How many of you have a paper, or a book, or something like it that tells your family tree? Personal my family doesn’t have such a thing that I know of. In fact in my family, our extended family isn’t something that we have a lot of contact with. For a good chunk of my life all I knew was one of my grandfathers and a few cousins. There’s a lot of hurt and family issues that lead to my core family not having a lot to do with my extended family, so the family tree wasn’t a big deal growing up. But there are people that have an extended family trees that they can trace back hundreds of years.
In fact, the trend of online groups that will help you look for connections in your family tree has only grown in the past decade. Places like Ancestry.com, 23 and me, and a host of others seek to help people connect with their ancestry.
And it’s this idea of family trees, or as the Bible puts it genealogies, that brings us back into our Matthew series, where we’re going to jump into our first week of studying the book. So let’s start at Matthew chapter 1 verse 1. Now as we start in chapter 1 of Matthew, this is probably the first or second most skipped over section of Scripture in the New Testament. The only other one that could beat it, is Luke chapter 3, which is another genealogy of Jesus. And I think the reason that we tend to skip over genealogies is that in our culture, extensive genealogies aren’t that interesting. Instead we’re interested in the highlights of family trees.
Take me for example, I know very little about both sides of my parents’ lineage. I’ve been told that we get our last name from a piece of land in England called Holcomb, that was taken by William the Conquer. I’ve been told that on my dad’s mom’s side that when the Scotts were fighting the English, an Irishman came over to help and was given the land of Buchanan as a thank you. To which I am related to the 15th President of the United States, James Buchanan. And all I know of my heritage on my mom’s side, is that my grandfather is from the island of Madeira off the Portugal coast, hence his last name was Maderios. There’s a little more, but that’s about it. Just some highlights.
Now, for us as individuals, our ancestry might be really interesting, but for others, maybe not so much. And I think that’s why we just want to hit the highlights, and skip over the things that don’t seem all that important. But for the Bible, genealogies are extremely important, because they set the historical background of how and through whom, things come about. And as we saw from last week, the understanding of the historical background of the Bible, helps us better understand just what God intended us to know.
So as we jump into Matthew chapter 1, verses 1-17, the way we’re going to approach this is by hitting some highlights of the genealogy and how God put it together. Hopefully by the end of today, you’ll see the importance of it, and dive deeper into for yourselves this week.
Now, we’re not going to read through the whole thing for two reasons: first, time and the second, you don’t need to see how good I am at saying biblical names. I don’t want to make others feel bad on how good I am, and how poor some of these scholars are in how they pronounce these names. So instead, will hit some especially important names and how Matthew ties all of this together.
But first I want us to drop down to verse 17 and read this verse, so we can get it out of the way quickly. Verse 17 reads, “Thus 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.”
Here’s the reality, technically speaking, there are more than fourteen generations between each of these. In Hebrew numbering, round numbers are ideal. For a modern example, when I go out to eat, to figure up the tip, I round up to the nearest dollar amount and then proceed to figure out what 10% is, then I double that to get 20% and from there I decide if I want to go up more. Round numbers make things easier, and the Hebrews were all about making things easier. This is referred to as idealized numbers. So Matthew is using a common Hebrew way of dividing three eras of genealogies into acceptable Hebrew numbering. The three eras that Matthew divides Jesus’ genealogy into are, theocracy, monarchy, hierarchy.
Now let’s highlight some of the names that Matthew gives us. The first four are Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Judah. These first four names establish Jesus all the way to the patriarchs of the Hebrew people. This lets the reader know that Jesus can trace his linage all the way back to Abraham through the fourth son of Jacob, which is Judah. This is important, because it brings us to the root of the Hebrew people in Abraham, and gives us Jesus’ tribal heritage in the person of Judah.
But then we get a strange name, Tamar. This is the first of four names of women that Matthew sights, which isn’t customary to see in a Hebrew genealogy. Since this isn’t customary, we need to realize that the inclusion of these women is very important for both Jesus’ heritage and God’s overall plan. So let’s talk about each of the four women.
In Genesis 38, we get Tamar’s Story. Tamar was given as a wife to Judah’s oldest son Er. Er died without any sons, and as custom Tamar was given to the next oldest son. The next son died, again with no heirs, so Judah the father promised his third son to Tamar when he was old enough, but never delivered on this promise. Years later Tamar indulged Judah’s lust and slept with him, without him knowing that it was his daughter-in-law. Later when Judah heard that Tamar had prostituted herself and became pregnant, he became indignant and order that she be killed. That’s when Tamar revealed that it was Judah who was the one she prostituted herself to, and became pregnant by. In the biblical account, Judah makes this comment, “She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn’t give her to my son Shelah (shell-a) (Genesis 38:26).” Tamar eventually gives birth to twins, with the first being Perez (Pee-rez), Jesus’ ancestor.
The next woman is Rahab, and we get her story in the second chapter of Joshua. Rahab was a prostitute in the city of Jericho when two Israelite spies came to gather intel on the city. Rehab recognized that the God of Israel was going to give victory to the Hebrews over her city, and so she helped keep them safe from the guards that were looking for them. Rehab and her entire family was saved, and brought into the nation of Israel as the wife of Salmon (Sa-mon).
Our third woman is Ruth and her story is told through an entire book of the Bible, the Book of Ruth: A woman named Naomi, her husband and two sons went to the land of Moab during a great famine in Israel. Naomi’s husband died and she married her two sons to two Moabite women. After ten years, the two sons died without heirs, and she released her daughter-in-laws to return to their families, and she would be returning to hers. Ruth decided to stay with her mother-in-law and worked as she could as a poor widow in the grain fields. Eventually she befriended and married a man named Boaz, an Israelite man and family member to her deceased husband.
Finally, we’re given the last woman’s name as, Uriah’s Wife, which is Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11. It’s interesting that Matthew doesn’t give us her direct name. I think this might be Matthew emphasizing the way in which her son Solomon came to be born. The story goes as, King David did not go to off to war with his army and instead stayed behind in his palace. One night he saw a woman bathing on her roof, he sent for her, slept with her, and she became pregnant. To cover all this up, David tried to get the woman’s husband Uriah, to come back from war and sleep with her. But he refused and David sent him to the front lines where he was killed. David took Bathsheba as his wife, and their first baby died. Their second child was Solomon, who became the king after David.
These four woman show us God’s redemptive work, not just for the nation of Israel, but for the world as a whole. Tamar was more than likely a Canaanite woman and not a Hebrew, but Rahab and Ruth definitely were not Hebrew woman. God’s intentional inclusion to make these women a part of Jesus’ linage, points to the inclusion of God’s work for not just the Hebrew people, but all peoples. Bathsheba being included, speaks to God’s redemption of our sin. Thereby pointing us to this understanding that no matter who you are, or what you’ve done, salvation is available for you. This makes the words of Paul in Romans 8:28, all the more poignant. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
God purposefully placed these women in the linage of Jesus, leading Matthew to include them uncustomary in this genealogy so that we may see the redemptive work of God in every aspect of Jesus’ life, even his family tree.
One finally highlight we need to see are some of the kings mentioned. I want to point out two briefly. There’s David, and Jechoniah (Jek-o-niah). What’s important here is David’s line. In 2 Samuel 7:16, God tells David, “Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.” And in Jeremiah 23:5-6, God states through the prophet, “‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. 6 In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord Our Righteous Savior.’”
In both these prophetic passages of the coming Messiah, God reveals that the Messiah must be in David’s line. But there’s a problem, Jechoniah. Jechoniah inherited the kingdom of Judah from his father, who lost a war against King Nebuchadnezzar, through which the father became a vassal king of Babylon. Eventually though, the father rebelled against Babylon, won a brief independence, but died soon after. Jechoniah took the throne at age eighteen and the Scriptures tell us in 2 Kings 24:9 that, “He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father had done.” Within three months of Jechoniah’s reign, Nebuchadnezzar came, took back Jerusalem for himself, and brought the line of David into captivity, officially ending the Israelite monarchy. This is where the prophet Jeremiah prophesies these words in chapter 22 of his book, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Record this man as if childless, a man who will not prosper in his lifetime, for none of his offspring will prosper, none will sit on the throne of David or rule anymore in Judah (Jeremiah 22:30).’”
How can God both give David’s throne to a descendant and keep it from his offspring at the same time? God does this in two ways. First, Jospeh adopts Jesus, therefore Jesus is not a biological son. This fulfills the curse on Jechoniah’s line. The second way that God fulfills this is through Jospeh’s other half of his linage. In Luke 3:31 we’re told that Joseph is also connected to David through David’s son Nathan. On the one hand the curse is fulfilled in Jesus, because of his adoption, and on the other hand, Jesus fulfills the promise of God that a descendant of David would be the Messiah. In both cases, both through Jechoniah and Nathan, God fulfills his curse and his promise.
In just what we have highlighted today, we can walk away with two reasons why the genealogies of the Bible are important. First, it gives us insight into the redemptive work of God throughout the ages. Every person that God writes down in his word, is a person that had some role in bringing about his salvation work. Some of those people followed God closely as Uzziah did; others did horrible things like Rehoboam. Yet, God worked through both to bring about his salvation work through Jesus. This should give us a realization that I am responsible for my own walk with God. I can learn from those who have come before me, and I can set an example for those that will come after me, but in the end, I must chose for myself to follow God.
The second reason why genealogies are important, is that is shows us God’s trustworthiness. God uses genealogies to connect people throughout time to show how a promise given to one, is fulfilled in another. In Jesus we see both a curse and a promise fulfilled in his genealogy. This should help us trust in God’s Word all the more. That what he says will come to pass, does. So when God says we are sinners, that’s true. When God says we can’t do enough good to fix our sin, he’s right. And when God’s Word says we need to accept Jesus as our Savior and walk with him, he’s trustworthy and we must.
The genealogies in God’s Word open up a window to the salvation work of God throughout the centuries. So this week I want to challenge you to go through each of the names in Matthew 1:1-16 and discover who these people are. People God used to bring about Jesus. As you learn about each, be on the lookout to see how each was used in God’s salvation work. There are about 40 names listed in Jesus’ genealogy, which by the way is an interesting fact on its own, so I want to challenge you to research at least ten of those names apart from the ones we talked about today.
Because even though it’s hard to read through the genealogies given in Scripture, they are threads that connect the work of God through the centuries. Let us be a people that honor those that have come before us, because like them, if we have placed our trust in Jesus as our Savior, we are a name in the genealogy of Jesus, adopted sons and daughters in the line of the King. Amen.
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