Matthew's Genealogy of Jesus: Part I

So far the genealogies we have examined in the primeval history (Genesis 1-11) are all descending genealogies, starting with an important ancient ancestor and ending with a later descendant, to show continuity of the lineage. But there are also ascending genealogies in the Bible, which go in the opposite direction. These genealogies begin with a person who will be important (either positively or negatively) in the narrative to come, but take us back in time to some important ancestor, thus establishing the person’s heritage. In the Old Testament, these tend to be short, succinct genealogies, such as the notices about the family lineages of Bezalel (Exod 31:2), Korah (Num 16:1), Zelophehad (Num 27:1), Achan (Josh 7:1), Hannah’s husband, Elkanah (1 Sam 1:1-2), and Saul’s father, Kish (1 Sam 9:1-2).

An important exception to the length of ascending genealogies is Luke’s genealogy of Jesus (Luke 3:23-38), where he traces Jesus’s lineage back seventy-six generations to Adam, “the son of God.” This establishes Jesus’s identity, which is the basis for the declaration from God at his baptism, which comes just before the genealogy, “You are my Son, my beloved” (Luke 3:21) and relates to the words of the devil in the temptation narrative, which immediately follows the genealogy, “If you are the Son of God . . .” (Luke 4:3, 9).¹⁵ But here I need to leave aside Luke’s genealogy, since there is so much in Matthew’s alone that it will take up all my space in this article and the next.¹⁶

Matthew opens his Gospel with a descending genealogy of a very special type, which has been called a teleological genealogy, since it culminates in a final figure in the lineage, one who is the end point or telos of the genealogy.¹⁷ There are two teleological genealogies in the Bible: Ruth 4:18-22 (ending with David) and Matthew 1:1-17 (ending with Jesus). Matthew clearly draws on the genealogy in Ruth, although he also draws on the genealogy that begins 1 Chronicles 1:1-9 and to some extent on the Genesis genealogies. He specifically models his Gospel on 1 Chronicles by beginning with a genealogy.

Matthew opens his genealogy (and his Gospel) with these words: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matt 1:1).¹⁸ From this declaration it is clear that Matthew wants to root Jesus firmly in the story of Israel, with a focus on Abraham, the father of the nation, through whom God promised to bless the gentiles, and on David, Israel’s second king, whose dynasty ruled Judah until the Babylonian exile. The exile is explicitly mentioned in Matthew’s concluding comment at the end of the genealogy: “Thus all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations” (Matt 1:17).

Matthew’s summary here divides the history of Israel into three main periods, which matches the actual genealogy of verses 2-16. These periods are the premonarchial era up to David (verses 2-6a), the Davidic monarchy after David (verses 6b-11), and the time from the exile (when there were no Davidic kings) to the Messiah (verses 11-16). The names listed in the first two periods (and some in the third period) recall aspects of Israel’s history (most of the names after the exile are not found in any Old Testament genealogy). Matthew’s genealogy could thus be viewed as a compact recapitulation of Israel’s history, the compressed backstory of Jesus the Messiah.

The question arises as to why Matthew divides the history of Israel into three sets of fourteen generations. None of the Old Testament genealogies are organized in terms of fourteen generations. Genesis 5 and Ruth 4:18-22 each have ten generations, while the genealogy in 1 Chronicles 1-9 has sixty-four. So why fourteen?

The explanation for the number fourteen is actually widely agreed upon by those who study Matthew. It is the sum of the number of the Hebrew consonants in the name David. Even in English we sometimes use letters for numbers, as when we number the points in an article or presentation A, B, C, etc. (meaning 1, 2, 3, etc.). This practice in Hebrew is called gematria and each of the twenty-two consonants of the Hebrew alphabet (the vowel points are not counted as letters of the alphabet) represents a number from 1 through 22 (although Matthew writes in Greek, it is easy to see which Hebrew consonants stand behind the Greek spelling he uses).¹⁹ The three Hebrew consonants of David’s name (represented in English by D-V-D) stand for 4, 6, and 4, which when added together equals fourteen.²⁰ So by giving us fourteen generations in each period, Matthew is calling attention to David as a crucial figure in the story of Israel.²¹

Beyond the fact that Matthew is the only Gospel that begins by calling Jesus the “son of David,” (Matthew 1:1), the name David is mentioned five times in his genealogy (Matthew 1:1, 6, 17), even when (as we shall see) it is not strictly necessary and actually seems out of place (as if Matthew is trying use the name David as often as he can). Also, a careful reading of Matthew’s Gospel shows a particular emphasis on Jesus as the “son of David”; this is in contrast to the other Gospels, where this title is used of Jesus in only two passages each in Mark and Luke and not at all in John.²²

Soon after the genealogy, Matthew 2:6 alludes to Jesus’s Davidic status in the quote from Micah 5:2 (5:1 in the Hebrew Masoretic Text), which mentions the Messiah coming from Bethlehem (David’s hometown). Later on, various people directly call Jesus “Son of David” or wonder if he is David’s son, especially in connection with his healings (Matthew 9:27; 12:23; 20:30-31). Matthew is also the only Gospel where the phrase “Son of David” is added to the Hosannas shouted in the acclaim Jesus receives on his entry into Jerusalem (Matthew 21:9, 15)—which is, of course, the “city of David” (2 Sam 5:7). So Matthew’s genealogy puts us on notice that Jesus’s relationship to David is going to be significant in his Gospel. Yet, while the genealogy, along with aspects of Matthew’s narrative, sets us up for understanding Jesus as “Davidic” in some sense, Jesus himself will challenge any simple identification, by indicating that the Messiah is David’s lord, not his equal (Matthew 22:42-45).²³

Within the first set of fourteen generations (from Abraham to David), Matthew inserts a number of annotations or asides. Three of these annotations refer to particular women in the history of Israel—Tamar (Matt 1:3), Rahab (Matt 1:5), and Ruth (Matt 1:5)—and Matthew mentions them as the mothers of particular figures in the genealogy. Each of these women made an important contribution to the story of Israel, whether in the period of the ancestors (Tamar), the conquest (Rahab), or the judges (Ruth). These three women are the first of five whom Matthew will mention in his genealogy. Each might be viewed negatively by some readers of the Gospel, since Tamar solicited sex with Judah, her father-in-law, Rahab was a Canaanite prostitute, and Ruth was a Moabite, a member of a group prohibited from joining Israel (Deut 23:3). Yet none of these three is judged negatively by any Old Testament text. Indeed, they are all positively valued for their respective roles in the history of Israel (Judah even calls Tamar “righteous” in Gen 38:26).

Without Rahab, Israel would never have been successful in entering the Promised Land; without Tamar and Ruth there would have been no Davidic monarchy (since the line of descent passed through their children). So the mention of these three mothers of Israel recalls in summary form aspects of Israel’s ancient story. They also prepare us for Mary, whom some readers might view negatively because of her premarital pregnancy, yet without whom there would be no Messiah (this story is recounted right after Matthew’s genealogy).