Swindoll's Living Insights Commentary Matthew 1a - Flipbook - Page 28
Announcement and Arrival of the King (Matthew 1:1–4:25)
legal lineage; it was acceptable practice at this time for genealogies
to skip generations.6 It seems that the importance of maintaining the
“fourteen generations” in each cluster prompted Matthew to make decisions regarding intentional omissions from the list.
In the first movement of Matthew’s rhythmic symphony of generations (1:2‑6a), we may get the impression that the long story beginning
with Abraham built to a grand crescendo in the person of David. However, in the second movement, from David to the Babylonian captivity
(1:6b-11), the rousing melody seems to have deteriorated into a cacophony of random clashes, o
ut-of-tune instruments, and rogue band
members either playing their own music or dropping out entirely. The
history leading up to the exile in Babylon includes decline, degeneracy,
apostasy, and idolatry, ultimately ending in defeat, destruction, and
deportation.
But God had neither given up on His people nor broken His promises.
— 1:12-16 —
After things fall apart in the generations leading up to Israel’s deportation to Babylon, the history of God’s people declines into obscurity. We
hardly know the people named in the third section of the genealogy.
We can read about Zerubbabel, who took the lead in the return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple (see Ezra 5:1‑2; Neh. 12:1). But the rest are
just names.
In picturing the four centuries of prophetic silence leading up to
John the Baptizer’s cries in the wilderness in the first century, we can
imagine quiet, pious Jews living in the land of Israel, eagerly longing
for their Messiah. As the royal line passed from generation to generation under the radar of successive oppressive n
ations—Babylon to Persia to Greece to Rome—the candle of messianic hope would continue
to flicker until its enduring flame set the torch of the Messiah ablaze.
Matthew notes the final generation in a peculiar way that demonstrates Jesus’ identity both as the legal heir of the royal line of David
and as a child born of the Virgin Mary without having physically descended from Joseph. Literally, Matthew 1:16 says, “And Jacob brought
forth Joseph, the husband of Mary, from whom was brought forth Jesus,
who is called the Messiah.” A few things are noteworthy about the way
Matthew phrases this relationship. Previous entries in the genealogy
connected names like Abraham and Isaac or Jesse and David with
the Greek verb gennaō [1080] to indicate that the first person literally
“brought forth” the s econd—that is, he became his ancestor. Even when
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