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.