Matthew traces Solomon's branch through Joseph. Luke traces Nathan's branch, read as Mary's, showing where Christ's human nature came from.
- One barred, one open. Jeremiah 22:30 shut the door on Jeconiah's line, so the succession moved to David's other son, Nathan — the line these names belong to.
- Grace enters early. Boaz married Ruth, a Moabite widow with no claim at all. Grace lifted her from the dust into the Messiah's family line.
- Service runs in the family. Obed means servant. His name points through David, who served God's purpose in his own generation, to David's Lord.
- Low stem, high reach. Jesse marks the royal house at its lowest. From there the list climbs all the way back to Adam, whom Christ's work has reinstated.
of Aminadab, of Aram, of Esrom, of Phares, of Juda,
Six names fill this line of Luke's list, and most readers pass over all of them. Yet God chose these men as the ancestors of His Son. The order Luke gives them, and the stories behind them, show how God works.
Matthew's list runs downward, from Abraham toward Christ. Luke's runs the other way, from Jesus back to Adam. One writer explains why the direction matters:
Luke's theme joins with the truth of Christ's full manhood, and his genealogy shows it. He takes it out of the leading place it has in Matthew, and he reads it backward. This is not a title derived from man; it is blessing flowing back to men. So it links the Lord, not with David only, nor even with Abraham, but with Adam himself.
The verse ends with the name of Judah. His record holds a promise of the throne and a history of sin:
The fourth son of Jacob and Leah, and the head of the tribe bearing his name, which means "praise." It was Judah who advised selling Joseph rather than taking his life; so his descendants, the Jews, handed the Lord over to the Gentiles. He sinned in the matter of Tamar, his daughter-in-law. He was ready enough to have her punished, until the truth came out that he was guilty too. So we trace the terribly corrupt history of the family from whom, according to election, Christ was to be born. … When Jacob blessed his sons, his predictions put the royal line in Judah. The sceptre would not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until Shiloh came. From Judah sprang David and a long line of kings.
The promise did not run on through Judah himself. It ran through Perez, the son born from the worst chapter of his life:
Is it not remarkable that this record should begin with Perez? That the elders and the people should take the house of Perez as a pattern of blessing for the house of Boaz? "May your house be like the house of Perez." Who was Perez? Let Genesis 38 answer. Why not begin with his father, Judah? His was the greatest of the tribes of Israel. But it was through Perez, son of Tamar, that the promised blessing had to come. God led His line of promise through base things of the world, and took up those that man would spurn. This was to magnify His grace and exalt His name. … And so it comes about that, if the beginning is Perez, the end is David.
The names between Perez and Amminadab are easy to trip over. One man in this stretch of the list carries more than one name in Scripture:
Aram: son of Esrom, and father of Aminadab (Matthew 1:3-4; Luke 3:33). He is called RAM in Ruth 4:19 and 1 Chronicles 2:9-10.
Chronicles records Hezron's other sons too. One writer asks why God keeps even the side branches of this family on record:
Having brought the line down to David, the Holy Spirit pauses and notes the sons of Hezron other than Ram. … The honoured line passed through Ram, but his natural connections have a place in the archives of Judah. … Scripture even names Segub, though he was only half-brother to Ram. Is it not because of his connection with the ancestry of David? That line was always so precious to God, and even the smallest link with it entitles a man to a place in these genealogies.
Matthew and Luke give different lists after David. One writer explains why the two lines are not the same:
Matthew gives the Messianic genealogy proper, from Solomon through our Lord as the legal heir of Joseph. Without it the promise would have failed, and He would have lacked the legal title. Luke gives His real line through Mary, as Son of Man and Son of God here below. It does not run down from Abraham and David, but up to Adam and God.
- Direction. Luke reads the family backwards. He is not tracing a title claimed from men, but blessing flowing back to men.
- Judah. His name means "praise," and God promised him the royal sceptre. Yet his own record is one of betrayal and sin.
- Perez. The promise ran through the son born of Judah's worst act; God led His line through base things to magnify His grace.
- Every name. God recorded even the distant relatives of this line, because nearness to David's ancestry was precious to Him.
- The point. The list ends at Adam, not Abraham. It shows the full manhood of the One who brings the blessing back.
of Jacob, of Isaac, of Abraham, of Terah, of Nachor,
Luke 3:34 sits inside the long list of names that Luke runs backward from Jesus, and it holds five weighty names: Jacob, Isaac, Abraham, Terah and Nahor. God gave His promises to the first three; the last two belong to the family God called Abraham out of — so why does the line not stop at Abraham?
Matthew opens his Gospel with a family tree. Luke holds his back. One commentator finds the reason in both the placement and the direction the names travel.
It should strike any thoughtful mind that the Spirit of God must have had good reason for bringing it in here, when Jesus is baptised. It comes in not mainly to prove He was truly the Messiah according to the flesh. It brings out the Person of Jesus on the human side, as the Father had just owned Him on the divine side. So the genealogy is very unusual in this — that it traces Him up to Adam and to God. Why? Clearly this has nothing to do with His being the Messiah. It is meant to show One whose heart went out to the whole human race. It is the genealogy of grace, as Matthew's is of law. It does not run down from the two great fountains of blessing for Israel — Abraham and David, the source of promise and the royal line.
These three names are not simply grandfather, father, son. God's word about worldwide blessing was spoken to each of them in turn, and the New Testament identifies who that word was really about.
When the ram God provided took Isaac's place as his substitute, God gave Abraham the wonderful promise, "in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed" (Gen. 22:18; Gal. 3:16). That offspring, says the apostle, is Christ. The promise was so important that God repeated it to both Isaac and Jacob (Gen. 26:4; Gen. 28:14).
So these three names mark the line through which the promised One had to come.
Luke does not stop at Abraham. He also names Terah, Abraham's father, and Terah's own father Nahor. The Old Testament tells us what these fathers worshipped.
In Joshua 24, Joshua says to all the people, "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, Long ago your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor; and they served other gods." This is the first mention of idolatry the Bible gives us. And it comes not when idolatry began, but when it had already corrupted Abraham's own father.
Abraham's place in the line, then, was never his own achievement.
Even Terah was an idolater. Abraham was set apart to the one true God by the promises which sovereign grace entrusted to him and to his descendants in the line of Isaac.
Since Luke has already said Jesus was only supposed to be Joseph's son, readers ask how this list relates to the one in Matthew. Commentators differ over the details, but several argue that the wording marks off Joseph in a parenthesis, so that the line itself begins with Mary's father.
Joseph was the son of Jacob, in Solomon's line, while Mary was the daughter of Heli, in Nathan's line. Our Lord needed to be born this way to be, beyond question, the heir of David and true man... Had He really been Joseph's son — which He was not — the whole truth of His person would have been denied. Had He been only Mary's son — which He was not — He would have been true man but not true Messiah. He must therefore be Joseph's son legally, Mary's son truly, and God's Son supremely.
The names in verse 34 are steps in a list that keeps going back to the first man. Where the list ends shapes how we read it.
The stream is flowing back; and the blessed One who has come to serve among men is not building on the names of those who went before Him, but showing them as people His grace serves, and to whom He is bringing back the blessings they lost. So when you come to Adam himself, who closes the genealogy instead of opening it, what do you find? "Adam, the son of God." Christ's work has reinstated him, as if the fall had never happened — that, and more.
- Backward, not forward. Matthew traces the line down from Abraham and David. Luke traces it up — a genealogy of grace, not of law.
- Back through promise. God gave Jacob, Isaac and Abraham the same promise of blessing for all nations, and the apostle says that promised offspring is Christ.
- Back past promise into idolatry. Abraham's fathers "served other gods" — Scripture's first mention of idolatry names the family he came from.
- Back by grace alone. Sovereign grace entrusted the promises to Abraham and set him apart to the true God. Better ancestry had nothing to do with it.
- Back to Adam, and to God. The list ends where humanity began, so that the One who serves men brings back to them the blessing they lost.
of Seruch, of Ragau, of Phalek, of Eber, of Sala,
Luke 3:35 names five men who lived after the flood, between Noah and Abraham: Serug, Reu, Peleg, Eber and Shelah. Luke is tracing the family line of Jesus, and these five names raise three questions — why list them at all, which way the list runs, and why the spellings differ from Genesis.
Luke places this family record right after the baptism of Jesus, and runs it in the opposite direction from Matthew:
The Father's voice has owned Him as the beloved Son. Now Luke introduces His genealogy through Mary, to show how truly He is also Man. Matthew traces His descent down from Abraham, who held the promise, and David, who held the kingship. Luke traces Him up to Adam and to God, for it is simply His Manhood that is the point.
These names prove nothing and add nothing, yet Luke records every one:
You don't want the record of all the names in between. They are just worth nothing, and yet here they are, all listed with care. The stream is flowing back. The blessed One who has come to serve among men is not building on the names of those who went before Him. He is showing them as people to whom His grace ministers, and to whom He is bringing back the blessings they have lost.
Luke wrote in Greek, so older English versions carried the Greek spellings over: Saruch, Ragau, Phalec, Heber and Sala. The ESV puts back the Hebrew spellings of Genesis. One name caused real confusion, because its Greek form matches a second, unrelated Hebrew name:
It is important to distinguish the true form of Eber, because in Luke 3:35 it is confused with the different name "Heber." No less than half a dozen wholly distinct people share that other name.
Peleg is the third name in the verse, and his name is tied to a moment of judgment. God later turned that same judgment into a way of announcing His grace:
The names Shem and Arphaxad lead to Peleg, and in his days the earth was divided. Peleg lived in the time of Nimrod, when God scattered men by confusing their language… Peleg's name will be a constant reminder of the judgment on man because of sin, right up to the new heavens and the new earth. Even the day of grace met the sin and rose above the judgment in God's wise way. It did not cancel the judgment or wipe out the sin. Instead God gave the apostles power on the day of Pentecost to speak to men in their own languages, the ones they were born into, to their amazement. So they proclaimed the grace of God in the middle of the evidence of His judgment.
Eber is the fourth name in the verse. His descendants carried the name Hebrews, though its origin is not settled:
They went to the East and got a name; they were the direct descendants of Eber. God did not call them Hebrews; it was the other nations. Some take it from the Hebrew word meaning to come over, because Abraham came over the river.
Peleg had a brother, Joktan, and the record passes his line by. Luke's verse follows the branch God kept:
This genealogy of Genesis 11 continues with Reu the son of Peleg, ignoring Joktan and his sons. The reason is clear. Reu's line issues in Nahor, Terah and Abram, and God had purposed Abram to be the father of a chosen race whom He would separate from the rest of the nations… God has been careful to trace that line down through the ages… Luke 3:23-38 gives the actual line, traced backward from the virgin Mary through Abraham to Adam.
after_note: none
- Direction. Matthew's list runs down to Christ; Luke's runs back from Him, past Abraham, to Adam. Every name is a step further back.
- Purpose. A backward list cannot build a royal claim. It proves manhood, and that is Luke's point about Jesus.
- Names. The five names here come from the Greek. Older English wrote Eber as "Heber," which blurs him with a different man.
- Memory. Peleg's name recalls the day God divided the earth by confusing man's speech. At Pentecost He used those same languages to publish His grace.
- Reach. God kept this one thread through unknown generations. Luke follows it back past Abraham to Adam, so grace touches the whole race.
of Cainan, of Arphaxad, of Sem, of Noe, of Lamech,
Five names in this verse carry the family line of Jesus back across the flood — Cainan, Arphaxad, Shem, Noah, Lamech. Why does Luke record men who died thousands of years before Bethlehem? And why is one of these names, Cainan, missing from the Hebrew lists in Genesis?
Matthew's genealogy runs down from Abraham to Christ. Luke's runs the other way, and the direction changes what the list is for.
It is no longer written downward from Abraham and David to Christ. The stream flows back even as far as Adam. Luke is the gospel of the Son of man; it is the humanity of Christ that stands out in Luke... You don't need the record of all the intermediate names; they are just worth nothing, and yet here they are, all carefully listed. The stream is flowing back. The blessed One who has come to serve among men is not building on the names of those who went before Him. He is showing them as those to whom His grace ministers, and to whom He is bringing back the blessings they have lost.
So Lamech and Noah are not credentials. They are people the grace of Christ reaches backwards to touch.
Luke also delays the genealogy until chapter 3, after we have already learned who Jesus is. That placement fits his readers.
Luke was writing to the Gentiles, who would not share the same interest in His messianic relations. But once they had learned something of who Jesus was, it would be very interesting to see His lineage as man. It would trace Him up to Adam, the father of the whole human family. What could be more fitting than to link Him with the head of the race, if the aim was to show the grace that would go out toward all mankind?
These names also say something about Jesus Himself:
Luke traces Him up to Adam and to God, for it is simply His Manhood that is the point, and that came through Mary, since people only supposed Joseph to be His father. He is truly a Man though the Son of God.
Three of the five names here sit either side of the flood. The promise settled on one of Noah's sons.
The Lord connects His name with Shem (Genesis 9:26); from him the Seed would come.
Shem's name in this list belongs to that promise. The next name, Arphaxad, shows where the line picks up again:
Arphaxad was Shem's eldest son, born two years after the flood.
The last name in the verse is Noah's father, and Genesis records what he said when he named the boy.
Lamech, the son of Methuselah, called his son's name Noah, meaning "rest."... His words were prophetic, being inspired by God. Noah would "comfort us" or "give us rest from our works and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed." We may be sure that Lamech did not know how this would happen... So the great work of the Lord Jesus in His sacrifice at Calvary is the basis of rest for the believer. The curse of sin has spoiled the earth for us, but the work of Christ has brought in eternal blessing above the level of earth, giving rest to weary hearts.
Lamech longed for rest and named a son for it. Luke traces the line from that name down to the One who gives it.
The first name is the puzzle. Cainan is missing from the Hebrew text of Genesis. Commentators differ on how it reached Luke, and the trail runs through the Septuagint — the old Greek translation of the Old Testament:
This is commonly called the "second" Cainan, because of the earlier one mentioned in Luke 3:37. It is notable because it does not occur in the Hebrew, Samaritan Pentateuch, Vulgate, Syriac, or Arabic texts at Genesis 10:24; Genesis 11:12; 1 Chronicles 1:18. But it is in the Septuagint, and from there it may have found its way into the gospel of Luke. Or, as some suppose, copyists added it to later copies of the Septuagint because it was found in Luke.
These lists were never given as a calendar either. On this very stretch of names:
The Hebrew Scriptures and the Septuagint differ again... So any chronology we work out for the time between Shem and Abraham is doubtful by as much as 650 years.
- Backwards. Luke's list does not climb down to Christ. It runs back from Him. The names are not His credentials; they are the people His grace reaches.
- Wider. The stream keeps flowing past Abraham to Adam. The grace shown here goes out to the whole human family, not one nation.
- Preserved. Noah, Shem and Arphaxad mark a line that came through the flood. The promise settled on Shem, and from him the Seed would come.
- Rest. Lamech named his son "rest" and longed for comfort from a cursed ground. The line he began ends in the One whose work is the believer's rest.
- Careful. Cainan's name is missing from the Hebrew lists in Genesis, and writers differ on how it came into Luke. These lists were never a safe basis for dating the world.
of Methusala, of Enoch, of Jared, of Maleleel, of Cainan,
Luke's list of ancestors runs backwards, and here it reaches the world before the flood — five men from Genesis 5, a chapter where almost every entry ends in death. One of the five never died at all, and another's name was a countdown to judgment.
One writer asks why a Gospel about the Son of man needs a family line at all.
This genealogy is no longer written downward from Abraham and David to Christ. The stream flows back even as far as Adam. What do you want it for? Luke is the gospel of the Son of man; the humanity of Christ stands out in Luke... You don't want the record of all the names in between. They are worth nothing, and yet here they are, all carefully listed. The stream is flowing back. The blessed One who has come to serve among men is not building on the names of those who went before Him. He is showing them as people His grace serves, and to whom He is bringing back the blessings they have lost.
Cainan, Mahalaleel and Jared mean little to most readers. One writer sets out what the names in this line mean, and what they say when you read them in order.
The names are these: Adam, Sheth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jered, Henoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah. Dr Kitto has pointed out that these ten names, translated word for word and kept in order, form a remarkable sentence in English: Man, Appointed [or Replaced], Miserable, Lamenting, The God of Glory, Shall descend, To instruct, His death sends, To the afflicted, Consolation. So the very names of these men who lived before the flood would be a standing testimony to the world.
Another writer gives the individual meanings in the same order, and the middle of the sequence lands on the men of this verse: "Cainan — Deplorable; Mahalaleel — The Blessed God; Jared — Descends; Enoch — Teaching; Methuselah — Death sent away."
Genesis 5 repeats one refrain: and he died. Enoch breaks it, and the reason given is faith.
Enoch forms the only exception to the rule of Genesis 5. The rule is, "he died"; the exception is, "he should not see death"... Enoch was "the seventh from Adam". Death was not allowed to triumph over "the seventh". In his case God stepped in, and made him a trophy of His own glorious victory over all the power of death... Enoch lived in the faith that he would be taken up, and walked with God three hundred years. This set him apart, in practice, from everyone around him.
The letter to the Hebrews adds that he "was not found." One writer reads this as a sign that people were looking for him.
We judge this also shows that, apart from being taken up, his death was near. God left Enoch in his path of faithful witness until the last possible moment. The lawless people before the flood were angered by his plain and fearless words. Just as they were about to silence the witness, and were looking for him to kill him, "he was not found, because God had taken him."
The letter of Jude preserves words of Enoch found nowhere else in the Bible. One writer points out how early they stand.
So Jude introduces the coming of the Lord in a very remarkable way. He does not give a new prophecy. He recovers for us one of the first prophecies ever spoken, and certainly the first in the ordinary shape that marked every prophecy after it... Enoch speaks of the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against Him. Words are the common expression of man's sin, because he cannot do all he would like to do, but there is nothing he cannot say. This kind of evil is no light thing. It is presented with the utmost seriousness, and that by Enoch before the flood: and it is nowhere else preserved.
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The man who warned of judgment left the earth before the judgment came. One writer sees a picture of a later hope:
Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death. He was carried away from the earth before the judgment of the flood. So he is a picture of the church — of the saints who will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
Enoch named his son, and the name was a warning. The son then outlived every other man in the Bible.
Look at the prophecy of God's patience wrapped up in the meaning of Methuselah's name. It meant "when he is dead it shall be sent," that is, the flood. Nobody has lived longer than he did. His great age stood as a witness to God's patient compassion, and to His unwillingness to judge... At last God's patience came to an end. Methuselah died. That year the flood came.
- Backward — Luke runs the line back toward Adam. The names are not a ladder Christ climbs, but people His grace reaches.
- Named — read in order, the meanings of these names form one message: the God of glory comes down to teach, and His death sends comfort to the afflicted.
- Walked — Enoch is the one break in a chapter of deaths. The reason given is faith, lived out in three hundred years of walking with God.
- Taken — God took him from the earth before the flood came. Writers see a picture here of saints caught up before judgment falls.
- Waited — Methuselah's record-long life measured God's patience. The year he died, the flood came.
of Enos, of Seth, of Adam, of God.
Luke's list of names ends where no family tree ends — with God. It runs backward from the Lord Jesus to Adam, which raises two questions: why the reverse order, and how the first man can be God's son.
Luke's list does not build up to Christ. It flows back from Him, and that direction carries the meaning.
The stream flows back even as far as Adam... The blessed One who has come to serve among men is not building on the names of those who went before Him. He is showing them as people to whom His grace ministers, and to whom He is bringing back the blessings they have lost. So you come to Adam himself, and he closes the genealogy instead of opening it. The stream flows back from Christ to Adam. What do you find? "The son of Adam, the son of God." Christ's work has reinstated him, as if the fall had never been — and done that and more.
Matthew and Luke do not give the same list. Each Gospel has its own aim.
The genealogy of Matthew 1 begins with Abraham and comes forward to Joseph and Christ. Matthew gives the royal line, so there he establishes the official title of Christ to the throne of Israel. That line runs through Joseph, who was not actually in the line of the Lord Jesus at all... Luke's line is clearly that of Mary, for Joseph had a different father, Jacob. Both lines go back to David. Luke, however, gives the actual genealogy. He goes back to Adam to stress the reality of the Manhood of the Lord Jesus, and to remind us that man as such came from God.
Luke wrote for readers outside Israel. The place where his list ends suits them.
Luke was writing to the Gentiles, who would not take the same interest in His messianic relations. But once they had learned in some degree who the Lord Jesus was, it would be very interesting to see His lineage as man, and to trace Him up to Adam. Adam is the father of the whole human family. What could be more fitting than to link Him with the head of the race, if the object was to show the grace that would go out toward all mankind?
The phrase is not loose language. It points back to how Adam came into being, and to something no other earthly creature received.
Here only are we told of man formed of the dust of the ground on one hand, and on the other of the LORD God breathing into his nostrils the breath of life. Adam was thus "son of God" (Luke 3:38), a living soul, not as other creatures by creative power only, but he alone by the LORD God breathing into his nostrils. Nor is the effect lost for the race; for, as Paul quotes to the Athenians, we too are His offspring, as no other earthly creatures are.
If Adam is God's son, may we call God the Father of everyone? One writer allows the term, then draws a hard line around it.
This universal Fatherhood of God only makes man's wickedness and unbelief more inexcusable and ruinous. It has to do with nature only. That nature is now fallen and sinful, and it proved itself God's enemy by rejecting His Son, whom God sent to save. Salvation is in no other than Christ Jesus, His only begotten Son, and our Lord. Then only are we who believe His sons by grace.
The verse closes a list of ordinary human names. Yet the One this list belongs to is more than a man.
Note that last verse: "the son of Adam, the son of God." It means this. He who was truly Man, He who was pleased to become such here — "the Word became flesh" — showed plainly and clearly that though Man He was the Son of God.
- Backward — Luke's list runs up, not down. It ends at Adam and at God, because the point is His Manhood, not His royal title.
- Breath — Adam is God's son because God breathed life into him. He came from God in a way no animal did.
- Boundary — that natural link makes unbelief worse, not safer. It belongs to a nature that is now fallen.
- Brought back — the first man's line ends in ruin. Christ's work reinstates him, as if the fall had never been, and does more.
- By grace — saving sonship does not come down from Adam. Only believers are sons of God, through Christ Jesus, His Son.