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.