And Jacob begat Joseph
According to an old tradition mentioned by F16
Epiphanins, this Jacob, the father of Joseph, was named Panther,
and which name perhaps is originally Jewish; and it may be
observed, that Joseph is sometimes called by the Jewish writers
Pandera F17, and Jesus (arydnp Nb) , the son of Pandira F18. It
has created some difficulty with interpreters that Jacob should
be here said to beget Joseph, when Joseph in Luke is said to be
the son of Eli. Some have thought Joseph's father had two names,
one was Jacob, and the other Eli; others take them to be two
different persons, and suppose that Joseph was the natural son of
the one, and the legal son of the other, either by marriage, or
by adoption, or by the law of the brother's wife, ( Deuteronomy
25:5 Deuteronomy
25:6 ) . But the truth of the matter is, that not Joseph, but
Jesus, is by Luke called the son of Eli, as will be made to
appear in its proper place. Joseph, who is here called the
husband of Mary, because he not only espoused her, but, upon the
advice and encouragement of the Angel, took her to be his wife,
was, as is evident by this genealogy, of the house and lineage of
David; though a mean and obscure person, and by trade a
carpenter. Mary, which is the same name with Miriam in Hebrew,
was a poor virgin that dwelt at Nazareth, a city of Galilee; yet
also of the family of David, and belonged to the city of
Bethlehem;
of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ,
or Messiah; being that illustrious person, who was spoken of by
the Prophets of the Old Testament under that name, and whom the
Jews expected. We may learn from hence, what a low condition the
family of David was in, when the true Messiah came; according to
ancient prophecy, it was like a stump of a tree, or like to a
tree cut down to the root, ( Isaiah 11:1 ) and
Christ who sprung from it was like a root out of a dry ground, (
Isaiah 53:2 )
. From the whole of this genealogy it appears, that Jesus was of
the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Judah, and of the family of
David; whereby several ancient prophecies have their
accomplishment, and therefore he ought to be acknowledged as the
true Messiah: and also that he was of the blood royal, and had
his descent from the kings of Judah, and was heir apparent to the
throne and kingdom of his father David. The Talmudic Jews own
that Jesus, or Jesu, as they call him, was put to death because
he F19, (hyh twklml bwrq) "was nigh to the kingdom", or nearly
related to it. Yea, even in that malicious book F20 they
have written of his life, they represent him as akin to queen
Helena, who they say, on that account, would have saved his life.
And this was so clear a point, and their forefathers were so
thoroughly convinced of this matter, that they would have took
him by force and made him a king, ( John 6:15 ) but his
kingdom was to be of another kind, a spiritual, and not a
temporal one.