Book of the generation of Jesus Christ, Son of David, Son of Abraham.
The New Testament opens not with a sermon but with a family register. Its first line names the person the whole book is about: Jesus Christ, tied to two names every Israelite knew. Why begin with a genealogy at all? And why name David before Abraham, when the list that follows runs the other way?
The opening words are a heading, not yet the list. The ESV reads "the book of the genealogy"; older translations read "the book of the generation," the wording the writers below use. It echoes a phrase readers of the older Scriptures already knew:
This Gospel begins with two Greek words, "Biblos geneseos" — the book of the generation. It matches a similar Old Testament expression found often in the Scriptures (Genesis 6:9, etc.)… You can call the first verse in Matthew a heading for the genealogy that follows.
Only one other line in the Bible carries that same title, and the contrast between the two is the point:
In all the many names and generations in the Bible there are only two "books of generations" — "the book of the generation of Adam," and "the book of the generation of Jesus Christ." In the first (Genesis 5) we read over and over again, "and he died" (Enoch is the exception). We need not spell it out — death spread to all men. But in "the book of the generation of Jesus Christ" (Matthew 1) the sovereign mercy of God would include the names of four women who otherwise would have no claim to be there: three of them were open wrongdoers, and one was a stranger to God's people. It is a testimony to the whole world of God's abounding grace.
Matthew's first move answers the first question a Jewish reader would raise.
God does not only meet the Jew with these proofs from prophecy, miracle, life, and doctrine. He begins with what a Jew would and must demand — the question of genealogy. Even then Matthew's answer is of a divine kind. "The book," he says, "of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham." These are the two chief landmarks a Jew turns to: royalty given by the grace of God in the one, and the original holder of the promise in the other.
The first title ties Him to Israel's royal line.
David was the great head of the kingdom, the one in whom the true line of Messiah's throne began. Saul was only the human king Israel wanted for a while, out of their own will. David was the king God chose, and this verse names him as the forefather of the Lord's Anointed — "the Son of David." So the opening words prepare us for the whole of the Gospel.
The second title matters most when the first is refused.
As Son of David He is King of Israel. As Son of Abraham He is not necessarily King at all. But He has a promise of the widest blessing, given on the principle of faith to all the families of the earth. So Israel's rejection of Him, and the delay of the kingdom promised to David that followed, do not hinder it. That only affects how the promise is expressed, not the fact of it. It may even find a higher expression, as it has in Christianity.
The list that follows runs from Abraham to David, but the title reverses them. Commentators explain the reversal differently. One reads it as God's rights coming first:
In this "book of generations" the Lord Jesus comes first as "Son of David" and then as "Son of Abraham." That is a different order from the line of succession that follows. God's throne rights must be upheld first; then His promises in grace and mercy can be handed out.
Another reads kingship as the means by which the older promise is kept:
David is put before Abraham, because the promises to Abraham will only be carried out in full by establishing royalty in David.
Matthew puts the genealogy first. Luke places his much later, and for a reason.
Luke was writing to the Gentiles. They could not be expected to care as much, or in the same way, about His ties to the Messiah's line. But once they had learned something of who Jesus was, it would be very interesting to see His family line as man, and to trace Him back to Adam, the father of the whole human family.
- Book — The Bible holds only two "books of generations": Adam's, where name after name ends in death, and Christ's, which opens the New Testament and takes in four women who had no claim to be there.
- Title — The verse is the heading over the list that follows. It names the two landmarks a Jewish reader looked for: David and Abraham.
- Throne — "Son of David" gives Him the royal line God Himself chose, the founding of Messiah's throne.
- Nations — "Son of Abraham" carries blessing for all the families of the earth. Israel's rejection could delay how that promise shows, but not undo it.
- Order — David comes before Abraham, though the list runs the other way. Writers read this either as God's throne rights coming first, or as kingship being the way the promise is kept.
Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob begat Juda and his brethren;
The genealogy proper begins here. Three generations pass in a single line, and then the frame widens: Judah is not named alone, but with his brothers. Why does the list start with Abraham? Why does Judah carry the line? And why name the other sons at all, when only one of them is needed?
Matthew does not work backwards from Jesus to His ancestors. He starts at Abraham and moves forward, and that starting point carries meaning.
Abraham is the one entrusted with blessing, and so the genealogy begins with Abraham. Since the descent conveys title, the stream runs down through the centuries. Luke reverses the order, and that gives a very different meaning: the stream runs back. The style and manner of Scripture are important, and not only its statements. We can miss what is said by not paying attention to how it is said.
Judah was Jacob's fourth son, not his first. The line runs through him because of a promise his father Jacob made long before: rule would stay with Judah until Shiloh — the Messiah — came.
He was the fourth son of Jacob and Leah, and the head of the tribe that bears his name, which means "praise." Judah was the one 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 it came out that he was guilty too. This traces the terribly corrupt history of the family God chose for Christ to be born from. Though not the eldest son, he began to take a chief place in the family... When Jacob blessed his sons, the predictions show that the royal line was centred in Judah. The sceptre should not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh came. Genesis 49:8-12. From Judah sprang David and a long succession of kings.
Some older English Bibles spell the name here as "Judas." It is the same man (Morrish Bible Dictionary).
The line only needs Judah to run from Jacob to Jesus. His eleven brothers add nothing to it. So why does Matthew name them?
This comprehensive notice, "Judah and his brothers," seems to be important, and in more ways than one. It does not fit the idea that in this part of the chapter Matthew is just copying the records kept by the Jews. We may be sure that men never register things in this fashion. Yet it fits this Gospel exactly. It gives prominence to the royal tribe from whom the Messiah came (Genesis 49:10). At the same time it reminds the most favoured that God had not forgotten others who had long been out of sight, now that He is giving the genealogy of His Messiah.
The words "and his brothers" do more than count heads. They carry a memory of sin.
The phrase "Judah and his brothers" reminds us of Judah's sin and his brothers' sin in selling their own brother, and everything connected with it.
The names are not decoration. Read forward from Abraham, they trace a line that runs downward — until God steps in.
The genealogy in Matthew speaks of decline. It brings out corruption, ruin and hopelessness. It begins with Abraham. As it names generation after generation, it sets before us the shameful history of Israel: their unbelief, their turning away, and the judgments that followed. At last it becomes all dark and all hopeless as far as Israel is concerned. Sarah indeed stands as a picture of the nation. Like her womb, the whole nation was dead: no hope, all ruin and corruption. But God can bring life from the dead.
This careful listing is also legal proof.
The Spirit of God, with accurate and legal precision, shows that the Babe is none other than the promised Seed of David.
- Downward. Matthew runs the line forward from Abraham, because that descent conveys title. Luke runs it the other way. The direction itself carries meaning.
- Chosen. Judah was the fourth son, yet the line runs through him. Jacob's blessing left the sceptre with Judah until Shiloh came, and David and a long line of kings sprang from him.
- Stained. The same Judah advised selling Joseph, and he sinned with Tamar. Commentators read "and his brothers" as a reminder of that shared crime.
- Remembered. The brothers add nothing to the legal line, and no ordinary record-keeper would list them. they are there because God had not forgotten others long out of sight, even as He gave His Messiah's genealogy.
- Reversed. Generation by generation, the line runs down into ruin and hopelessness. That is exactly where God brings life from the dead.
and Juda begat Phares and Zara of Thamar; and Phares begat Esrom, and Esrom begat Aram,
A family record usually lists respectable fathers. Here the Spirit of God names a woman, Tamar, whose story is one of the darkest in the Old Testament. He also names both her twin sons, though only one carries the line on. Why would God place a record like this at the head of His Son's story?
One writer treats these names as proof of who really wrote this book.
Judah is the royal line. "Our Lord was descended from Judah." This shows, in a truly marvellous way, how the grace of God rises in majesty above human sin, and wins a glorious victory over circumstances that show up man's utter weakness. "Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar!" Who but the Holy Spirit could have written these words? How clearly they declare that God's thoughts are not our thoughts! What human hand would have put Tamar into the family line of our adored Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ? Not one. Matthew 1:3 bears the clear mark of God, as does every clause of Scripture from beginning to end.
A family record exists to prove descent. Not one of these names was needed for that.
No true student of Scripture could doubt that there was a special purpose in it. These are exactly the kind of names that a record-keeper working by human wisdom — and above all a Jew, however right thinking — would have kept out of sight, all the more so since there was no clear need to bring them forward. They were not needed at all to establish our Lord's link with David or with Abraham.
One writer looks for something to soften Tamar's story and finds nothing.
With the other names that stand beside hers in this genealogy, I may perhaps find in each case something that breaks the darkness a little. I find nothing like that about Tamar. She comes before me here as a sinner and nothing else. But the wonder above all this is that this very sin is what brings her name into the Lord's genealogy — for this sin made her the mother of Perez, one of the direct line in Christ's ancestry.
This is not only history. It settles what gives anyone a claim on the work of Christ.
Tamar's sin was the very thing that brought her into the Lord's genealogy. And it is simply as sinners that we have a right to rejoice in a work done for sinners. Judah will find, in a day that is near, his title — not in legal righteousness, nor in mere descent from Abraham, but in the truth that God has stressed for us here.
Tamar is the first of only four women named in this chapter, and their order matters.
The first, Tamar, brings out the sin of man. The second, Rahab, brings out the faith that lays hold of the grace of God. The third, Ruth, shows that grace setting aside the claims of the law. The fourth, the wife of Uriah (Bathsheba), shows the grace which, through discipline, can even bring blessing out of failure in God's people.
Taken in order, the four spell out one message: "salvation for sinners, through faith, apart from law, and eternal — this is what the simple placing of these names declares" (Frederick W. Grant).
Zerah adds nothing to the line from Judah to David. Scripture names him anyway.
Zerah's twin birth with Perez is mentioned, though he himself is not in the line of the genealogy. It is as if to recall the circumstances of that sin which brought the two of them into being.
The names of the twins carry meaning. Together they turn the darkest chapter into the start of the line that reaches David.
The colour "scarlet" stands for the rights of the Lord. It is both striking and instructive to see how the thought of Christ's supremacy runs through Scripture like a "thread of scarlet." This beautiful thought appears in what may be one of the darkest chapters in the Old Testament, Genesis 38. In those dark, sordid circumstances something shows itself that has power to "break through" and "rise up" — as the names of the twins suggest — and it comes to a head in the generation from which David springs.
The line then runs on through Hezron to Ram. The descendants of Perez did not stay obscure: "The family of Perez held highest rank in the tribe of Judah in David's reign" (William J. Hocking).
- Sin — Tamar has no redeeming feature in her record; the one thing that brings her into Christ's ancestry is her sin.
- Sinners — What was true of her is true of us: as sinners, and on no other ground, we have title to a work done for sinners.
- Spirit — No human writer would have chosen her name. That is the mark that God wrote this book.
- Sequence — She is first of four women. In order they spell out sin, faith, grace beyond law, and grace over a believer's failure.
- Sovereignty — Out of Genesis 38 comes Perez, the one who "breaks through," and through him the line that reaches David and, at last, Christ.
and Aram begat Aminadab, and Aminadab begat Naasson, and Naasson begat Salmon,
Four names pass by in a single line — Ram, Amminadab, Nahshon, Salmon — and not one of them gets a story attached. Yet these generations carried the promised line through Egypt, through the wilderness, and into the land. Matthew records them with the same care he gives to Abraham and David.
One writer divides this ten-name list by the seasons of the nation's life. The break falls inside our verse — Nahshon closes one era, Salmon opens the next.
The list contains ten generations, and these may be divided into two groups of five. The first five names — Pherez to Nahshon — belong mainly to Israel's time in Egypt and in the wilderness. The second five — Salmon to David — belong to Israel in the land, up to the time when the monarchy began under God's chosen king. God had decreed that the line of descent from Pherez would end with the Messiah, so He watched over it without a break.
The names look bare, but each man appears elsewhere in Scripture, sometimes with a different spelling. Their family ties reach to Aaron and to Rahab.
Ram is sometimes called Aram. Amminadab was the father of Elisheba. She became the wife of Aaron, the brother of Moses and the first of Israel's high priests, a position passed down from father to son. Nahshon was brother-in-law of Aaron, and prince or head of the tribe of Judah. Salmon, son of Nahshon, married Rahab and was the father of Boaz. Salmon was probably one of the two men Joshua sent in secret to Jericho and the area around it. They stayed in Rahab's house.
Of the four, Nahshon is the one Scripture puts in the spotlight. One writer notices how the wording singles him out.
All twelve are called princes, except Nahshon of Judah. He, as the leader, the representative of Judah, must be the picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, and He is more than a prince.
Matthew breaks the whole line into three parts. Our verse sits in the first, and each part has its own mood.
The genealogy falls into three parts, and each part has a character of its own. From Abraham to David, promise is the leading thought. From David, through Solomon, to the captivity, the record is one of decline. From the captivity to the birth of our Lord is a time of darkness — a darkness that ends like a resurrection in the birth of our Lord.
Names like these are the paperwork of the kingdom.
The Messiah was of the tribe of Judah, and of the royal family of that tribe. His claim to royalty could not be questioned, for the simple reason that the records proved the fact. His title to the throne came down to Him by direct descent; and although so lowly — gentle and lowly in heart — He was indeed the King.
One writer refuses to skim a verse like this, though he admits he cannot mine it all himself.
The genealogy of Jesus Christ therefore tells us much about Him. It is more than possible that every name in this list would prove itself significant, if we only had eyes to see it. Each would have its own story to tell about Him. But it is not for me to try this. Yet these generations are numbered so carefully that I cannot believe there is a single one unworthy of that care. If we had worked at this in faith, how the work would have repaid us!
- Link one — kept. The line from Perez to Nahshon runs through Egypt and the wilderness. God watched over it the whole way, because it would end in the Messiah.
- Link two — known. These are real, traceable men. Ram also appears as Aram, Amminadab's daughter married Aaron, and Salmon married Rahab.
- Link three — leading. Nahshon led the tribe of Judah, and in that place he pictures Christ, who is more than a prince.
- Link four — promise. This verse falls in the first of Matthew's three sections. Promise is its note; decline and darkness come later.
- Link five — proof. The records made the King's title to the throne impossible to dispute, and not one name in the chain is beneath our attention.
and Salmon begat Booz of Rachab; and Booz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed begat Jesse,
Matthew's family list for Jesus runs through fathers and sons. Then two women appear, one after the other: a woman of Jericho and a woman of Moab. Both were Gentiles, outsiders to Israel, with no claim by birth to the royal line. So how does God bring outsiders into the family of His King?
The first surprise is Rahab. Matthew wrote this Gospel for Jewish readers. Yet the line of their King runs straight through a woman of Jericho.
And who and what was she? A Gentile, and once a prostitute! But Rahab is taken out of everything that was hers by nature. And here she is, in this gospel of Jesus written for the Jew. These are the very people who despised and hated Him because He would look on a Gentile. God visited her. By His mighty grace He delivered her outwardly and inwardly, and brought her into Israel on earth and made her a part of it — yes, by sovereign grace part of the royal line out of which the Messiah must come.
Tamar is another woman in this genealogy. One writer contrasts what brought each of them in.
And who can doubt it was Rahab's faith that brought her into the genealogy, as sin had brought Tamar? Without faith, she had died with those shut up in Jericho, a cursed woman of a cursed race. Faith removed that curse from her; faith brought her in among the people of God.
Ruth is the harder case. Nothing shameful is recorded about her. Yet one written law of Israel stood against her, and one writer finds that deliberate.
Against this Ruth, with all her loveliness and with all her goodness, there lay a ban. It did not lie in the same way against the others. She was a woman of Moab, and the law had aimed an express statute against Moab: "No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the LORD. Even to the tenth generation, none of them may enter the assembly of the LORD forever" (Deut. 23:3)... It is striking that the law applied to this devoted, this lovely woman — not to Rahab nor even to Tamar. In this way God has shown the law's real character. He did not bring it in to condemn the sinner and the prostitute, where human judgment would have condemned. He brought it in as the thing that would have shut out a Ruth, even with all her devotion to God. This taught plainly that man as man was shut out from God — not only in his sins, but in his righteousness.
The law treated Moab worse than other nations outside Israel.
Even the Edomite or the Egyptian was hated less, and their children might enter in the third generation (Deut. 23:3-8). So this gave a still deeper testimony that grace would go out and bless the very worst of the Gentiles.
Between the two women stands Boaz. Why did he step in, and not the relative who was nearer?
Boaz, who is the instrument of blessing, the kinsman-redeemer, is a type of the risen Christ. The name means "In him is strength"; and it was he, when the nearest relative failed, who had the power of redemption. It was not possible for the nearer relative, who represents the law, to redeem the inheritance. The apostle wrote that an inheritance by law is no longer by promise, so Ruth had to receive everything as a gift of pure grace. Boaz, therefore, on whom there was no claim, though a relative, stepped in. Acting from his own heart of love and grace, he bought the land and married Ruth.
That failure is the point of Ruth's name here:
What, then, does the name of Ruth emphasise in this series? Can it be anything but this — that the law is therefore not the way of blessing? The law does not provide the redeemer; grace alone does. For Ruth the Moabitess is debtor to the grace of Boaz!
Family trees are usually tidied up. This one keeps the names a man would have left out.
Who, setting out to prepare a family tree to prove a title, would have brought in the story of Rahab the prostitute, or Bathsheba, or Ruth, or Tamar? Ah, none but God. You see, God wrote this Book and not man... When He is about to tell the family history of His Son, become a man to bless man, God brings them in.
- Shut out. The law's own statute barred a Moabite from the assembly of the LORD. It landed on Ruth, the devoted one, not on Rahab or Tamar. That is what the law does to people at their best.
- Brought in. Faith, not background, moved Rahab from a cursed race into the people of God. Faith removed the curse, and faith brought her in.
- Redeemed. The nearer relative stands for the law, and he could not redeem. Boaz — "in him is strength" — acted from his own heart, and Ruth owed everything to his grace.
- Enrolled. Both women pass from rescue into the royal line. Grace reaches further than safety; it reaches the highest honour God can give.
- Recorded. God kept the names in His Son's family record that any man would have struck out. Only God writes a family tree like that.
and Jesse begat David the king. And David begat Solomon, of her [that had been the wife] of Urias;
The list of names has reached the throne: Jesse's son carries the title "the king." Yet in the same breath, Matthew points to the woman David took by adultery and murder.
Matthew's list is not just family history. It is a legal record, and it must prove descent from the son named here.
The genealogy that would satisfy a Jew asking questions had to be descent from Solomon. That came through Joseph alone. If our Lord had not inherited His title legally, He could not have been David's Son in the direct royal line. This was given to Matthew, and he proves Him beyond doubt to be the Heir through Solomon, whose succession the Lord confirmed with an oath.
David had more than one son, and two branches of his family line came down unbroken. That is why Matthew traces Joseph and not Mary.
The genealogy itself is that of Joseph, not of Mary… There were two lines that came down unbroken to those days — the house of Solomon and the house of Nathan. Mary was the representative of Nathan's family, as Joseph was of Solomon's. If Mary had been mentioned without her connection with her husband, there would not have been a legal right to the throne of David.
Bathsheba is the one woman in the chapter left unnamed. Matthew identifies her by the husband David had killed. The description pulls the whole crime into view instead of hiding it.
Bathsheba is not mentioned by name. Instead she is linked with all the horror of the crimes that her name alone, you would think, is enough to bring to mind — "her who had been the wife of Uriah."
(Older translations read "her that had been the wife of Urias"; the ESV has "by the wife of Uriah.")
Four women appear in this genealogy, and every one of them carries something a family would rather forget. That is itself an argument about who composed the list.
Who, deliberately preparing a family tree to prove a title, would have brought in the story of Rahab the prostitute, or Bathsheba, or Ruth, or Tamar? None but God. You see, God wrote this Book, and not man… So in these four women you have the most beautiful illustration of how the grace of God can rise above the sin of man. He even allowed what came out of man's weakness and sin to be the very occasion for bringing His own blessed Son into this scene.
The same spirit that rejected Jesus could not object to this line of descent. Their own Scriptures allowed no other line for the Messiah.
Only a few generations apart, we have these three women. The same spirit that rejected Jesus and the grace of God would have despised and excluded them all, for one reason or another, moral or ceremonial. So this was no new thought — God's mercy reaching out to gather in the outcast of the Gentiles, looking on the vile to deliver them and make them holy. It was God's way of old. They could not read the account He gives of their own Messiah's stock without seeing that it was so. And that this was the divinely prescribed channel no Jew could deny.
God did not soften the consequences of David's sin. Yet out of the very union that sin had formed, He brought the next name in the Messiah's line.
"Whatever one sows, that will he also reap," and no wonder, then, if adultery and murder sprang up again and again in David's path. No wonder the sword never departs from his house… But in the middle of all this growth of thorn and thistle, the sure fruit of sin, one small flower springs up from that cursed ground. It witnesses that where sin had abounded, grace overabounds. From this David and this Bathsheba, whom sin has joined together, a child springs whose name stands next in the line of the Lord's ancestors. As if to confirm it, he receives a special name, "Jedidiah," "beloved of the Lord."
- Crown. Matthew calls David "the king," and the succession God confirmed by oath runs through Solomon — the only channel a Jew could accept for the Messiah.
- Claim. The legal right to the throne came through the father. So Matthew traces Joseph's descent from Solomon; Mary belonged to the line of David's other son, Nathan.
- Crime. Matthew withholds Bathsheba's name and uses the murdered husband's instead, so the record points at the sin instead of covering it.
- Consequence. Forgiveness did not cancel the harvest. The sword stayed in David's house, and adultery and murder sprang up again and again in David's path.
- Grace. Out of that ground came Solomon, named "Jedidiah," "beloved of the Lord." God writes His Son's family tree with the names men would hide, and mercy for the despised was His way from the start.
and Solomon begat Roboam, and Roboam begat Abia, and Abia begat Asa,
This line of Matthew's list names three kings after Solomon: Rehoboam, Abijah, and Asa, whose name some translations spell Asaph. The verse opens the stretch of the genealogy that runs from David's throne down to the fall of the kingdom. Why did God keep these men in the family record of His Son?
Matthew and Luke trace two different lines down from David. The difference turns on two of David's sons, Solomon and Nathan.
Though Solomon is in the official genealogy of Christ (Matt. 1:6-7), Christ actually descended through Nathan, the son of David. So God's promise to Israel stands, but apart from Solomon's line. The one exception is that officially Christ is Messiah through Joseph, who was not His father by birth. The wisdom of God shows clearly and beautifully when we compare the two lists. Matthew's begins with Abraham and ends with Christ as the official son of Joseph. Luke's goes backward from Joseph to Adam.
Read the previous verse and this one together. Only one man in the list carries a royal title, and it is not Solomon.
David alone has the title, the king (verse 6). Solomon's name is there, but there is no kingship attached to it. The unbelieving Jew, as he tries to reject prophecies about the Messiah, has always made a strong point of this, that the promises given to David about a son were all fulfilled in Solomon. According to them Solomon is the king, and higher than David in his rule and dominion. How striking, then, that the Holy Spirit gives the name simply Solomon, without adding "the king" to it. David is the king and no other can have the title, until his son comes.
One writer divides the genealogy into parts. The second part starts here, and he reads it as a slide downward from its very first name.
The second begins at once with one in whom departure from God showed itself. His heart went after other gods than the One Only God, who had shown him special favour. After this there is a general history of decline. Three descendants of the apostate murderess Athaliah are blotted out of the list altogether. The Babylonian captivity ends the story in this part, and that captivity was the giving up of the nation as the openly acknowledged people of God.
Rehoboam set aside the sons of one wife in favour of Abijah, the son of the wife he preferred.
Deuteronomy 21:15-17 had warned against such an arrangement. A man "must not bestow firstborn status on the son of the loved wife in preference to the son of the unloved, the true firstborn." Perhaps Rehoboam did not know this scripture, but he ought to have. A king in Israel was responsible to get himself a copy of the law and read it all the days of his life. Still, the grace of God rose above the failure of Rehoboam, for Abijah is confirmed in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus in Matthew 1:7.
The last name in the verse belongs to a king whose reign started well.
How very sad that such an excellent reign should be spoiled towards the close. When Baasha, the king of Israel, interfered with him, he relied on the king of Syria. He did not seek the help of the Lord, as he had done when the Ethiopians came against him. The Lord sent Hanani the seer to reprove him for what he had done. Instead of humbling himself and confessing his failure, "Asa was angry with the seer, and put him in the stocks in prison." Within a very short time a disease struck his feet. The physical weakness expressed the moral weakness, "yet even in his disease he did not seek the LORD, but sought help from physicians."
Why preserve such a line at all? A promise depended on it, and an enemy worked to put it out.
For this future Son to be "the offspring of David," David's line had to continue until He appeared. This is why God had promised David a lamp for him and for his sons always. How was this lamp to keep shining in the royal house? How was it to pass through man's poisoned air and moral darkness without being put out? If it went out, David's true Heir could never appear. Satan understood this. If he could succeed in putting out the lamp, all of God's counsels about the just Ruler over men would come to nothing.
- Line. Matthew records the official line through Solomon. The actual descent ran through Nathan, David's other son.
- Title. Only David carries the title "the king" here. Solomon's name stands with no kingship attached, and the title waits for the Son still to come.
- Decline. The second part of the genealogy opens with a heart that went after other gods, and it ends in Babylon.
- Grace. Rehoboam broke the law over his own heir, yet grace kept that son, Abijah, in the family record of the Lord Jesus.
- Lamp. Satan aimed to put David's lamp out. God kept it burning, so the true Heir could come.
and Asa begat Josaphat, and Josaphat begat Joram, and Joram begat Ozias,
Verse 8 names three kings — Asaph, Jehoshaphat and Joram — and then makes a leap. "Joram the father of Uzziah" skips three generations of Judah's royal line. Why did the Spirit of God leave them out?
The last king named in this verse appears under more than one name in Scripture, and his story carries a warning.
Uzziah is a solemn example of a man who walked well until he grew "strong," and of a man not chosen by God who tried to do the work of a priest. His history shows the truth that "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." He is called AZARIAH in 2 Kings 14:21; 2 Kings 15:1-27; 1 Chronicles 3:12; and OZIAS in Matthew 1:8-9.
Compare this verse with the Old Testament records. Three reigns are missing between Joram and Uzziah.
Ozias (Uzziah) is placed here as the son of Joram. But look at 1 Chronicles 3:11-12, where the name Azariah stands where Matthew has Ozias, as it does in 2 Kings 14:21 too. You will see that three kings are left out: Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah. The Old Testament genealogies contain such gaps elsewhere. In 2 Chronicles 22:9 Ahaziah is called the son of Jehoshaphat, though he was really his grandson. Compare the generations in 1 Chronicles 6:3-15 with Ezra 7:1-5, and you will find seven names left out in Ezra.
Some treat the gap as a slip by the writer. Kelly answers that charge by pointing to Ezra, a priest whose standing depended on an exact family record — and who still left out seven names.
A priest in that line had to prove his descent strictly. A flaw in it would destroy his right to serve. If even there a name could rightly be left out, the same can be true of the Lord's genealogy. All the more so, since this gap is not in a part that Scripture passes over in silence. It sits in the middle of the historical records, where the youngest child could supply the missing names at once. So the omission was not careless or ignorant. It was intentional.
All three missing kings descend from Athaliah. She was the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, and Jehoshaphat brought her into David's line as a wife for his son Joram.
Here we see the principle of the second commandment worked out in practice: "I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me." The names of Ahab and Jezebel are sadly familiar to us all. Jehoshaphat married his son Jehoram to their daughter Athaliah. He was a good man himself, yet he brought down on his own descendants, to the third generation, the curse that rested on the house of Ahab. For three generations we read of wholesale massacres in cold blood.
Writers give more than one reason for the gap. Kelly points to the shape of the list itself.
The Spirit of God was pleased to arrange the ancestry of our Lord into three divisions of fourteen generations each. There were in fact more than fourteen generations between David and the captivity. So some had to be dropped to make the three sets match, and only fourteen are recorded.
Jehoshaphat stands in this verse as a good king. Willis names the price of the alliance he made.
If we turn to the first chapter of Matthew, we find that these three kings, Ahaziah, Joash and Amaziah, are blotted out of "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham."... The shame of it, the tragedy, the eternal loss to this great and good man — and all for the sake of being friends with the world. David brought blessings on his family for four generations; Jehoshaphat brought a curse.
Athaliah's revenge nearly ended David's line.
Athaliah, enraged at the early death of her son, king Ahaziah, set out to destroy the whole royal family, and came terribly close to success. But it could not be complete... One young child was left, and Jehoshabeath saved him by hiding him in the house of the Lord. The light was covered over for a time, but it was not put out.
The same list that erases three kings keeps names no family would boast about.
We may notice that the Holy Spirit mentions in this genealogy the grievous sins committed by the people whose names are given. This magnifies the sovereign grace of God. He could give a Saviour in connection with sins like those of Judah, with a poor Moabite woman brought in among His people, and with crimes like those of David.
- Gap. "Joram the father of Uzziah" jumps three reigns — Ahaziah, Joash and Amaziah. A comparison with 1 Chronicles 3:11-12 shows it.
- Deliberate. The missing names sit in the best-known part of Israel's history. Any child could supply them. The omission was intentional, not careless.
- Cause. All three kings descend from Athaliah, daughter of Ahab. Cutting them out carries out the second commandment's warning about the third and fourth generation.
- Warning. Jehoshaphat was a good man himself. Yet his alliance with the world brought his family a curse where David had brought blessing.
- Grace. The line was nearly wiped out, yet the light was not put out. The same genealogy that blots out three kings keeps sinners in, magnifying the grace that could give a Saviour through such a line.
and Ozias begat Joatham, and Joatham begat Achaz, and Achaz begat Ezekias,
This verse carries the royal line through four kings: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah. The question the verse raises is how God's promise of a Messiah from David survived the failures of the men in it.
Translations spell the first name in this verse in different ways. Where the ESV has Uzziah, older versions read Ozias. The Old Testament also uses a third name for the same king:
He is called Azariah in 2 Kings 14:21; 2 Kings 15:1-27; 1 Chronicles 3:12; and Ozias in Matthew 1:8-9.
Uzziah's name opens this verse, and it marks the point where the royal line reappears. Three kings between Joram and Uzziah are missing from Matthew's list. One writer reads that gap as deliberate, not careless:
I have no doubt myself that the aim was to mark God's solemn sentence on Joram's connection with his wife Athaliah, who came from the wicked house of Ahab. (Compare verse 8 with 2 Chronicles 22 – 26.) Ahaziah disappears, then Joash, then Amaziah. The line reappears here in Uzziah. God blots out these generations along with that wicked woman.
Uzziah himself is a warning:
Uzziah is a solemn example of a man who walked well until he grew "strong." God had not chosen him for priestly service, yet he tried to carry it out. His history shows the truth that "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."
His son Jotham went the other way. The record gives a reason for his strength:
Jotham did what was right in the sight of the Lord. He built the high gate of the house of the Lord, and built much on Ophel. In the mountains of Judah he also built cities, fortresses and towers. He conquered the Ammonites, and for three years they paid him tribute. He became mighty because he prepared his way before the Lord his God.
Then comes Ahaz. Two enemy kings joined forces against him, and the danger reached far past his own throne:
Isaiah 7 takes us into some historical details of the reign of Ahaz, which 2 Kings 15 and 16 also record. He did much evil. Now an alliance threatened him: Pekah, who had seized the throne of the ten tribes, and Rezin of Syria. If they had killed or removed Ahaz, they would have broken the line of descent by which Christ came as a man, as Matthew 1:9 shows. God was not going to allow this.
Ahaz would not ask God for a sign. God gave one anyway, and it reached far beyond that moment. It settled the safety of the line this verse records:
Ahaz did not like God to come too near. God answered it by Immanuel — God with us... Was it not the most marvellous grace to promise such a thing to such a man? ... If man refuses to ask through unbelief, God still gives a sign for His own glory: the virgin's Son, the woman's Seed, Immanuel! ... In the presence of this sign, the security of David's royal line and its rights matters far more than the foretold ruin of scheming Ephraim. Here is the truth of truths: God with us!
This list does not hide the sins of the men in it. One writer sees why:
We may notice that the Holy Spirit mentions, in this genealogy, the grievous sins committed by the people whose names are given. This magnifies the sovereign grace of God. He could give a Saviour in connection with sins like those of Judah, with a poor Moabite woman brought in among His people, and with crimes like those of David.
- Named. The Uzziah of this verse is the Azariah of Kings and Chronicles, and older translations call him Ozias.
- Broken. God blotted out three generations along with Athaliah of the house of Ahab. The royal line reappears at Uzziah.
- Tested. Uzziah walked well until he grew strong, and then he overstepped. His son Jotham "became mighty because he prepared his way before the Lord his God."
- Threatened. An alliance against Ahaz would have cut the line of descent by which Christ came. God would not allow it.
- Secured. Ahaz would not ask, so God Himself gave the sign of Immanuel and secured David's line. The record keeps the sins of these men, and God's grace in giving a Saviour through them stands out all the more.
and Ezekias begat Manasses, and Manasses begat Amon, and Amon begat Josias,
Four kings stand in one line here: Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amos, Josiah. In them Judah falls to its lowest point and then rises again. Why does Matthew name the worst king Judah ever had among the ancestors of the Messiah?
Matthew is not the only writer who gives Jesus' family line. Luke gives one too, and the two lists do not match.
Matthew 1:1-16 gives our Lord's genealogy, and another genealogy occurs in Luke 3:23-38. The two genealogies are different. Matthew traces the descent through Joseph in the royal line (as son of David). Luke traces it through Mary, in the natural descent from Adam (as son of man).
Anyone tracing a royal family tree would leave out the shameful names. Matthew leaves them in.
We might see sin upon sin, stain upon stain, woven into their various histories. It was one continuous fabric of what would make a Jew blush — what a man would never have dared of himself to bring out about a king he honoured. God, in His infinite goodness, would not let these things be forgotten... He is a Messiah who comes in search of sinners, and who would despise no needy one.
The middle name in this verse belongs to a king God broke and then forgave.
God brought the king of Assyria against Manasseh, who bound him with chains of brass and carried him to Babylon. There Manasseh, in his affliction, greatly humbled himself, and prayed to the Lord his God. His prayer was heard, and he was restored to Jerusalem. Then he knew that Jehovah was God... So God gave repentance to this wicked king, for His mercy endures forever. He is often held up as a trophy of God's marvellous grace in Old Testament times. Saul of Tarsus and the thief on the cross are held up in the same way in New Testament times... He is called MANASSES in Matthew 1:10.
Hezekiah, named just before him, had been given fifteen extra years of life. Commentators tie those years to the son named next.
Manasseh was only 12 years old at the time of his father's death, so he was born during the extra fifteen years that God had allowed Hezekiah. Manasseh was given 55 years to reign over Judah, but he was the most wicked king Judah ever had... We are surely taught here that God knew better what was good for Hezekiah than Hezekiah thought. We should learn to bow to God's will at all times, whatever we may think about it.
Amos — called Amon in some translations — had his father's whole story in front of him: the ruin and the recovery. He copied one and refused the other.
Unlike his father, Amon reigned only two years. He must have known that his father had repented and completely changed his ways. But this had no proper effect on Amon. He did not humble himself at all, but sinned more and more... His evil was so great that even his own servants had no respect for him, but conspired together and killed him in his own house. How sad that he had learned nothing either from the folly of his father or from the repentance of his father!
The verse ends with Josiah. The moment he took the throne was as dark as Judah ever knew.
The moment at which he came to the throne of his fathers was one of unusual gloom and heaviness. The tide of corruption, fed by many streams, had risen to its highest point. In His patience and long-suffering God had long held back the sword of judgement. Now it was about to fall in terrible severity upon the city of David.
Josiah came from Manasseh's line — the same king God had forgiven.
Though Jerusalem was destroyed because of his sin, Manasseh himself could receive a free and full pardon from the God of Israel. God valued that prayer for pardon, offered in the prison in Babylon, so highly that He had it recorded, to encourage other repentant sinners who would come back to Him. And God gave to that wicked king who humbled himself a little grandson, Josiah, who proved to be one of the very best of Judah's long line of kings. Such is the grace of God.
- Line. Matthew follows the royal line through Joseph, as son of David. Luke follows the natural line through Mary, back to Adam.
- Honesty. The list keeps the shameful names instead of hiding them. The King it leads to came looking for sinners.
- Mercy. Manasseh, Judah's worst king, humbled himself in captivity. God heard him, forgave him, and had his prayer recorded to encourage other sinners.
- Warning. Amon knew both his father's sin and his father's repentance. He copied the sin, refused the repentance, and died at his own servants' hands after two years.
- Fruit. Out of that same house came Josiah, one of Judah's best kings, at the nation's darkest hour. Grace runs from one end of the verse to the other.
and Josias begat Jechonias and his brethren, at the time of the carrying away of Babylon.
Matthew's list of royal names reaches its lowest point here. A king is carried off to Babylon, and the throne of David goes with him. It raises two long-debated questions. Who is "Jechoniah"? And how could a line under God's judgment still carry the promise of the Messiah?
One reading takes the man named here to be Jehoiakim, called by his son's name:
Jehoiakim is often called by the name of his son Jechoniah. Both names mean the same thing in Hebrew: the Lord will establish. Jehoiakim was carried away into Babylon (2 Kings 24:15). He had brothers, which Jechoniah did not (1 Chron. 3:15). So it becomes clear that Jechoniah here is Jehoiakim.
Commentators differ. Others hold that Matthew leaves Jehoiakim out, so this verse names his son. One writer points to how Hebrew uses the word "begat", and finds either explanation leaves the record intact:
In Hebrew, "begat" is constantly used for a descendant. Whatever Matthew's motive, there is no mistake... It is very possible that the words "Jehoiakim" and "Jehoiachin" are blended in Jechonias. This happens in other authors: the two names are written the same... Or Josiah was the last independent king of David's family, and Jechonias was the one carried away. He is put forward to mark the epoch, and Josiah is named as the last king who had any free place in Israel... In either case, the descent of David's family remains equally made good.
Jehoiakim's name is missing between Josiah and Jeconiah. One writer points to what Jeremiah wrote about that king:
We only need to look at Jeremiah 22:13-19. It gives ample reasons why the name of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah and father of Jeconiah, is left out of Matt. 1:11. "Those who honour Me I will honour, and those who despise Me shall be lightly esteemed."
Why brothers, in a list that otherwise names one man per generation? Judah's last years supply the answer:
Jeconiah's brothers are mentioned for a reason. Several of his close relatives were briefly put on the throne of Judah around the time of the captivity (2 Chron. 36:1-4, 10). Later the king of Babylon set Jeconiah free and treated him well (2 Kings 25:27-30). That is a picture of Judah's royalty being revived.
Jeremiah had pronounced that no descendant of this king would sit on David's throne. That sentence hangs over every name that follows in Matthew's list:
The genealogy shows the ruin hopeless except for God. Joseph, the last of the line here before Christ, is shown to be Jeconiah's son. And against Jeconiah prophecy had declared (Jer. 22:30) that as to the throne he should be "childless... for none of his offspring shall succeed in sitting on the throne of David and ruling again in Judah." As far back as Irenaeus this conclusion was pressed: here the direct line of descent is struck with a curse. Yet it was not stripped of the legal title. It could therefore hand on to another what was of no use 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 (Luke 1:32). The marriage of His mother made Him David's legal heir.
In Babylon the captives were given new names. One writer sees more than politics behind that:
As a matter of policy, the king of Babylon might change their Hebrew names to Babylonian ones. He did the same with Daniel and his three companions. He would naturally seek to erase from their minds all memory of what they were... and if so, this was equally an attempt on Satan's part to swamp God's line of kings in the common mass of Gentile names. They were driven as captives to Babylon. Yet in that confusion the Spirit of God connects Josiah, the last real king of Judah, with his descendant born there.
This deportation closes the middle section of Matthew's list. One writer traces where the last stretch leads:
The second division runs from David until the carrying away to Babylon. The third is from that captivity until Christ. This last was clearly the evening history of Israel's past. But that evening is not the close. It ends with the brightest light of all — a picture of the day when at evening-time there shall be light... The splendour of Israel had declined. Israel was now broken and subject to the Gentiles. Even so, the recorded decline ends in the birth of the true Messiah.
- Ruin named. Here the kingdom falls and Judah's kings go to Babylon.
- Ruin recorded. Matthew drops Jehoiakim's name on purpose. Jeremiah 22 gives the reason.
- Ruin sealed. Jeconiah's line kept the legal title to the throne but carried a curse: none of his offspring would rule in Judah.
- Ruin outflanked. Mary gave the Lord real descent from David; Joseph's marriage gave Him the legal claim.
- Ruin answered. The evening section of the genealogy ends not in darkness but in the birth of the true Messiah.
And after the carrying away of Babylon, Jechonias begat Salathiel, and Salathiel begat Zorobabel,
One short verse carries David's royal line across the exile in Babylon. It runs that line straight through Jeconiah, a king God had cursed.
The first name in this verse belongs to a king the Old Testament calls by several other names.
He was the son and successor of Jehoiakim king of Judah… Jehoiachin went to Babylon as a captive and stayed in prison for thirty-six years. When Evil-merodach came to the throne, he freed him and raised him above the other captive kings. Jehoiachin ate at the king's table for the rest of his life. Scripture calls him JECONIAH in 1 Chronicles 3:16-17 and Esther 2:6… It also calls him CONIAH in Jeremiah 22:24, 28, and JECHONIAS in Matthew 1:11-12.
Commentators differ over exactly how verses 11 and 12 handle Jehoiakim: some read Jehoiakim as omitted from verse 11, while Gaebelein argues that "Jehoiakim is often called by the name of his son Jechoniah," so that "in the twelfth verse we have Jechoniah, the son of Jehoiakim."
Jeremiah had called this same king childless. This verse shows what that word did and did not mean.
"Childless" here does not mean he had no descendants. The prophecy itself mentions his offspring. It means he had "no direct lineal heir to the throne" (Fausset). Matthew 1:12 proves he had descendants ("Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel"), and so does 1 Chronicles 3:17… Anyway, God made no mistake. He speaks, and it is done; He commands, and it stands fast. "And the word of our God will stand forever."
If none of Jeconiah's descendants could reign, naming him here looks like the end of the promise. One writer shows how the cursed line could still pass on a right it could not use.
The genealogy shows a ruin that is hopeless apart from God. It shows Joseph, the last of the line here before Christ, to be Jeconiah's son. And prophecy had spoken against Jeconiah (Jeremiah 22:30): as to the throne he would be "childless… for none of his offspring shall succeed in sitting on the throne of David." …so a curse strikes the direct line of descent, yet the line still keeps the legal title. It could therefore hand on to another what was of no use 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 the marriage of His mother made Him David's legal heir.
That is also why "was the father of" in this verse does not always mean birth.
So Jechoniah was not the actual father of Salathiel. Matthew gives the succession, not the strict birth line. We must now look for the heir to David's throne in the line of another of David's sons. Luke 3:27 shows this: Salathiel's real father was Neri, a descendant of Nathan, son of David.
In Babylon the captives were losing even their Hebrew names.
As a matter of policy, the king of Babylon might change their Hebrew names to Babylonian ones. He did this with Daniel and his three friends. It would be natural for him to erase from their minds all memory of what they were, and all thought of their country and of God's temple. If so, Satan was just as much trying to drown God's line of kings in the common mass of Gentile names… Yet in that confusion, as they went to Babylon as captives, the Spirit of God connects the last real king of Judah — Josiah — with his descendant born in Babylon… In Matthew the promised Seed appears, the last of the line. He will have no successor, for He lives for ever.
The last name in this verse appears again in Haggai. There God takes up the same picture of a ring that He had used against Jeconiah.
Haggai 2:20-23 is another message from God. It looks again to the future, when all nations will be shaken. Then God will take the true seed of David and make Him like a signet ring. Haggai still calls this seed "Zerubbabel my servant," a picture of Christ as the prince of the house of David. Coniah, or Jeconiah, king of Judah, was faithless, and God pulled him off like a signet ring from His right hand (compare Jeremiah 22:24). Christ is the opposite: He is the signet on God's right hand, to seal all His purposes concerning the nations and His chosen people Israel.
- Curse. Jeremiah did not say Jeconiah would have no children. He said none of his offspring would ever sit on David's throne.
- Title. The cursed line kept the legal right it could never use, and so was able to hand it to another.
- Marriage. Joseph's marriage to Mary joined the two lines. Birth from Mary made Christ the real Son of David. The marriage made Him the legal heir.
- Preservation. Babylon could change names and carry off a nation, yet God kept the link from Josiah to a descendant born there.
- Signet. God tore the ring from His hand in Jeconiah. He puts it back on in Zerubbabel's greater Son, who seals God's purposes and will have no successor.
and Zorobabel begat Abiud, and Abiud begat Eliakim, and Eliakim begat Azor,
Matthew 1:13 belongs to the last stretch of the family list, the generations after Israel's exile in Babylon. Zerubbabel is the last great name in it, and the men after him — Abiud, Eliakim, Azor — are strangers to the Old Testament.
The list runs in three blocks of fourteen names, and this verse belongs to the last one. That structure is deliberate, and it explains why some links are missing.
In each of the three divisions of the Messiah's genealogy, the Spirit of God was pleased to give fourteen generations. They run from Abraham down to David, from David to the captivity, and from the captivity to Christ. So if a chain of generations in fact held more links than these fourteen, everything above that number had to drop out. Then, as we have just seen, the omission is not random, but made with special moral force.
Once the verse moves past Zerubbabel, the record goes quiet — and that silence is part of the point.
The third part has only one significant name in it, that of Zerubbabel. After him the line lapses into complete obscurity. All is ruined and hopeless, except for God. Then all at once, by a clear divine intervention, Jesus is born — a true resurrection.
Zerubbabel was more than a survivor of the exile. A prophecy ends with a promise made straight to him, and one writer sees that promise reaching past the man himself.
The prophecy concludes with a special promise to Zerubbabel, the royal prince of David's line. No doubt he is here a figure of Christ. The promise made to him will be fulfilled in the person of his greater Son, for "Zerubbabel was the father of … Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ" (Matt. 1:13, 16).
Abiud, Eliakim and Azor have no story outside this list. Even the names in this stretch speak of exile and decay.
In the last fourteen generations, beginning with Zerubbabel, we find no more prominent names. The Old Testament records only two of them. Zerubbabel means "born in Babel," and his son Abiud means "perishing."
A reference work can say only where Abiud stands:
Son of Zerubbabel, in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus, Matt. 1:13: not mentioned in the Old Testament.
Readers who compare this verse with Luke's list find that the names do not match.
Both lists are the same from Abraham to David. Then they differ until they reach Shealtiel and Zerubbabel, whose names stand in both. After that they differ again. Luke's list is much fuller: it has forty-one names from David to Joseph, where Matthew has only twenty-six. Matthew leaves names out, and this fits the whole into the three divisions of "fourteen generations."
These verses trace a family losing everything visible.
A time comes when the ruin appears beyond repair, when in the struggle Satan's triumph seems certain. The kingdom sinks under waves of judgment. Yet, as we have seen in the genealogies, weak representatives of the royal line still live on — without titles, without privileges, without authority and without a kingdom. After them the line grows ever more obscure and low. It carries on in silence until we reach a poor carpenter who becomes the reputed father of the "woman's Seed." Christ is born!
Yet obscurity is not the same as worthlessness. One writer reads these unknown men as people who kept faith when there was nothing left to show for it.
Apart from Zerubbabel, the third fourteen appear to have been what we now call "nobodies" in the nation. Joseph, the husband of Mary, was, as we all know, a working carpenter. They had no reputation in the nation. Yet we are persuaded that Malachi 3:16-17 is a true description of these people: they lived in a day of small things and still did not throw away their confidence in the Lord God of Israel.
- Placed — The verse sits in the third block of fourteen generations, from the exile to Christ. The structure is deliberate, and so are the missing names.
- Emptied — After Zerubbabel the royal family holds no throne, no title and no kingdom. The line runs on in silence down to a village carpenter.
- Unknown — Abiud, Eliakim and Azor appear nowhere in the Old Testament. Almost none of this final group left a record.
- Kept — Obscurity did not mean God had let go: the promise made to Zerubbabel reached its fulfilment in his greater Son.
- Born — Apart from God the line looks ruined and hopeless. Then God steps in: Jesus is born, and the fallen line rises in Him.
and Azor begat Sadoc, and Sadoc begat Achim, and Achim begat Eliud,
Azor, Zadok, Achim and Eliud stand between the return from Babylon and the birth of Jesus. Scripture tells us nothing else about them. So why record a forgotten stretch of the royal family? And what does it show about David's house when the King came?
These men are known only from this list. A Bible dictionary can give little more than their place in the chain. Zadok (spelled Sadoc in older translations) gets one line:
Son of Azor, in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus.
Achim gets one line too:
Son or descendant of Sadoc, and father of Eliud: the name occurs only in Matt. 1:14.
That silence covers the whole last stretch of the list.
In the last fourteen generations, beginning with Zerubbabel, we find no more prominent names. Only two of them appear in the Old Testament.
Matthew groups the generations in three sets of fourteen. Famous names fill the earlier sets. The set that holds this verse has none.
Leaving the list of kings aside for now, we would say this about the third fourteen. Apart from Zerubbabel, they seem to have been what we now call "nobodies" in the nation. Joseph, the husband of Mary, was, as we all know, a working carpenter. They had no reputation in the nation. Yet we are sure that Malachi 3:16-17 describes these men, who lived in a day of small things and still did not throw away their confidence in the Lord God of Israel.
Reputation in the nation and value to God are two different measurements.
The three divisions trace a movement. These four names sit at its lowest point.
The genealogy falls into three parts, and each part has its own character. From Abraham to David, promise is the leading thought. From David, through Solomon, to the captivity, the record is one of decline. From the captivity to the birth of our Lord is a time of darkness. But it ends like a resurrection in the birth of our Lord.
These names show how low the line had sunk before God acted.
The third part has only one significant name in it, Zerubbabel. After that the line sinks into complete obscurity. All is ruined and hopeless, except for God, until suddenly God plainly steps in and Jesus is born — a true resurrection.
Kings had given way to men with no crown, no land and no power. Yet the descent kept going.
A time comes when the ruin looks beyond repair, when Satan seems certain to win the struggle. The kingdom sinks under waves of judgment. Yet, as we have seen in the genealogies, weak representatives of the royal line still survive — with no titles, no rights, no authority and no kingdom. After them the line grows more obscure and lowly still, and carries on in silence until we reach a poor carpenter. He becomes the supposed father of the "woman's Seed." Christ is born!
Something kept that family alive through the long captivity.
This last part was the evening of Israel's past. But that evening is not the end. It closes with the brightest light of all — a picture of the day when at evening time there will be light... Through the long captivity no persecution could destroy that chosen family, because Jesus, the Messiah of God, was to be born from it.
The list runs on to Joseph, and it traces the royal succession.
Joseph stood as the representative of the royal line of the house of Judah when Jesus was born — a poor man, a carpenter by trade... Matthew gives the line of succession, not the strict line of natural birth.
No one can ever rebuild that record.
Note that no Jew could now produce his genealogy from Abraham or David, as he would have to do to prove a claim to be the Messiah... The Messiah came, and the Jews rejected Him. So God allowed the Romans to come and destroy their temple, their city and their nation. Their genealogical records might well come to an end then, as they did.
- Unknown — Azor, Zadok, Achim and Eliud appear nowhere else in Scripture; the record of them is a name and a father.
- Unimportant — the third set of fourteen is a list of "nobodies" in the nation's eyes, ending with a working carpenter.
- Unforgotten — one writer sees Malachi 3:16-17 in them: people of no standing who kept their confidence in the Lord God of Israel.
- Unbroken — titles, throne and land were gone. Yet the line ran on in silence, kept safe because the Messiah was to be born from it.
- Unrepeatable — the darkness ends like a resurrection in the birth of Jesus. The records that proved the line were destroyed later, so no one else can claim it.
and Eliud begat Eliazar, and Eliazar begat Matthan, and Matthan begat Jacob,
Matthew 1:15 lists three obscure names — Eliud, Eleazar, Matthan — and ends with Jacob, the father of Joseph. Why did God keep such forgotten links on record? And what do they prove about the One the list is heading toward?
This verse belongs to the last of three blocks in the list.
The genealogy divides into three parts, each with its own distinct character. From Abraham to David, promise is the prominent thought. From David, through Solomon, to the captivity, is a record of decline. From the captivity to the birth of our Lord is a period of darkness. It ends, however, as a resurrection in the birth of our Lord.
Another writer traces the same shape and notes what happens to the names once the exile is past.
The third part has in it but one significant name, that of Zerubbabel; after which the line lapses into utter obscurity. All is ruined and hopeless, except for God, until suddenly, by a clear divine intervention, Jesus is born — a true resurrection, which justifies this third part as real numerical symbolism.
Eliud, Eleazar and Matthan left no mark on the nation's history. That silence does not mean God had lost sight of them.
For the moment passing over the list of kings, we would say of the third fourteen that, apart from Zerubbabel, they appear to have been what we now call "nobodies" in the nation. Joseph, the husband of Mary, was, as we all know, a working carpenter. Yet, though of no reputation in the nation, we are persuaded that Malachi 3:16-17 accurately describes these who lived in a day of small things, and yet did not throw away their confidence in the Lord God of Israel.
Joseph stands at the end of this line. His greeting and his trade pull in opposite directions.
The Lord's messenger greeted him as "Joseph, son of David." He was an obscure village carpenter. This proved the prophet's words true, that the tabernacle of David had fallen down and lay in ruins (Amos 9:11). Yet he showed traits of true royalty according to God: in his mercy to one who was weak and, as he thought, had failed, and in his trust in the Word of God and obedience to it.
Luke 3 gives a different list of names for the same period. One writer works out how the two lists meet at Matthan.
Luke's genealogy has long been believed to be Mary's. It suits in every way the introduction of that Gospel and the way the Lord is presented in it. In any case it gives us the natural descent of the Lord. But a testimony of Jewish hatred proves that it is Mary's. Godet writes, "It is remarkable that in the Talmud, Mary the mother of Jesus is called the daughter of Heli." In all probability Mary and Joseph were first cousins. Matthan's son was Jacob, who was the father of Joseph, in Matthew 1:15. In Luke, the son of Matthat (clearly the same name) was Heli, "of whom Joseph"… So from Matthat up, it would be the genealogy of both Mary and Joseph.
The chain running through Matthan to Jacob to Joseph carries something the family itself could never use — a legal right, blocked by a curse spoken centuries earlier.
The genealogy shows the ruin hopeless except to God. It shows Joseph, the last of the line here before Christ, to be Jeconiah's son. And against Jeconiah prophecy had declared (Jer. 22:30) that he should be (as to the throne) "childless… for none of his offspring shall succeed in sitting on the throne of David and ruling again in Judah." … Here the direct line of descent is struck with a curse, but it was 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.
Read as a whole, the list is not a record of progress. It runs downhill until nothing is left for God to work with.
The genealogy in Matthew speaks of decline. It brings out corruption, ruin and hopelessness. It begins with Abraham. And as it names generation after generation, it puts before us the shameful history of Israel, with their unbelief, apostasy and judgments. At last it becomes all dark and all hopeless as far as Israel is concerned. Like Sarah's womb — and she indeed stands as a type for the nation — the whole nation was dead: no hope, all ruin and corruption. But God can bring life from the dead.
- Obscurity. Eliud, Eleazar and Matthan belong to the third block of fourteen. Apart from Zerubbabel, that stretch of the line sinks out of sight.
- Preserved. God did not forget those "nobodies"; they lived in a day of small things and kept their confidence in Him.
- Title. The line still carried a legal right to David's throne. The cursed family could pass that right on, but never enjoy it.
- Joined. Matthan's son Jacob leads to Joseph, and through Joseph's marriage to Mary the royal title reaches the promised Heir.
- Resurrection. The list runs down into ruin so that the birth at the end reads as life from the dead, brought in by God alone.
and Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
Matthew's list of names repeats one link: each man fathers the next. At Joseph the link breaks. That break answers two questions — how Jesus holds a legal claim to David's throne, and why Matthew calls Joseph the husband of Mary and not the father of Jesus.
The key to this verse is what it stops saying. Every earlier name carries the same link, "the father of" — older translations say "begat." Verse 16 drops that link and turns to "of whom."
Note how the often repeated term "begat" disappears in verse 16 and gives way to "of whom." The change is to show that Jesus was not born of human generation. He was conceived in Mary's womb by the power of the Holy Spirit of God.
The verse solves a tight problem. Jesus had to be Joseph's son in one sense, and could not be his son in another.
The genealogy here is that of Jesus as the legal son of Joseph; but notice the change of wording in verse 16: "the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ," as compared with "Jacob begat," and so on. So the verse rules Joseph out as the actual father. But under Jewish law, if Jesus had not been Joseph's son, Joseph himself would have blocked His claim to the throne. Yet if Joseph had been His natural father, He could not have been the virgin's son. He could not have been Emmanuel — God with us — as the Lord said through the prophet (Isaiah 7:14). Nor could He have been the Son of God.
The verse could have named Mary on her own. It does not, and one writer shows what hangs on her marriage to Joseph.
It was not enough for the Messiah to be born of a virgin, or even of a virgin descended from David. She had to be legally joined to Joseph — that is, in the eye of the law, truly his wife. The Gospel records this with care to teach Israel. A thoughtful Jew would have raised that question at once, and every detail had to be guarded with holy care. Let people slander as they might, Mary had to be engaged to Joseph. Otherwise the Lord Jesus would have no proper title to David's throne. … Had Joseph been the real father, there could have been no Saviour at all. As it is, the wonder of God's wisdom shines out most clearly. It makes Him the son of Joseph in law, the son of Mary in fact, and, in the truth of His nature, the Son of God. All three met and merged in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
There is a further reason the throne could not pass down from Joseph by birth. An earlier name in the chapter belongs to a king under judgment, and that judgment shapes verse 16.
The genealogy shows a ruin that is hopeless apart from God. It makes Joseph, the last of the line here before Christ, Jeconiah's son. And prophecy had declared against Jeconiah (Jeremiah 22:30) that, as to the throne, he would be "childless… for none of his offspring shall succeed in sitting on the throne of David and ruling again in Judah." … So a curse strikes the direct line of descent, yet the line keeps the legal title. It could therefore pass on to another what could be of no use 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 (Luke 1:32). His mother's marriage made Him David's legal heir.
Luke also gives a genealogy, and it is not the same list. One writer explains why the two run differently.
Matthew gives the Messianic genealogy, from Solomon down to our Lord as 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. That line does not run down from Abraham and David; it runs up to Adam and God.
- Chain — The repeated "begat" runs down the whole list and stops at Joseph. There the wording turns to "of whom," pointing to Mary alone.
- Curse — The break was needed. The royal line ran through Jeconiah, and God had said that no son of his would sit on David's throne.
- Marriage — Joseph still held the legal title, and his marriage to Mary passed it to her Son.
- Two lines — Matthew traces the legal descent through Joseph. Luke traces the real descent, back through Mary to Adam and God.
- Person — One Child stands at the end of the record: David's heir by law, the virgin's Son in fact, and called Christ.
All the generations, therefore, from Abraham to David [were] fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away of Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the carrying away of Babylon unto the Christ, fourteen generations.
Matthew ends the family line of Jesus by counting it out loud in three equal blocks. Why stop to count at all — and why does the count only work if some names are left out?
The three blocks are more than tidy bookkeeping. Each one matches a real stage in the life of the nation, and the whole line traces God's promises to their fulfilment.
The purpose of the Spirit of God in this Gospel is to present Jehovah as fulfilling the promises made to Israel and the prophecies about the Messiah… So He begins with the genealogy of the Lord. It starts from David and Abraham, the two family lines the Messiah came from, and the two men to whom God made the promises. The genealogy falls into three periods. They match three great divisions in the history of the people: from Abraham to the setting up of kingship in David; from that kingship to the captivity; and from the captivity to Jesus.
In each era God's tie with His people takes a different shape. Each era also has its own sin.
First comes the priest-link. Then, from David to the Babylonian captivity, the king-link. And in the third (as given in Matthew 1) there is no outward link — they are under Gentile rule, with "Lo-ammi" written on them. Idolatry marked them in the two earlier periods; hypocrisy is easy to see in the third.
("Lo-ammi" means "not my people.")
Fourteen is two sevens, and that number comes three times over. Writers see design in that, not coincidence.
In each division there are fourteen generations, twice seven in each division. This brings perfect harmony and order, since the One who has given it all is the Spirit of order and not disorder (1 Cor. 14:33). Seven is a deeply symbolic number… Here it is three times twice seven. That means fulfilment and completeness.
The repeated sevens say something about God, and something about the people.
…each a term of fourteen generations — two sevens — a perfect witness of God's patience, and of man's failure.
Compare the list with the records in Chronicles and names are missing. Commentators do not treat this as a slip. They point to Old Testament family lists that skip names too. And these gaps fall where any reader could have filled them in.
Take Ezra, for instance. Giving his own genealogy as a priest, he leaves out not three links in the chain but seven. A priest would not put his own genealogy forward in a faulty form. In his line the proofs were strictly required, and a defect in them would destroy his right to serve. If an omission was allowed there, the same could be allowed in the Lord's genealogy. All the more since this omission was not in a part where Scripture says nothing. It falls in the middle of its historical records, where the merest child could supply the missing links at once. So the omission was not careless or ignorant, but intentional. I have no doubt myself that the design was to mark God's solemn sentence on the marriage of Joram to Athaliah of the wicked house of Ahab. (Compare verse 8 with 2 Chron. 22–26.) Ahaziah vanishes, and Joash, and Amaziah, when the line reappears here in Uzziah. God blots out these generations along with that wicked woman.
So the count of fourteen is itself a statement. God's arithmetic follows His judgment.
The apparent error turns out to come from this: God's thoughts and ways and reckonings are not ours. If apostasy comes in, He does not count the generations affected by it.
Read straight through, the three sections trace a fall. First the rise to David. Then the slide to Babylon. Then obscurity. But the last name changes everything.
The third is from that captivity until Christ. This was clearly the evening of Israel's past history. But that evening is not the close. It ends with the brightest light of all — a picture of the day when at evening time there shall be light… The splendour of Israel had declined. Israel was now broken and under Gentile rule. Yet the recorded decline ends in the birth of the true Messiah. Right through the long captivity no persecution could destroy that chosen family. Jesus, the Messiah of God, was to be born from it.
The final stretch is the emptiest of the three, and that is the point.
The third part has only one significant name in it: Zerubbabel. After that the line sinks into complete obscurity. All is ruined and hopeless, apart from God. Then suddenly God steps in and Jesus is born — a true resurrection.
- Promise. The line starts at Abraham and David. God gave them the promises, and this Gospel shows those promises kept.
- Pattern. Three blocks of twice seven mark order and completeness, not a random list of names.
- Pruning. God blots Athaliah's descendants out of the count. He does not number generations that turn away from Him.
- Poverty. The third block has almost nothing in it: no king, no outward link with God, the nation under Gentile rule.
- Person. The record of decline ends in the birth of the Messiah. God steps in when every natural hope has failed.