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The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ,
the son of David, the son of Abraham.
These words called to mind the book of Genesis. In fact, the first two words, biblos geneseĊs, could be literally translated as "the book of Genesis".¹ Within the Bible they only otherwise appear in the Greek Septuagint version of Genesis.² Matthew was doing something similar to what John accomplished by beginning his Gospel with the phrase "In the beginning".³ By calling to mind the beginning of creation Matthew intended for us to see the Gospel about Jesus as a new beginning for humanity.⁴
Abraham became the father of Isaac,
Isaac the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers.
The original beginning didn't take long to go off the rails, from suspicion and pride, to disobedience, to the first murder with a generation. Yet almost immediately after the fall God himself promised to set things right through a woman and her seed. The snake's victory in the garden would have repercussions throughout history, but it was not to be an ultimate victory. As history progressed we continued to see the struggle between those who desired to serve God in righteousness and the power of sin. But as this struggle continued God himself continued to layer promise upon promise that change would one day come, and hints and allusions to a time when all would be set right. The genealogy of Matthew was evidence that Jesus was the one who would fulfill these promises. Jesus himself was the Son of Abraham and the Son of David. He himself more perfectly fulfilled the promise of the son of Jacob than did the literal and historical Judah.
He crouches like a lion recumbent,
the king of beasts–who would dare rouse him?
The scepter shall never depart from Judah,
or the mace from between his legs,
While tribute is brought to him,
and he receives the people’s homage.”
It is for this reason that John referred to Jesus as "the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David" (see Revelation 5:5). The genealogy was meant to show that the promise to David of a united and international kingdom that would know no end was had not failed. It had only been delayed.
Yet the genealogy was not a mythology. It did not incorporate only that which was pleasant from the past, nor only that which spoke of promise. It indeed included many episodes of the great failures as if to demonstrate that none of this would finally be an obstacle to the fulfillment God himself would bring.
David became the father of Solomon,
whose mother had been the wife of Uriah.
By the realism which was inherent in the genealogy Matthew offered his readers encouragement to trust even when things didn't not appear on the surface to be the fulfillment of the promises. Was the parentage of Jesus suspect in the eyes of the world? Very well, even more had been that of many great Old Testament figures. The fact that more than once it had appeared that God's promises had failed was encouragement to trust that he was able to do a deeper work behind the scenes. After all, the cross itself appeared from a human point of view to be the greatest failure. But even in this genealogy of Matthew we already began to receive hints that we ought to hold out our judgement, and even to hope in a resurrection.
[Abraham] reasoned that God was able to raise even from the dead, and he received Isaac back as a symbol (see Hebrews 11:19)
There was actually even more contained within this genealogy, more amazing angles from which we could recognize the fulfillment of all of God's promises. But we will conclude our reflection by again calling to mind the way that the genealogy pointed toward something that was not mythological, not merely an abstract fulfillment told through story and metaphor, but rather toward a concrete and specific fulfillment at a specific time and place in history. And this specificity was not a limitation as we might imagine. In the birth of Jesus God was bringing together all of the threads of promise that had preceded his coming. By becoming one person at a specific point in time God himself was actually embracing all people at all times. Finally there was one who could be what those who had gone before him had failed to be. He could obey where they had failed to obey. And his Kingdom, to which every person was invited, from which no one need be excluded, would last forever.
¹ Mitch, Curtis; Sri, Edward. The Gospel of Matthew (Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture) (p. 34). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
² Ibid.
³ Ibid.
⁴ Ibid.
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