Life Project Blog

Matthew continues his genealogy as he moves from the first group of 14 names to the next. The first group culminates in King David, that glorious figure who is “a man after God’s own heart”, with whom God made a covenant that one of his descendants would always be on his throne, and quickly the second group of 14 comes along, ending with no one on David’s throne. This scenario underscores the failure of the people of the Abrahamic covenant, and the lack of fulfillment of their covenant.

We can see Matthew’s historic vision in this sequence, a vision of election and high privilege followed by human failure and lost opportunity. It would seem that this is a preview of what would follow in Matthew’s story as the pattern of Israel’s rebellion and subsequent judgment unfolds in Israel’s rejection of Jesus, and Israel’s loss of kingdom (21:33-22:10) the destruction of the nation (21:41; 22:18; 23:29-24:3) and eschatological destruction (8:10-11; 22:11-14).

The final group of 14 is an interesting one for several reasons. For the most part, the names found in the first two thirds of the genealogy can be found in the Septuagint, but the nine names in vv. 13-15 don’t follow any Old Testament genealogy. In addition, Matthew uses only nine names to cover about 500 years, while Luke uses 18, and of these, only four are in both lists; two of the four are Joseph and Jesus. To be fair, this is not uncommon in comparing genealogies, as we have mentioned, and neither Matthew nor Luke are recording genealogies as  strict historical pedigrees.  Finally, Matthew’s progression from father to son is suddenly broken when there is no direct link between Joseph and Jesus, leaving the father of Jesus not strictly identified (see verse 16). Notice that Matthew instead shifts our attention from Joseph to Mary as “mother of Jesus”.

Matthew will answer the obvious questions about this ambiguity in the next scene, and the implications of that answer will be the subject of the entire story… and to say that those implications are huge, would be an understatement, to say the least.

This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham: (1:1)

Matthew begins with this verse full of content and contextual implications. It would seem that Matthew is intent on linking the story of Jesus to the larger context of Israel’s history. Notice his reference to “the genealogy of” in language which in the original Greek parallels that of the Septuagint in Gen. 2:4 and 5:1, alongside the names of David and Abraham, two of Israel’s most illustrious heroes. That Matthew uses the terms “Jesus the Messiah” (or Jesus Christ) makes it quite clear that this son of David is special (cf. 2:4; 16:16, 20; 22:42; 24:5, 23; 26:63, 68). In putting the personal name together with the messianic concept, Matthew is referring back to the hopes of an entire Nation.

With the reference “son of David” our author is hearkening back to the glory days of his people and God’s covenant promises concerning the Davidic royal house, David may well be considered the pivotal name in the genealogy for it is mentioned 5 times, and is the only name associated with the title of “king” (v. 6), singling him out of all other royal references as the greatest. Many scholars also point out the presence of the numerical value associated with the Hebrew numeric consonants. For the name David the numerics look like this: d (4) w (6) d (4) or 4 + 6 + 4 = 14. The number 14 is the number of David to be sure, but here it appears that, as some suggest, it has more meaning than that, for it is also arrived at by multiplying 2 X 7. Seven, as we saw in the Introduction, is the number of completeness or perfection. Jesus is the second Person of the godhead. Thus, some suggest that 14 is the number of Messiah, and when you compare that to David, and recall that the Messiah would be the son of David, these scholars conclude their case.

As for me personally, I don’t know who is right or wrong about the numbers, but in noticing how often the number 14 appears here, and remembering how the ancient Jews felt about numbers, it appears to me that at the least, Matthew is trying in every way possible to make sure that his readers get “son of David” and “Messiah” out of this discussion.

Matthew goes on to mention that David was a “son of Abraham” which is another interesting component. Recall God’s covenant with Abraham: Isaac was the son of promise through whom all of the nations of the world would be blessed. Here, David is named “son of Abraham”. Jesus is mentioned as “son of David” and “Messiah” with the obvious attempt to reinforce Matthew’s contention that Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of God’s covenant promise to Abraham.

This isn’t such a boring genealogy, is it?

While Matthew doesn’t mention every man who could be mentioned here, the inclusion of the names of four women is worthy of our note. As scholars like to do, they often differ about why these four names are included. My thought is that these women are all Gentiles; yet here they are in the genealogy of Jesus, who is the fulfillment of the very non-Gentile Abrahamic covenant. It strikes me that this may be important for two reasons: First, because Matthew makes certain to point out when Jesus breaks the ethnic barrier between Jew and Gentile (cf. 8:5-13; 15:21-28; 28:18-20), and second because of the way that social outcasts received His message. Whether or not this was Matthew’s thinking, one thing is perfectly clear: This is no ordinary genealogy, and with the arrival of Jesus the Messiah, nothing would ever be the same again.

We’ll pick up in verse 6 when we get together next time!