Matthew 1 Footnotes

1:1 In identifying Jesus as Son of David and Son of Abraham, Matthew linked Jesus to the Davidic messianism of the OT. This connection is suggested in the Davidic covenant (2Sm 7:12-16; Ps 89:29) and explicitly expressed in the Prophets (Is 9:6-7; 11:1-10; Jr 23:5-6; 30:9; 33:14-26; Ezk 34:20-24; 37:24-28; Hs 3:5; Am 9:11; Zch 3:8). Matthew also linked Jesus to the Abrahamic covenant (Gn 12:1-3; 22:18), in which God promised to bless all the nations of the earth through Abraham’s seed. The two covenants are brought together in Ps 72:17 (Mt 28:19). Jesus’s Davidic descent was not a theological invention of the early church. It was attested as early as Paul (Rm 1:3) and in the letter to the Hebrews (Heb 7:14). Furthermore, Jesus’s immediate family, which was prominent in the early church, would have had to accept the claim. The Talmud, a collection of Jewish rabbinical writings, repeatedly charges Jesus with being born out of wedlock, for example, to Pandera a Roman soldier, so this is a polemic against Jesus’s lineage. But there is no polemic against Mary’s or Joseph’s lineages.

1:2-16 There is evidence that first-century Jews kept genealogical records (for example, the Jewish historian Josephus referred to public registers as sources of some of his information). Matthew’s genealogy emphasizes Christ’s royal lineage, while Luke’s focuses on his biological lineage. For more about the differences between the genealogies, see note on Lk 3:23-38.

1:17 Matthew omitted several names in his genealogy in order to maintain a three times fourteen generation structure (Gk egennesen, translated “fathered,” indicated ancestry, not actual fatherhood. “All the generations” must then be taken to imply “as summarized here.”) Matthew was emphasizing Jesus’s birth as a culminating moment in Israel’s history. The third set of “fourteen” has only thirteen names, unless one counts Jeconiah a second time (or the second set has fifteen, if one begins it with David). Perhaps Matthew reflected the common feeling of his time that Jeconiah could be considered both a preexilic and a postexilic figure (2Kg 24:8-12; 25:27-30). David is the central figure in the lineage of Jesus. When the consonants of his name are added, the sum is fourteen; hence, the importance of the number fourteen to Matthew. David is the fourteenth entry in the genealogy.

Luke has a different genealogy of Jesus that traces his ancestry all the way back to Adam. See note on Lk 3:23-38 for an explanation of the differences between these two genealogies.

1:18-25 This passage, unique to Matthew, shows the exemplary character of Joseph. He did not question the angel’s explanation for Mary’s pregnancy. He obeyed without question what the angel told him to do, going ahead with his plans to take Mary as his wife.

1:22-23 Matthew cited the Greek version of Is 7:14 virtually verbatim, including the Greek word parthenos (“virgin”). The underlying Hebrew word, almah, means something like “a marriageable girl.” It probably always refers in the OT to virgins (Pr 30:19 has been suggested as a counterexample, but it is not obviously such). Is 7:14 was a prophesied sign to Judah’s King Ahaz that an impending military crisis would be averted by God. The prophecy received an immediate fulfillment in Isaiah’s own son (Is 8:1-4), but that son was a “sign” of a greater fulfillment (Is 8:18), and the prophecy thus continued to present the ultimate manifestation of “God is with us” in Is 9:1-7. The name Jesus (“Yahweh saves”) describes what Jesus does; Immanuel (“God is with us”) describes who Jesus is. Matthew included the prophecy to assert the divinity of Jesus.