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.