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Jesus' Genealogy

Matthew 1:1-17

There were many qualifications to be met by anyone claiming to be the Jewish Messiah. He would have been born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14), and be from the tribe of Judah (Genesis 49:10). And he would have to be a descendant of King David of Israel (Jeremiah 33:17). To establish Jesus' connection to the house of David (as well as the tribe of Judah), Matthew set down a genealogy of Jesus in his gospel account.

Matthew, a Jew, wrote his gospel for a Jewish audience to prove that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah. He began his genealogy with Abraham, the father of the Jewish race, traced it through David, then followed it down to Jesus' legal father, Joseph (Matthew 1:2, 6, 16). This is in contrast to Luke, a Gentile, who wrote to show that salvation through Christ was for all people, not just for the Jews. Accordingly, he traced Jesus' ancestry all the way back to Adam, the father of the human race (Luke 3:37).

Though Jesus was not conceived by the union of Joseph with Mary, it was important for Matthew's Jewish readers to know Jesus was a true "Son of David"—a title for Jesus used 10 times by Matthew as opposed to three times by Mark and four times by Luke (John doesn't use the title at all).

Matthew breaks with Jewish tradition in genealogies by including the names of women—five in all: Tamar (verse 3—deceived her father-in-law, Judah, into impregnating her), Rahab (verse 5—a Canaanite prostitute), Ruth (verse 5—a godly Moabite woman), Bathsheba (verse 6—David committed adultery with her), and Mary (verse 16—the godly mother of Jesus). Matthew's inclusion of these women lends emphasis to the redemptive mission of Christ and God's recognition of the value of women in the kingdom of God.

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