We are surrounded by lists; we construct lists all the time.  Pop music has its continuous Top 50 lists, and the New York Times has a regular best-sellers list. Many of us are fascinated by the lists of nominees for the academy awards, glance at the Sports pages to see who is leading the NL West in batting average or homeruns, and peruse the gossip columns full of lists of who attended what party with whom, who is dating whom. We check out the leading scorers and rebounders in the NBA. The Guinness Book of World Records is in its umpteenth edition.

We may be fascinated by lists, and we look at them a lot, but we don’t think of a list as a high form of literature. No form of writing is lower on our scale of literary value than a list. We use lists to head to the grocery store, to check off to-do items, to determine who gets a wedding invitation or what we’re going to get someone for Christmas. We might sit still to watch the credits after a movie, but we usually don’t think of the list of names as an important part of the movie. Credits appears in literature only when they are safely tucked behind or before the text on an acknowledgements page. If we are postmodernists, we might put a list in the middle of a story just because it doesn’t belong there.

Pre-modern people, though, loved lists, and pre-modern literature – classic literature – is full of lists. Think of the list of names in the Iliad Book 2.  Homer asks the Muse to guide him as he begins the list; only with the Muse’s help can he “tell the lords of the ships, the ships in all their numbers.”[1] The author of Beowulf provides a genealogy every time he introduces a character, like a Southern matron who cannot say a name without giving a family tree and explaining who married whom. Pre-moderns would have agreed with Umberto Eco, “Lists are the most necessary literary accessories of all.”

Biblical writers loved lists too, and they used them a lot. Genealogical lists are among the most popular kinds of lists in Scripture.  The book of Genesis is full of genealogical lists, particularly in chapter 10 where the writer lists the seventy or so nations that descended from the sons of Noah. Numbers, as the title suggests, includes long lists of names and a census of Israel, and Chronicles begins with a lengthy genealogy. The New Testament begins with the genealogy we’re looking at today, and there is another genealogy in Luke that appears to trace the lineage of Mary rather than Joseph. And there’s a chapter in Revelation that is little more than a list of tribes. Genealogical lists in particular are used for a number of purposes. They show relations of Jews and nations. They are a short and easy way to show the continuity of Israel over time, to show how God’s purposes are being worked out in the history of His people. Perhaps most importantly, genealogical lists establish credentials for office. Lists show that priests are descended from Aaron, and thus are qualified to serve as priests; lists show descent from David.

The Biblical writers pack a lot of important information and theology into their lists. The list of descendants of Noah in Genesis 10 is a framework for understanding the Gentile world throughout the Bible. There are 70 descendants, and after this chapter the number 70 is used throughout the Bible as a symbol of the Gentile nations. We learn about the relationships among the various nations – that Sidon is the firstborn son of Canaan, for instance, which helps us anticipate what kind of character the Sidonian princess Jezebel will be. We learn that the Philistines are related to the Egyptians, and this helps us grasp the significance of the Philistines in Israel’s history. The two lists of tribal numbers in the book of Numbers show that God has given Abraham an abundant seed, as He promised. There is a census at the beginning of the book, and another toward the end, and the numbers of Israelites nearly identical – which shows that, in spite of all the judgments that fell on Israel during their wilderness wanderings, the Lord has preserved a nation. More subtly, many of the numbers in the book of Numbers have some astronomical significance.  They are multiples of the cycles of astronomical bodies, proving that the Lord has given Abraham a seed like the stars of heaven.  The genealogy in the first nine chapters of Chronicles is organized in a great chiasm, which centers in chapter 6 on the Levites, and also highlights the two royal tribes of Judah and Benjamin at either end of the genealogy. And the whole thing is set within a genealogy that begins with Adam and ends with the list of returnees from Babylonian exile – in other words, Israel’s history is set within the history of the nations

Matthew shows the same interest in packing lists not only with factual information but with theology and instruction. The list of Jesus’ ancestors contains a summary of redemptive history, a preview of Gentile inclusion, and a foreshadowing of the coming of the kingdom. Matthew organizes the genealogy numerically, in three groups of fourteen generations. There are fourteen names between Abraham and David, if you include both of them. In the next phase, you need to exclude the first name, David, from the list in order to get fourteen. In the last section of the list, both Jeconiah and Jesus have to be included to get fourteen names.  When we compare this scheme to the genealogy in Chronicles, it is clear that Matthew has adjusted the list to make it fit this scheme. There is a gap in the list, particularly in verses 8-9, as several generations of the descendants of David are passed over. This is not only because Matthew wants to fit the list into a numerical pattern, but because those who are excluded (including Joash) were Davidic descendants associated with the house of Ahab. Matthew follows a precedent set by the writer of Kings.  When the writer of Kings deals with Athaliah, he treats her as if she never reigned in Judah at all (2 Kings 11). He gives her reign no opening, no closing, no summary.  She stands outside the normal pattern of history. Matthew does something similar with all of the Davidic kings who descended from the union of Athaliah and Joram. Matthew’s genealogy depicts a judgment on the Davidic kingdom that runs to three or four generations.

What is Matthew after with the numerology? One possibility is that he is hinting at a sevenfold structure. 3 x 14 is 42, equivalent to 6 x 7. This might be intended to portray a week, which Daniel also uses in his prophecy of seven weeks of years. There are two weeks of generations between Abraham and David, two weeks of generations between David and the deportation, two more weeks between Jeconiah and Jesus. Six weeks of generations between Abraham and Jesus, and that means that Jesus is the first name in the seventh seven, the beginning of a new week, the week of the new creation. Jesus comes in the “seventh” position, the sabbatical position, in this creation-genealogy. After the ups and downs of Israel’s history, Sabbath – a super-Sabbath, a 7 x 7 Sabbath, a Jubilee Sabbath – has arrived in Jesus. Jesus brings Sabbath as the New Moses, delivering us from the bondage of Egypt. He brings Sabbath as the new Joshua, subduing the land to peace and delivering an inheritance. He is David, putting down our enemies on every side. Jesus comes to deliver Israel from the burdens imposed by hypocritical Pharisees, and He comes to release our burdens, the burdens of our sins, the burdens of the law, the burdens of anxiety and fear. He comes to announce the year of Jubilee, which took place in the year after the seventh sabbatical year, the year when slaves are released, when all Israelites returned to their ancestral lands, the year that saw Israel reordered and put right. Jubilee means the end of exile, and Jesus comes as Lord of Jubilee.

In addition, Matthew has organized the genealogy around the name “David.” Some Old Testament genealogies are organized numerologically to highlight a particular name. Genesis 46 is organized around the number seven, the numerical value of the name “Gad,” whose name is seventh on the list and who has seven sons. According to W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, “We read that all the persons of the house of Jacob were seventy, that seven of Judah’s descendants went to Egypt, that the sons of Jacob by Rachel were fourteen, and that Bilhah bore to Jacob seven persons in all. Moreover, Gad, whose name has the numerical value of seven . . . is placed in the seventh position and given seven sons.”[2] Matthew does something similar with the name “David.” In Hebrew, David’s name has three consonants, the numerical value of “David” is fourteen. Besides, David’s name is the fourteenth in Matthew’s list, and the name is repeated three times outside the genealogy proper (vv. 1, 17). The shape of the genealogy confirms that David is the high point of the whole genealogy: From Abraham to David, Israel waxes to its height; from David to the deportation, the Davidic kingdom wanes; but after another fourteen generations appears a second David, Jesus, who restores the kingdom of David. As we go through Matthew, we’ll see that Jesus comes preaching about the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven.  He announces that the Davidic kingdom is being restored, and that He, as the last Davidic king, extends the kingdom of David even more widely than David did.

Genealogies are particularly important for the qualification of priests, since priests had to descend from Aaron and later from Zadok, the high priest at the time of David. Many of the names in the last third of Matthew’s list are strongly associated with the priesthood. Abiud is a version of Abijah, one of the sons of Aaron. There is a Zadok, the name of David’s priest, and Eleazar, another son of Aaron. After the exile, the Davidic kingdom was never restored, and the high priests began to take on civil as well as liturgical functions. During the period after the Maccabean Revolt, the high priest held the highest civil office, and sometimes he even held the title of king. Jesus is the Davidic king, but Matthew also shows that He transcends the Davidic kingship by being a king-priest. He transcends the Aaronic priesthood by being a priest-king. He combines the offices, and He shows Himself to be the priest after the order of Melchizedek.

Matthew highlights some other themes by including a number of women in the genealogy. This is not unprecedented in biblical genealogies; the second census in Numbers includes women, and there are women’s names in the genealogies of Chronicles. But in the Old Testament, genealogies are mainly lists of men. Matthew includes four women: Tamar (v. 3; Genesis 38), the daughter-in-law of Judah who dressed as a prostitute, seduced Judah, and gave birth to his twin sons, Perez and Zerah; Rahab (v. 5; Joshua 2), the prostitute of Jericho who hid the Israelite spies and whose house was saved as a result; Ruth (v. 5), whom we know from the book of Ruth; and “the wife of Uriah,” Bathsheba (v. 6; 2 Samuel 11-12). Why would Matthew include women at all, and why particularly these women? Why not Sarah and Rachel and Abigail?

All but Ruth are connected with some scandal, and it is often said that Matthew includes these women to show that God’s purposes triumph over human sin. That is certainly true, and leads into the intriguing climax of a fifth woman: Mary! Each of the women gave birth in circumstances that might have seemed immoral or scandalous. So did Mary. But the Jews over time had come to recognize each of the women named in the genealogy as a paragon of virtue, and Matthew hints that Mary is in the same position.  Though the circumstances of her pregnancy were questionable, Matthew wants to make sure his readers don’t Jesus or Mary on that account. Joseph represents the typical Jewish reaction to Mary’s pregnancy – to put her away – but then the angel changes his mind. Matthew wants the Jewish readers of his gospel to do the same, as they’ve done with Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bath-sheba.[3]

Matthew could have made much the same point without mentioning any women. He makes this point clearly enough by including Manasseh in the genealogy (v. 10; 2 Kings 21). Besides, most of these women are commended for their righteousness. Judah says that Tamar is “more righteous than I,” and James commends Rahab the prostitute for her living, working faith (Genesis 38:26; James 2:25). Ruth is fairly aggressive in pursuing Boaz, but she was doing it under her mother-in-law’s instructions, and she is never condemned for anything. Bathsheba committed adultery, but David was the predator in that situation.

Matthew includes these women because all are Gentiles, or (in Bathsheba’s case) members of a Gentile household. Tamar was a Canaanite, Rahab also a Canaanite (a resident of Jericho), Ruth a Moabitess. Bathsheba, though an Israelite, was married to a Gentile solder of David’s and is named in this genealogy in relation to her husband. From the moment Jesus appears, He incorporates Gentile flesh and blood – four of them, from the four corners of the earth – into His body, His physical body.  Gentiles “brides” incorporated into the Bride of God, Israel. Including Gentiles is not some second-thought on God’s part. He included Gentiles in the body of His Son from the beginning. The women show that Jesus comes as the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham, to bless the Gentiles through the seed of Abraham. Jesus is the son of Abraham, the true seed, in whom Gentiles are already blessed.

Twice in his genealogy, Matthew refers to “brothers.” Jacob was the father of “Judah and his brothers,” and at the time of the deportation to Babylon “Jeconiah and his brothers” were born to Josiah. This initiates a theme in Matthew’s gospel, the theme of the church as a brotherhood. Alongside Judah and his brothers, and Jeconiah and his brothers, Matthew talks about Jesus and His brothers. At the heart of this is a redefinition of what counts as family. Family is not blood-based. It’s faith-based, and obedience-based. When Jesus is told that his mother and brothers wait to see Him, He says that His mother and brothers are those who do the will of the heavenly Father (12:50). Later, Jesus says that no one should be called Rabbi because “you are all brothers” (23:8).  Throughout the gospel, Jesus teaches us how we are to behave toward brothers. In the Sermon on the Mount, He prohibits anger against a brother (5:22-24) and tells us to remove the logs from our own eyes before we try to pick out the speck in our brother’s eye (7:3-5).  Jesus gives us a procedure for dealing with our brother’s sins (18:15). He warns that the Father will not forgive us if we don’t forgive our brothers from the heart (18:35). This is not a peripheral issue for Matthew. We are all brothers toward one another because we are all brothers to Jesus and sons and daughters of the same heavenly Father. A key test of discipleship is how we treat our brothers.

The genealogy of Jesus thus contains a Christology: Jesus is the son of Abraham, bringing blessing to the Gentiles, the true Davidic king, and an heir also to the priesthood. He is the priestly Messiah, the priest-king after the order of Melchizedek. The genealogy of Jesus also shows what God is up to with the history of Israel. It shows that Israel does not exist for herself. Matthew doesn’t want to give us a pure-blood genealogy. He wants to show that in Jesus, in His own body, flows the blood of Canaanites and Moabites and the wife of a Hittite. And when He begins to gather His corporate body, He incorporates us as members, so that in Jesus people from every blood, from every race, from every tribe and tongue are combined in one person, in the one New Man, Jesus. In this way, the genealogy at the beginning anticipates the conclusion, when Jesus the Jew-Gentile son of Abraham and David, sends the Eleven to proclaim His kingdom to the nations.

Peter J. Leithart is President of Trinity House.

[1] Iliad 2.582-3 (Fagles translation).

[2] Davies and Allison, Matthew 1-7 (International Critical Commentary; London: Continuum, 2004), p. 164.

[3] Edwin Freed, “The Women in Matthew’s Genealogy,” JSNT 29 (1987), pp. 3-19.