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.
Now the birth of Jesus Christ was thus His mother, Mary, that is, having been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child of [the] Holy Spirit.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
But Joseph, her husband, being [a] righteous [man], and unwilling to expose her publicly, purposed to have put her away secretly;
Matthew moves straight from a genealogy to a crisis in one home. Mary is expecting a child, and the man engaged to her must decide what to do. The verse calls Joseph "just." It then shows him choosing the quietest way out. How do those two things fit together?
The verse calls Joseph her husband, though the wedding had not yet happened. Jewish custom explains why.
The Jews saw this as just as binding as marriage. Only a divorce could end it. The law gave certain rules about an engaged woman (Exodus 21:8-9; Deuteronomy 20:7; Deuteronomy 28:30). Mary, the mother of the Lord Jesus, was engaged to Joseph. He thought about divorcing her quietly, but the angel of the Lord told him the truth about her condition.
Matthew names Joseph as her husband. One writer explains what hung on that legal link.
Two family lines came down unbroken to those days — the house of Solomon and the house of Nathan. Mary stood for Nathan's family, and Joseph for Solomon's. Naming Mary without her link to her husband would have left no legal right to the throne of David. The Messiah had to be born not merely of a virgin, nor of a virgin daughter of David, but of a woman legally joined to Joseph — in the eye of the law, really his wife. Yet if Joseph had been the real father, there could have been no Saviour at all.
The Greek uses one word for Joseph's wish and another for his settled decision. The distinction is visible elsewhere in the New Testament.
They occur together in Matthew 1:19: Joseph, not desiring to expose Mary publicly, purposed to have put her away secretly. The same pair appears in 1 Timothy 5. Of the younger widows who are not put on the list, verse 11 uses the first word: their desire is to marry. Verse 14 uses the second word for Paul's deliberate judgment and will that they should marry: "I will therefore."
So the second word marks a resolve, not a mood. Joseph had settled on a course.
His uprightness did not let him ignore what he believed had happened. It also shaped how he would act.
At first it was thought that a great sin had been committed. Joseph was a man of honourable principles, as the Scripture explains, so he decided to separate himself from it at all cost to his own feelings. Yet he would do it privately, to avoid causing unnecessary pain and scandal to one whom he loved. But when God reveals the truth to him, he acts in direct and simple obedience and purity.
The phrase "put her to shame" points to a real legal outcome. One commentator traces it to the law's penalty for an unfaithful bride, and names who stopped the process.
I think the word meant the public exposure that would have followed if Joseph had acted on Deuteronomy 22. Humanly speaking, the appearances would have led him there, if God had not stopped this just man by sending Gabriel. Through the angel's blessed message God enabled him to judge righteous judgment.
Joseph's plan was honourable, but it rested on wrong facts. Only God could correct it. Commentators differ on his state of mind. One writer sees perplexity rather than certainty: Joseph "thinks of a half measure" until the dream "resolves his doubt and changes his purpose" — Numerical Bible Notes.
What Joseph did not do is as striking as what he planned.
You must bear in mind that Joseph and Mary had been engaged a long time... Yet he was not hasty or rash. He did not have the jealous nature that many a man would boast of. He did not act with the rashness that others would even admire in such a case. It is good to think matters over well when a difficulty crosses your path.
That pause left room for the angel's message. The word "just" also says something about his whole life. One writer sets Joseph beside the other Joseph in the Gospels, who buried Jesus. Scripture calls both men just, "which clearly shows that they had walked in the fear of God" — J. T. Mawson.
- Just — his righteousness is why he acts. It is not the enemy of his kindness. It made him refuse both the sin and the scandal.
- Bound — among the Jews an engagement was as binding as marriage, and only a divorce could end it. That same legal tie gave Jesus His title to David's throne.
- Restrained — two different words mark what Joseph would not do and what he decided to do. No public shame; a quiet release.
- Unhurried — he was neither jealous nor rash. The space he left for thought is the space God filled with the angel's message.
- Corrected — his honourable plan rested on wrong facts. God's message turned a just man's judgment into righteous judgment.
but while he pondered on these things, behold, an angel of [the] Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, fear not to take to [thee] Mary, thy wife, for that which is begotten in her is of [the] Holy Spirit.
Joseph had already made up his mind: end the engagement quietly and spare Mary public shame. Verse 20 breaks in while that plan is still only a thought. It replaces the plan with an explanation no one could have guessed.
One writer describes the compromise Joseph had settled on, and what ended it:
Here Joseph is a righteous man, but perplexed. He thinks of a half measure: he will give her a writing of divorce without stating the cause, and send her away. But the appearance of an angel to him in a dream resolves his doubt and changes his purpose.
The message came through an angel. It was aimed at Joseph's conscience:
The angel of Jehovah is sent as the instrument of providence. He satisfies the tender conscience and upright heart of Joseph by telling him that what Mary had conceived was of the Holy Spirit.
The words "the Lord" here stand for a name used in the Old Testament. A reference work explains how the Greek shows it:
In the Old Testament, the Greek translation called the Septuagint uses the word Kyrios for the name Jehovah. In the New Testament that word often stands for Jehovah too. It then appears mostly, if not always, without the article "the," as in Matthew 1:20, 22, and 24.
In Luke the announcement goes to Mary. In Matthew it goes to the man. One commentator points to two requirements that meet here. No human planning could have brought them together:
Here the angel appears to Joseph in a dream. In Luke the angel appears to Mary. It is this way in Matthew because Joseph was the important person in the eye of the law. And yet in actual fact the Messiah must not be the son of Joseph. All the cleverness of man could not have understood these ways beforehand. All his power could not have arranged the circumstances. The law required that Jesus should be the heir of Joseph. The prophet required that He should not be the son of Joseph, but of a virgin.
The angel does not call him Joseph of Nazareth. He gives him the royal title. The gap between that title and Joseph's circumstances says something about the state of the nation:
Matthew records the angel's revelation to Joseph, whom he addressed as "son of David." Joseph was the legal heir to the throne of Israel. The announcement made to him fits the way this Gospel presents the Lord. It shows how far the nation had fallen: the representative of the royal house was an obscure workman living in the despised town of Nazareth.
By obeying, Joseph did more than protect Mary's reputation. He secured a legal line:
He did as the angel of the Lord told him and took Mary as his wife, without hesitation or further misgiving. In doing so he cast the protection of his name around her. He made her firstborn Son his heir — the legal heir to David's throne.
The angel's reason for "do not fear" is the origin of the child. Those words mark something that happened once and happens to no one else:
Believers in every age have been, and are, born of the Spirit. The Lord Jesus, however, as man, was conceived of the Holy Spirit. Born of the Spirit is true of everyone who shares in the new birth. But begotten of the Holy Spirit, as the virgin's child, is true only of the Lord Jesus Christ.
One writer explains how a real human birth could produce someone with no sin in Him at all:
He did take the true manhood of His mother, but He never took manhood in the state of His mother. He took it as the body prepared for Him by the Holy Spirit, who shut out every trace of otherwise inherited evil. In His mother that nature was under the taint of sin. She was fallen, like all others conceived and born in the natural way in Adam's line. In Him it was not so.
Another writer names the wonder in it, and points back to the angel's own words:
The greatest marvel of this birth is that the Holy One of God was born without taint of sin from a woman who was herself born in sin. That state is true of every member of the whole race. The angel of the Lord gave Joseph the explanation of this unique miracle: "that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit."
- Perplexity — Joseph planned a quiet divorce, the compromise of a decent man. God interrupted it before he acted.
- Reassurance — The message came to steady an honest conscience. "Do not fear" rests on the reason that follows.
- Origin — The child's source is the Holy Spirit. Every believer is born of the Spirit. Only this One was conceived by Him.
- Holiness — He took real manhood from Mary, but not manhood in her fallen state. The Holy Spirit shut out the inherited taint.
- Throne — Joseph took Mary as his wife. This obscure workman, addressed as "son of David," made her firstborn the legal heir to David's throne.
And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for *he* shall save his people from their sins.
An angel tells Joseph what to name the child, and the name comes with a reason attached. So the name raises two questions: who is this child, and who are "his people"?
The name has a Hebrew original, and that original spells out its meaning.
Jesus is the Greek form of Joshua, or Jehoshua. It means "Jehovah is salvation," or "whose salvation is Jehovah." So there is good reason for the common observation that the name Jesus means Jehovah the Saviour. If that is so, what a subject this sets before our souls to think about and to adore! A child born into the world, of lowly parentage in man's esteem — God Himself declares this child to be Jehovah the Saviour!
The name itself was common. Its meaning is not.
The meaning of the name "Jesus" is deep — "Jehovah a Saviour" — and faith takes hold of those glories as being His: JEHOVAH in person, the SAVIOUR in action. Yet the name was not uncommon among the people of Israel. It was rather one of their national names — "Joshua."
This is the name He bore through a lowly life and a public execution — and it is the same name that announces who He is.
This name is precious beyond measure to us because it is His personal, human name. It tells us of His grace and tenderness, His lowly life, His sorrow, and His death. But this name also carries divine glory with it, for it means JEHOVAH THE SAVIOUR. Yes, the very name of His humiliation, the name written in mockery on His cross, declares to us the greatness of His person and the love of His heart.
The people of that day expected a Messiah who would deal with their enemies. The angel names a deeper enemy, and a greater title for the child.
But He had a title greater than any Joseph could pass on, even from David or Abraham. His own name would show it — His lowly name of Jesus, Jehovah the Saviour. Jehovah's people were His people. He would save them, not merely from their enemies, but from their sins. What a testimony to Him and for them! It is a blessing for any sinful soul to hear. And how they needed it — a people then puffed up with boundless hopes of greatness on earth in the Messiah they expected!
The angel speaks of a people God already owns.
He did not say that He would save sinners, Jew and Gentile. That is wonderfully true, and it comes fully to light as the truth unfolds. But — in perfect keeping with this first Gospel — He said He would "save His PEOPLE." The people of Israel were in view in the angel's announcement… They were Jehovah's people, chosen by God as His own possession, even though they had wandered far from Him. Their sins had separated them from Him, but He would not, He could not, abandon His rights in them. He would undertake their salvation.
The name was given along with the work it describes, and that work has one foundation.
This makes it plain that the death of Christ — His finished work, which He accomplished in and through His death — is the only foundation on which He will save His people from their sins… It was written about sins in the old order, "Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins." It is just as true now that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, alone cleanses from all sin.
The word "save" is broad, but it never loses one particular thought.
The word is broad, but it always carries the thought of rescue from danger. Sin lies at the root of every danger that threatens us. So the New Testament fittingly opens with salvation from sins. This salvation is not only from the penalty of sins, but from the power of sins, and even from the love of them. The gospel does not offer release from sin's penalty while leaving us free to continue under sin's power, or to enjoy sin's temporary pleasures. If it did, it would be no true salvation. It would only encourage us to continue in sin.
- Name. Jesus is the Greek form of Joshua and means "Jehovah is salvation" — the name announces both who He is and what He came to do.
- Person. The name of His lowliness, mocked on His cross, is the same name that declares Him Jehovah in person, the Saviour in action.
- Work. He saves not merely from enemies but from sins — and His death is the one foundation on which that saving rests.
- People. "His people" here are Israel, Jehovah's own, whom He would not abandon — salvation for Jew and Gentile alike comes fully to light later.
- Reach. Salvation from sins covers penalty, power, and even the love of sin — anything less would not be salvation at all.
Now all this came to pass that that might be fulfilled which was spoken by [the] Lord, through the prophet, saying,
Matthew stops the story of Joseph and Mary to tell us why it happened this way. The birth was no accident of history. It kept a word God had already spoken. So who spoke that word first, what did it promise, and was it meant literally?
The phrase is not a one-off. It belongs to the way this Gospel writer keeps introducing Jesus.
This brings us to notice a marked characteristic of Matthew. He presents our Lord so often as the Fulfiller of the words of the prophet. So we find a typical expression, as we will see later: "to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet."
Matthew does not say only that Isaiah's words came true. He names the speaker behind the words, and that changes what the verse proves.
Notice, it is not merely that the prophet's saying was "fulfilled," showing how true it was as God's own word. It was "spoken by the Lord." Can anything show more clearly that the prophet Isaiah spoke it by inspiration? In the next chapter we find the same expression (verse 15): "to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet" — the prophet Hosea.
The words fulfilled here first came to a frightened king. Ahaz feared his enemies would wipe out the royal line of David.
The Lord spoke the promise at a time when the house of David was discouraged and downcast. King Ahaz, instead of trusting the Lord, continued in unbelief. The prophet asks him to demand a sign from the Lord. He refuses, with the excuse that he will not put God to the test. Then the prophet said that the Lord Himself will give you a sign. The prophecy spoken then is the sign for the discouraged king and the house of David. In other words, Messiah is to be born, He is to come from Judah, and from the house of David. How could the king fear destruction and extermination?
Isaiah's own children stood as signs to Israel, and Hezekiah was a royal child of that time. Commentators say none of them matches the child this prophecy promised.
The facts stated prove its literal fulfilment. Isaiah 7 — 9:7 does contain symbols and figures as well as plain language. But that does not stop the Holy Spirit stamping the prophecy of the Incarnation, not as an "idea" or general principle, but as a real event. There were other children in Israel given for signs and wonders. Shear-jashub was already born, and Maher-shalal-hash-baz was about to be; both were sons of the prophet. But they are as different from the virgin's Son Immanuel as Hezekiah is. Hezekiah was already at least a dozen years old, and he was born before Ahaz came to the throne. Neither he, nor Isaiah's children, were born of the virgin.
The word God spoke announced a name: Emmanuel, also spelled Immanuel, meaning "God with us." Set beside the name Jesus in the verse before, it shows two gifts arriving together.
His prophetic name, Emmanuel, showed that He would be God manifested in the flesh. He would be God among us in a far more wonderful way than He was ever shown among Israel in the days of Moses. It was far more wonderful too than the way He was with Adam in the days before sin entered the world. The two names are closely connected. To have God with us, without our being saved from our sins, would be impossible. His presence would only overwhelm us in judgment. To be saved from our sins without God being brought to us might have been possible. But then the story of grace would have lost its chief glory. In the coming of Jesus we have both.
The child was promised the name Emmanuel, yet He was called Jesus. If Matthew had shaped the record himself, he could easily have made the names match.
Some have seen a difficulty in that the child was to be named Emmanuel, and instead of this name He is named Jesus... We point out that this apparent contradiction is really a proof of the inspiration. How easy it would have been for Matthew to make everything fit so that every word would be in harmony with the Old Testament. The Holy Spirit guided his hand in writing... The name Emmanuel, God with us, is given only in Matthew. He is Emmanuel, and as such Jehovah the Saviour, so that in reality both names have the same meaning.
- Spoken. The prophecy did not begin with Isaiah; the verse names the Lord as its speaker and the prophet as the one who carried it.
- Kept. The words came true exactly in the birth of Jesus, and Matthew keeps using this line to present Him.
- Literal. The promise was an actual event, not a general principle. No other child of Isaiah's day fits the virgin's Son.
- Comfort. The sign first came to a royal house afraid of being wiped out. It promised that the Messiah would still come from David's line.
- Both gifts. The promise keeps both names together. Emmanuel brings God to us; Jesus saves us from our sins. Either gift alone would have left us short.
Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which is, being interpreted, 'God with us.'
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
But Joseph, having awoke up from his sleep, did as the angel of [the] Lord had enjoined him, and took to [him] his wife,
In one sentence Joseph wakes from a dream and does what he was told. The verse is short, but it carries the weight of a man's reputation, a marriage, and the legal line of David's throne.
This is not a general title. In the Greek, "the Lord" stands here as a name, not a rank — the Old Testament name of God.
The same Greek word is often used in the Greek Old Testament for the Hebrew name Jehovah. It carries over into the New Testament without the article. It stands as a proper name in the sense of Jehovah, as in Matthew 1:20, 22 and 24, though English has to render it as 'the Lord.'
Joseph had already worked out his own quiet solution before the angel spoke.
Matthew presents Joseph to us as a man of high moral character. He was "a just man," and also of a kind disposition. But an impossible difficulty stood in his way. He formed a fitting plan to remove it, but the Lord stepped in directly and made that plan unnecessary. An angel appeared to him in a dream and gave him an explanation that more than satisfied him. His misgivings left him — and if his did, so should ours — and "he took his wife."
The verse records no debate and no delay.
Joseph of Nazareth had staggering problems to face. He faced them as only a just and upright man could, whose heart was as tender as his conscience… He asked no questions, but with the simplicity of faith recognised the message as from the Lord, and obeyed without hesitation or delay. He stands first in the line of New Testament worthies as an example to us of being subject to the will of God.
This was not a single burst of willingness.
As Joseph began, so he continued. Think of the journey into Egypt with the young child and His mother, their stay there, and their return to the land. In all of it we see the same simple obedience and trust. He did what he was told to do, never running ahead of the heavenly vision nor lagging behind it. So he fulfilled his great mission, and glorified God and proved Him right in His choice and training of him.
In law, this act settled a question of succession.
Joseph was the direct descendant of the royal branch of David's house. If Mary had been mentioned without her link to her husband, there would have been no legal right to the throne of David. It was not enough for the Messiah to be born of a virgin, or even of a virgin daughter of David. He had to be born of a woman legally united to Joseph — in the eye of the law, she was his wife… The wonder of divine wisdom shines out here: He is legally the son of Joseph, truly the son of Mary, and in the truth of His nature the Son of God.
Joseph's obedience was an act of faith in promises that looked long dead.
Six centuries had passed since the throne had gone from the house of David. But faith holds on to the promises of God, even when human strength has failed and every visible hope has fled. Joseph was a man of faith. Because of that faith he did as the angel of the Lord told him, and took Mary to himself as his wife, without hesitation or further misgiving. By doing so he put the protection of his name around her. He made her firstborn Son his Heir — the legal Heir to David's throne.
The birth was miraculous, yet the home stayed ordinary.
The divine intervention does not set aside the Creator's ordinance, nor does God put His seal on human self-denial for its own sake. Judaism, in fact, knew nothing of this dishonour done to the God of nature.
- Commanded — the "Lord" whose angel spoke bears the Old Testament name of God. This was not human advice. It was a divine word.
- Convinced — he had a decent plan of his own, and dropped it. God's explanation removed the doubts his own reasoning could not.
- Compliant — he asked no questions and lost no time. He kept that pace for years, never running ahead of God nor lagging behind.
- Covering — by taking Mary as his wife he put the protection of his name around her. Her Son became the legal Heir to David's throne.
- Confirming — the miracle did not cancel the Creator's design for marriage. God worked through an ordinary home, not around it.
and knew her not until she had brought forth her firstborn son and he called his name Jesus.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.