Fourteen Generations

Most stories start with once upon a time. Matthew's story of Jesus starts with a list of names. It sounds like the boring part. It isn't. Every name is a story, and some of them are very surprising.

Matthew was writing for people who knew the Hebrew Scriptures well. For them, a family line was not trivia. It told you who you were and which promises belonged to you. God had promised Abraham that through his family all nations would be blessed. God had promised David that a son of his would reign for ever. So Matthew's very first sentence makes a bold claim. “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” In one line, he says: here is the one both promises were waiting for.

The list begins with the patriarchs. Abraham, the man who left home on God's word. Isaac, the son of laughter. Jacob, the schemer who wrestled with God. Then Judah, and his twin sons. And here comes the first surprise. Matthew names a mother: Tamar. Family trees in that world usually listed fathers. But Matthew includes Tamar, a woman whose story in Genesis is tangled and painful. A few lines later, another woman: Rahab, from Jericho, a foreigner who once lived in the city wall. Then Ruth, a widow from Moab, the land of Israel's old enemies. Then Boaz and Obed, and Jesse of Bethlehem, and then the great name: David the king.

The fourth woman Matthew does not even name. He calls her, her that had been the wife of Urias. Bathsheba. Her story reminds every reader of David's worst moment. Then come the kings: Solomon, who built the temple; Rehoboam, who lost half the kingdom; good kings like Hezekiah and Josiah; terrible ones like Manasseh. Matthew does not skip them. Then the family line reaches the darkest point of all: the carrying away to Babylon. The kings lose their crown. The temple burns. And still the list goes on. Jechoniah. Shealtiel. Zerubbabel, who led people home. Then names we know almost nothing about. Ordinary people, keeping a family going, generation after generation.

And at last: Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. Notice how carefully Matthew words it. Not, Joseph was the father of Jesus. Joseph was Mary's husband, and Jesus was born of her. The very next verses will tell us why. Then Matthew steps back and counts. Fourteen generations from Abraham to David. Fourteen from David to the exile. Fourteen from the exile to the Christ. History had a shape. Nothing was random. Through faithful people and failures, foreigners and kings, God had been carrying his promise forward the whole time.

Why fourteen? Many scholars point to an old Jewish practice in which Hebrew letters also stood for numbers. David's name in Hebrew is written with three letters: D, V, D. Daleth is four, waw is six, daleth is four again. Add them up and you get fourteen. If Matthew had this in mind, his whole family tree is stamped, three times over, with the name of David. Matthew does not tell us so directly, so we hold this idea lightly, but it fits his first sentence well: Jesus Christ, the son of David.

You'll find this family tree in Matthew chapter one, verses one to seventeen. Over the next episodes, we'll meet some of these people one by one. So here is a question to carry with you. If God could weave all these lives, the faithful and the broken, into the story of Jesus, what might he be doing with yours?