CHAPTER 1
Matthew 1:1–17
LISTEN to the Story
1This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:
2Abraham was the father of Isaac,
Isaac the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,
3Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar,
Perez the father of Hezron,
Hezron the father of Ram,
4Ram the father of Amminadab,
Amminadab the father of Nahshon,
Nahshon the father of Salmon,
5Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,
Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth,
Obed the father of Jesse,
6and Jesse the father of King David.
David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife,
7Solomon the father of Rehoboam,
Rehoboam the father of Abijah,
Abijah the father of Asa,
8Asa the father of Jehoshaphat,
Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram,
Jehoram the father of Uzziah,
9Uzziah the father of Jotham,
Jotham the father of Ahaz,
Ahaz the father of Hezekiah,
10Hezekiah the father of Manasseh,
Manasseh the father of Amon,
Amon the father of Josiah,
11and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.
12After the exile to Babylon:
Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel,
Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,
13Zerubbabel the father of Abihud,
Abihud the father of Eliakim,
Eliakim the father of Azor,
14Azor the father of Zadok,
Zadok the father of Akim,
Akim the father of Elihud,
15Elihud the father of Eleazar,
Eleazar the father of Matthan,
Matthan the father of Jacob,
16and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.
17Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah.
Listening to the Text in the Story: Genesis 1:1–5:2; 12:1–3; 15:1–6; 17:1–19; 38:6–26; 49:9–12; Joshua 2:1–21; 6:22–25; Ruth 1:22–4:22; 1 Samuel 16:1–13; 2 Samuel 2:1–4; 5:1–5; 7:1–16; 11:2–12:25; 23:1–7; 2 Kings 24:10–25:26; 1 Chronicles 1:34; 2:1–15; 3:1–19.
The story of Jesus the Messiah didn’t begin with his birth—as fantastic as it was. Rather, Matthew believed the only way his readers would be able to make sense of the life of Jesus, from his birth to his resurrection, was to go back to the beginning of Israel’s story. Of course, to tell a condensed version of the entire story of Israel in prose—no matter how brief—would take several pages of precious papyri. Besides, it wouldn’t be necessary; Matthew assumes his readers know the macrostory embedded in the genealogy of Jesus. Reciting a revised version of Jesus’s ancestry from Abraham to Joseph would sound like a roll call that echoed the promises of God.1 That’s because God made promises to certain individuals for the sake of all his people. The covenant between God and Israel was always mediated through one man. God promised Abraham that he would be the father of many descendants who would inherit the earth. God promised one of Jacob’s sons, Judah, that a king would come from his tribe. God promised King David that one of his great-great-great-(how many great?)-grandsons would bring justice to Israel forever. Israel’s hope started with one man (“the father of a multitude”) and would end with another (the Messiah, “the anointed one”). Indeed, what Matthew claims from the beginning is that one man—that one hope—the Messiah of Israel, has come in the person of Jesus. In him all the promises of God come true.
That would be quite a lofty claim for several reasons, but especially because over the centuries God made many promises to Israel that had not come true. In fact, that is what made the God of Israel rather unique: he is the kind of God that makes promises and then leaves, expecting his people to trust him in the meantime. God promised the seventy-five-year-old Abraham that he would be the father of millions of descendants, as many as the stars of the heavens and the grains of sand on the earth, and that they would inherit a land of their own. The problem, of course, was that Abraham was a nomad, had no children, and time was running out; he was already an old man and his wife was persistently barren (considered at that time as the curse of God). I can imagine “father” Abraham staring into the night sky and muttering to himself, “Really? That many descendants? To dream of such things is all well and good, but it would be nice to have one.” Nearly twenty-five years later, God finally shows up and delivers the good news to the more-than-patient couple. The old man and his elderly wife will finally get a start on seeing the lofty vision come true: they will have a son, Isaac, and God will get the last laugh. Israel eventually multiplies like rabbits in the fertile land of Egypt. Yet the question remained: Would they ever inherit the earth?
The same thing happened to David. God promised David that his kingdom would be so stable that it would last forever. And yet, even though David managed to unite the divided tribal confederacy under his reign, he didn’t seem capable of ruling his own divided house. A rebel son who forced his father to abdicate the throne temporarily, another son’s incestuous rape of his sister, the murder of one son by another, the death of the infant son born of David’s adulterous relationship with Bathsheba, the rebel son assassinated by the king’s captain—how could anyone claim (especially David) that God’s promise was coming true? If anything, David’s kingdom appeared destined for self-destruction, for everyone knows that a house divided against itself cannot stand. And even though Solomon’s reign brought unrivaled peace and prosperity, after David’s son died a civil war broke out between the north and the south—a civil war that was never resolved—and eventually ripped apart the indivisible kingdom. It was just a matter of time before a foreign power, a stronger king, would show up and finish off the crippled kingdom. Babylonian captivity seemed to dispel any notion that David’s house would stand forever. So, even though Israel didn’t find the strength to “sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land” (Ps 137:4), they still wanted to know: When will God make good on the promises he made to David, to Abraham, to all Israel? Where is the son of David who will bring the reign of God’s justice? How will the children of Abraham—scattered like nomads—ever inherit the promised land? When will their captivity end?
Matthew thinks he has the answer.
EXPLAIN the Story
The first line of Matthew’s Gospel reads like a title; literally, “A book [biblos] of genesis [geneseōs] of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham.” Is Matthew 1:1 the title of the entire Gospel? It could be because Mark did the same thing, stringing together several nouns without a verb, “The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1). Moreover, the books of the Law took their titles from the first word or phrase of each; for example, Genesis is designated as bere’shith (“in the beginning”), and Exodus is known by the title we’elleh shemoth (“and these are the names”). English titles of the Old Testament books, however, derive from the Septuagint (LXX), the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures; for example, Genesis (genesis) comes from 2:4; literally, “This is the book [biblos] of genesis [geneseōs] of heaven and earth.” Therefore, some suggest that Matthew intended his readers to hear an echo of the first book of the Bible in the title of his Gospel, as if he were writing the story of a new Genesis, a new beginning through Jesus Christ.2 As appealing as that may sound to our ears, the problem is that the word genesis appears several places in Genesis (2:4; 5:1; 6:9; 10:1, 32; 11:10, 27; 25:12, 19; 36:1; 37:2) as the heading of a series of stories (often including a genealogy) that trace the lineage or “generations” of a particular patriarch. Furthermore, Matthew uses genesis to introduce the story of the birth of Jesus; literally, “the genesis [genesis] of Jesus Christ was like this” (1:18). So it is more likely that Matthew 1:1 is not a title for the entire Gospel but a heading for both the genealogy of Jesus, “This is the genealogy [geneseōs] of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham,” and the birth narrative, “This is how the birth [genesis] of Jesus the Messiah came about” (1:18).
Jesus’s Family Tree
We may be drawn to the names Matthew singles out in verse one: Abraham, David, Jesus. Indeed, the genealogical table—by its very structure—highlights these three as the MVPs of Israel’s story. It starts with Abraham, peaks with David, and ends with Jesus—the trinity of salvation history. Curiosity might draw our eyes to the four women listed, three by name and one by association, leading us to infer that the point of the genealogy is to give voice to the marginalized, to include outsiders, to privilege the scandalous. Others might delight in the threefold schema built around a rhythmic pattern of fourteen names that signal the turning points of Israel’s story embedded in Abraham’s family tree. Time marches to the beat of an unalterable destiny. Finally, the type A bean counters among us might trip over the mathematical problem of adding up fourteen generations when only thirteen names are listed in the third group. Crunching the numbers while comparing Matthew’s genealogy with other lists forces us to tease out the implications of why certain names appear and why others are completely ignored. Certainly Matthew could count (he was a tax collector, after all), so why the gaps? Are we supposed to read between the lines and discover a subliminal message—certain names have been “blotted out” from the sacred record—intended for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear? To be sure, Matthew’s unique genealogical list invites intrigue. Yet we shouldn’t miss the main point of the genealogy, the “silent” partner who is easily overlooked because his assumed presence goes without saying. The major figure of Jesus’s family tree is God.3
It is easy to get lost in the genealogy, assuming a biological momentum to the perpetual force of life. Of course we know that “Abraham was the father of Isaac,” and that “Isaac was the father of Jacob,” and so on. But that’s not the whole story, as if becoming a father is naturally to be expected. Rather, Matthew assumes we know the story behind the “begats,” the theological presumption within the story of Israel. Israel didn’t come into existence by “natural processes.” Abraham didn’t wake up one day and say to himself, “I think I’ll start a nation today.” Rather, God created Israel. God chose a Chaldean and brought life to his dead loins. God chose a dead womb to bring laughter to the world. If it weren’t for God, Israel wouldn’t exist at all. Therefore, like all of creation—every living thing!—Israel belongs to God. That’s why he kept making promises to Israel. They are his children; he is their father. And like any good father would intend, his children were meant to be blessed. So every name that appears in the genealogy represents both blessing and promise; every son of the covenant embodies both the fulfillment and hope of God’s promise.
And yet, the way Matthew sees it, the story of God’s covenant with Israel can’t be reduced to a list of names revealing a direct line of descent, tracing the proper lineage of kingship. For if that were the case, one would simply show how Jesus has the proper messianic pedigree, listing his lineage from David to Joseph. Rather, Matthew believes Israel’s story and Jesus’s family history turn on two significant events, two pivotal persons: the kingdom finally arriving with David, and the Babylonian exile beginning with Jeconiah. Indeed, the ordering of the generations into three groups of fourteen leads the reader to mark the turning point of God’s dealings with Israel during these two decisive transitions. David bridges the first two groups, Jeconiah the last two. David represents the high-water mark of God’s blessing (the kingdom has come!), while Jeconiah’s reign marks the beginning of the end (the kingdom is gone?). In other words, Jesus’s genealogy not only reveals Israel’s ascent to kingship but also Israel’s descent into exile. But to simplify the graph of God’s blessing as a straight line peaking with David only to drop off precipitously like a downward vector marking the stock-market crash is misleading. There have been bumps and bruises, ups and downs along the way of God’s covenant blessing. Names like Tamar and Judah, David and Uriah, Hezekiah and Manasseh remind the reader that the high points and low points of Israel’s story are mingled together. Even during the exile, one should not infer that Israel was abandoned by God, as if there were no bright spots shining in the darkness. God was still blessing Israel by begetting sons of David in Babylon. It was one of those born in exile who led the expedition back home to rebuild the temple: Zerubbabel. It’s not like the genealogical record goes silent without a king on the throne. The sons of David keep coming. Indeed, if any inference is to be made it is this: it’s time. The exile is over because the Messiah has been born, and he will establish the throne of David forever.4
Jesus’s Family Issues
Even though the story of Israel can be easily inferred from Jesus’s genealogy, Matthew’s version still invites curiosity. Why did he include women, especially these four? Why did he leave out several names in order to arrange the genealogy in three groups of fourteen? Furthermore, why does the last section, tracing the descendants from Babylonian exile to the Messiah, contain only thirteen names? And finally, since one man can’t have two genealogies, why is Luke’s version different from Matthew’s?5
Starting with the last question, it’s a bit unfair to ask why Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus is different from Luke’s. If he were alive today, Matthew might say, “Go ask Luke!” The Gospel writers certainly didn’t see their work as part of a fourfold series on the life of Jesus; they had no idea they were writing Scripture for a collection that we would eventually call “The New Testament.” But because we have four Gospels in our canon, we cannot help but wonder, “Why the difference?” In fact, that question comes up often when comparing the four Gospels because there are significant differences between them in chronology, in the actual words of Jesus, in the names of the twelve disciples, and in details pertaining to the same episodes. In other words, throughout this commentary we could spend much time trying to answer the question, “Why is Matthew’s version different from . . . ?” Some scholars try to answer the question based on critical opinions about which Gospel was written first, determining who used whom, and tracing the theological motivations of each writer in order to explain the differences. But such an approach is risky. What if we are wrong about literary dependence? To point out deviation implies a standard. Which Gospel is the standard? Even if we could be convinced that one Gospel writer used another, is it possible to infer theological reasons for differences based more on what we’re looking for than what the Gospel writers implied? Who can tell? Besides, meaning isn’t necessarily located in uniqueness. The material that is shared by the Gospel writers is just as important to serving the purposes of the overall story as the differences between them.
So, for the purposes of this study, we will notice the differences between Matthew and the other three Gospels. But, like many other scholars, we want to locate the significance of the episode in the context of Matthew’s story. Rather than try to explain why Matthew’s version is different, even trying to harmonize his Gospel with the other three, I want to keep our focus on the narrative world in Matthew, looking for internal evidence within each passage to arrive at the coherent meaning of the Gospel. So, for example, to return to the genealogy of Jesus according to Matthew and Luke, the obvious differences show up in the order, placement, and the list of names for each. Most of us don’t seem to have a problem with the differences in order (Matthew descending, Luke ascending) or placement of the genealogical table (Matthew at the beginning, Luke between the baptism and temptation of Jesus). It’s in the variance of names where the trouble lies. Between Abraham and David, both Gospels agree nearly verbatim. The problem, of course, is the different names listed between David and Zerubbabel, and between Zerubbabel and Joseph. How could this be? Some suggest Matthew’s version is Joseph’s lineage and Luke’s is Mary’s. Yet that wouldn’t explain why the family lines merge at Shealtiel and Zerubbabel only to diverge again after Zerubbabel. Some argue that the practice of levirate marriage (or even adoption) could explain the different descendants of Zerubbabel, but that doesn’t account for the differences after David. Obviously, Matthew traces royal lineage through Solomon, and Luke follows David’s descendants through his third son, Nathan (Luke 3:31), but why? In other words, when it comes to explaining the differences between the genealogies we can suggest possibilities—this could have happened—but we are unable to offer reasons. Therefore, it might be more beneficial to ask, “Why is Jesus’s genealogy arranged the way it is in Matthew’s Gospel?” (A question we would ask even if we didn’t have Luke’s version.)
It is quite apparent that Matthew’s threefold schema of fourteen generations is contrived, especially when we compare it to the genealogies preserved in 1 Chronicles. Sometimes Matthew follows direct lines of descent; for example, fourteen names between Abraham and David. Other times he skips over several names; for example, four names between Jehoram and Jotham (1 Chr 3:11–12) are reduced to one (Jehoram, Uzziah, Jotham; Matt 1:8–9). In other words, it was more important to Matthew that the genealogy of Jesus conform to a fourteen-generation schema than to list every ancestor. Why? Jews believed in divine timing. That is to say, since God is at work in history, the timing of events must bear a divine stamp. In particular, the numerical length of days, months, or years reveal a divine pattern, symbolized by certain “perfect” numbers: three, four, five, seven, ten, twelve (or any combination).6 Therefore, Matthew deliberately ordered Jesus’s genealogy in three groups of fourteen to reflect the imprint of David’s royal lineage. David’s name in Hebrew consists of three consonants (dwd), and since each Hebrew letter also represents an alphabetically ordered number (gematria; d=4, w=6), then the sum of David’s name equals fourteen. And since David’s name appears as the fourteenth name in the genealogy, then the divine timing of David’s heir is evident in the royal rhythm of three fourteens, which also happens to mark the major turning points in Israel’s history.7
But that still doesn’t answer the question: Why does Matthew list only thirteen names from Jeconiah to Jesus? It could be that Matthew is counting David twice (v. 6), or that one of Jeconiah’s unnamed “brothers” rounds out the middle list of fourteen (v. 11).8 Others have suggested that perhaps Mary was to be counted among the last group of fourteen names (but that still doesn’t account for why the previous four women listed were not counted).9 All of this gets pretty messy for us because Matthew seems to be making many assumptions: these names can be omitted, while these names can be assumed. And yet, the Israelite tradition preserved in the Hebrew Scriptures is notorious for approximating numbers that don’t match up (anyone who has compared Chronicles with Samuel and Kings is familiar with the “problem”). So I can imagine Matthew saying to us, “So, there are some names that don’t appear here or there. What’s the difference as long as God is at work? The God of Israel is making good on his promises, yes? Then there are three groups of fourteen—end of discussion.”
Finally, why did Matthew include these four women—Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Uriah’s wife—in Jesus’s genealogy? Although family lineages are traced through fathers, it wasn’t unusual to include women in genealogies: concubines (1 Chr 1:32; 2:46, 48), sisters (1:39; 2:16), daughters and daughters-in-law (2:4, 21, 35, 49), wives (1:50; 2:26), and mothers (2:3, 18, 19, 24, 29). So we may be making too much of the fact that women were included in Jesus’s family tree. And yet one cannot help but wonder: Why these four? Some think the back story of each woman sets up the story of Mary. The reason Matthew listed these women is that they share a similar, scandalous history: Tamar acted like a prostitute to become pregnant by her father-in-law; Rahab was a prostitute; Ruth approached a man to sleep with him; Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba, committed adultery with David. In other words, David’s royal lineage is tainted by women of questionable behavior, which makes Mary’s circumstances—a virgin giving birth to a son—seem rather tame. Or, another way of looking at it, despite (or perhaps even through) their scandalous behavior these women became heroes of Israel’s faith because they preserved the line of David, just like Mary.
And yet, even though the circumstances surrounding these women were suspicious, the Bible goes to great lengths to absolve them of any wrongdoing due to the questionable behavior of the men (Judah and David), or due to their own virtuous character (Ruth and Mary), or faithful behavior (Rahab). In other words, the “sex-scandal” theme is an imposition, forced onto these five stories with different contexts. This is why interpreters look for another common denominator (one that has nothing to do with Mary): all four women were gentiles.10 Even though the ethnic identity of only one of the women is stated explicitly (Ruth, the Moabite), the non-Israelite status of the other three is inferred (not only from the biblical narratives—Tamar is neither a sister nor a cousin, Rahab is from Jericho, and Bathsheba was married to a Hittite—but also due to the fact that “rabbis felt compelled to defend vigorously this blemish in David’s bloodline”11). Since the Lord himself commanded Moses to kill all the Israelite men who married Moabite women (Ruth’s ancestors; Num 25:1–5), and Ezra advised the men of Judah to divorce their foreign wives (Ezra 10:9–12), then having a royal line “polluted” by the impurity of gentile women makes the story of the Messiah’s pedigree even more intriguing. Indeed, according to Matthew, Jesus has all kinds of blood running through his veins—just like King David. And therefore perhaps the hope of David’s kingdom was supposed to include all kinds of people, because Jesus is the Messiah born for Israel and the whole world.
LIVE the Story
Every genealogy tells a story. In fact, ask someone about their family tree and see if they don’t start telling stories about their “faithful great grandmother” or “crazy great-great uncle” or “mischievous second cousin, the black sheep of the family.” It shouldn’t surprise me, but whenever I hear about their family, it often sounds like we’re related. It seems that all of us have our fair share of larger-than-life personalities, notorious rebels, and wallflowers in our family tree. But what especially comes up nearly every time is that many of us have a well-known person in our genealogy. Go back far enough, and nearly all of us are related to someone famous. People love to bring up that part of their family history. It’s as if descending from someone special makes us feel important, validating our existence. We all love to point out the bright spots—the stars—in our family stories.
Recently, I discovered that I’m a descendant of Daniel Boone and his son Nathan. I had never really cared much about tracing my genealogical roots until the local dentist, Don Jump, told me that we were related: “Your great-great grandfather Rentfrow married my grandfather John Henry Jump’s sister, Jemima, who were both great-grandchildren of Nathan Boone. That means your great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was Daniel Boone.” Then he showed me a picture of “our” family circa 1884, posing in their Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes in front of an old barn in Polk County, Missouri. What struck me about the picture was how plain they looked, how ordinary they appeared to be. As I tried to take in the significance of the snapshot, I kept thinking to myself, “These people are the direct descendants of the great American folk hero, Daniel Boone.” Staring at one of the little boys in the picture (a seven-year-old version of my great grandfather), I couldn’t help but imagine boastful claims he might have made among his childhood friends: “Look at these muscles! I’m so strong I could wrestle a bear, just like my great-great-great grandfather, Daniel Boone.” And, in this imaginary dialogue I could also hear his buddies retort, “Ah shut up, boy. You may think you are Daniel Boone, but we all know you’re just little John.”
Learning that you’re a descendant of Daniel Boone causes all kinds of strange thoughts to run through your head. Knowing that I carry his DNA makes me wonder, “Is that why I love the outdoors? Maybe I was meant to be a frontiersman too. The idea of ‘roughing it,’ heading to the lake with nothing more than a backpack and a fishing pole, has always appealed to me (even though I’ve never tried it!). Is my drive to be someone special biological? Is it because I carry the genes of Daniel Boone that I feel a kinship with Native Americans? Am I the living embodiment of the mythology that is Daniel Boone?” Of course, when I think about the other side of Boone’s legacy—his weaknesses, his foibles, his failures—the idea that I am living a predestined life due to my genealogy no longer sounds appealing. Boone was plagued by financial trouble throughout his life due to his poor judgment in land speculation and political alliances. He was an opportunist who sided with enemies whenever it was in his best interests. He seemed bent on creating a larger-than-life legend, built on self-promotion, which led to fictional tales of his so-called “heroic” life published in dime-store novels—something he resented in his final years. Even Boone became contemptuous of the legend that he created, knowing he was much less of a man than the myth of the folk hero celebrated by all.12 Indeed, how could any of us ever live up to the ideal past of our family history when all of us know we carry within ourselves the good, the bad, and the ugly?
That’s what I appreciate about Matthew’s version of Jesus’s genealogy. Matthew didn’t offer a sanitized account of Jesus’s pedigree. He relates the story of Israel’s hope, the royal line of David, warts and all.13 Indeed, Jesus’s genealogical roots sink deep into the dirt of humanity. No doubt, Israel’s tree was nourished by a rich soil that produced massive limbs of great strength and beauty. David’s kingdom was so magnificent that all other kings would be compared to him. Talk about living up to an ideal family history! Did Jesus ever wonder about the implications of his family history? “Is that why I think about the kingdom all the time? Because I’m a son of David?” Others recognized his potential: “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!” and “Hosanna to the Son of David!” (Matt 20:30; 21:9). And yet, Jesus never claimed such a lofty title, preferring to refer to himself as the “Son of Man”—a man who knew about the temptation of lust, anxiety about the future, the troubles of the day, and the loneliness of sorrow (5:28–30; 6:25, 34; 26:38). When he warned the crowd about the drastic measures needed to overcome the power of lust, did he think about his ancestral father, King David? When he tried to encourage us not to worry about the future, was he pondering his own destiny in light of the story of Judah? When a woman prepared him for burial even though he was still very much alive, inciting his disciples to mock her foolish gesture, did he think of all the women in his family tree who were faithful to the Lord despite being falsely accused and dismissed by men (26:6–13)? When he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (27:46), did it feel like he was reliving the story of Israel’s exile in Babylon? Did Jesus know he was the living embodiment, the genuine incarnation of his genealogy, with all the hopes and disappointments, joys and sorrows, strengths and weaknesses, ups and downs, kings and despots, heroes and villains, promise and fulfillment of Israel’s story, the momentum and destiny of our story? Did Jesus realize he was not only the Son of David but also our Son of Man?
Matthew implies he must have known, for the genesis of Jesus the Messiah is where the gospel story of his life begins (Matt 1:1). Yes, Jesus was born to be king. This was God’s doing. But that didn’t mean he would drop out of heaven like some alien from another world. Matthew wants to make it plain: Jesus didn’t “become” one of us. He is one of us—all of us—the good, the bad, and the ugly. His genealogy proves it.
1. “The history of Israel passes before their eyes in concentrated form” (Luz, Matthew, 1:82).
2. See Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:153, who translate v. 1, “Book of the New Genesis wrought by Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham”; Luz, Matthew, 1:69, prefers the simpler phrase, “Book of the Genesis of Jesus Christ,” because he believes that Matthew wasn’t claiming a “new creation” theology at work in Jesus since he is a part of creation.
3. “Thus, the genealogy is not a record of man’s biological productivity but a demonstration of God’s providence” (Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narrative in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, new updated ed., ABRL [New York: Doubleday, 1993], 68).
4. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:180.
5. For a comparison between the two, see Brown, Birth of the Messiah, 84–94.
6. According to Augustine, since there are forty generations between Abraham and Christ, the genealogy echoes the wilderness wanderings of Israel and foreshadows the number of days of Christ’s temptation in the desert (Manlio Simonetti, ed., Matthew 1–13, ACCS 1A [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001], 10).
7. See Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:163–65.
8. See Donald A. Hagner, Matthew 1–13, WBC 33A (Waco, TX: Word, 1993), 6.
9. See Brown, Birth of the Messiah, 83.
10. Keener, Matthew, 78–81.
11. David E. Garland, Reading Matthew: A Literary and Theological Commentary (Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 2001), 19.
12. See the biography by Michael A. Lofaro, Daniel Boone: An American Life (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2003), especially 133–83.
13. “Yea, it was for this cause He came, not to escape our disgraces, but to bear them away. . . . He vouchsafed to have also such kinsfolk, being in no respect ashamed of our evils. And this He was proclaiming from the very beginnings of his birth, that He is ashamed of none of those things that belong to us” (John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew, vol. 10 of The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series one, ed. Philip Schaff, 14 vols. [Repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991], 15–16).