About the Blog. January 12, Share this: Twitter Facebook. Like this: Like Loading Category: Uncategorized Leave a comment. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:. Email required Address never made public. Name required. Recent Posts. Recent Comments. Follow Following. Sign me up. Already have a WordPress. Log in now. So why fourteen? The explanation for the number fourteen is actually widely agreed upon by those who study Matthew.
It is the sum of the number of the Hebrew consonants in the name David. Even in English we sometimes use letters for numbers, as when we number the points in an article or presentation A, B, C, etc. This practice in Hebrew is called gematria and each of the twenty-two consonants of the Hebrew alphabet the vowel points are not counted as letters of the alphabet represents a number from 1 through 22 although Matthew writes in Greek, it is easy to see which Hebrew consonants stand behind the Greek spelling he uses.
So by giving us fourteen generations in each period, Matthew is calling attention to David as a crucial figure in the story of Israel. Within the first set of fourteen generations from Abraham to David , Matthew inserts a number of annotations or asides. Three of these annotations refer to particular women in the history of Israel—Tamar Matt , Rahab Matt , and Ruth Matt —and Matthew mentions them as the mothers of particular figures in the genealogy.
Each of these women made an important contribution to the story of Israel, whether in the period of the ancestors Tamar , the conquest Rahab , or the judges Ruth. These three women are the first of five whom Matthew will mention in his genealogy.
Each might be viewed negatively by some readers of the Gospel, since Tamar solicited sex with Judah, her father-in-law, Rahab was a Canaanite prostitute, and Ruth was a Moabite, a member of a group prohibited from joining Israel Deut Yet none of these three is judged negatively by any Old Testament text. Without Rahab, Israel would never have been successful in entering the Promised Land; without Tamar and Ruth there would have been no Davidic monarchy since the line of descent passed through their children.
There are other annotations that Matthew inserts in the first fourteen names from Abraham to David. In the Abraham to David epoch, Matthew makes five changes.
First, he replaces Israel with Jacob ; this is understandable, since they are the same person and the former is found in the Hebrew of 1 Chronicles , while the latter is in the Greek Septuagint of the same verse. For a long time scholars have puzzled over this, wondering what his motivation was. That turns out to be exactly the numerical value of Abraham 41 , the first name in the list, multiplied by the numerical value of David 14 , the last in the list.
The numbers would have been different and would not have matched if Matthew had kept the original spelling. Matthew clearly wanted to emphasize the names Abraham and David for his readers at this point in the genealogy. Christianity Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for committed Christians, experts in Christianity and those interested in learning more.
It only takes a minute to sign up. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. The Gospel of Matthew starts by stating the names of ancestors of Jesus Christ. Does that have any significance other than to establish that Jesus was a descendant of King David? There are several lessons to be drawn from this genealogy. One of my personal favorites is the four women mentioned: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Mary.
Each of these women's stories is mentioned in Scripture, and each has a less than stellar reputation. Tamar played the part of a prostitute, and got her father-in-law to impregnante her, although she was justified in doing so. Ruth was at very least very, very forward with Boaz.
When she "uncovers his feet," there is at least the possibility of reading the euphemistic idea of feet as saying that Ruth seduced Boaz by sleeping with him.
Even beyond the women, Jesus takes the good and the bad. Yes, David was good and Solomon was wise - but Manesseh's evil was equally on display. Being God, it is not just "an accident of nature. He came to seek and save everyone. He came to seek and save the lost. Here's the idea - these were not all the pure Queens and noble Kings that the world looks upon.
Prompted by the Holy Spirit, Matthew included some awfully shady seeming characters. Because the God who became Man came for precisely this kind of person! Jesus was a King - he was descended from David.
But he was not aloof. He came to seek and save even people like this! Richard Rohrbaugh explains the significance of Geneologies.
He explains that this establishes the reputation and credentials for Jesus. I have transcribed some relevant excepts of this lecture below:. Honor is relatively simple actually to understand. Honor is your standing in the pecking order of the village, together with the public recognition of that. There is no such thing as claiming honor that the village does not recognize. To claim honor that the village does not recognize is to be uppity; brash; a braggart; a fool.
Honor is public reputation in the village and everybody in the village knows exactly where you stand in the pecking order. The reason for that is there are two primary ways in which you can get your honor rating or ranking in a village.
The overwhelming way in which you get your honor rating is from your birth. It's the honor that you and every member of your extended family has - male and female - everybody in your family has, has always had, and always will have. That kind of Ascribed Honor means that if you are born in a very high family, you have a high honor ranking. If you are born a low-life, you have a low honor ranking and you're probably going to have a till the day you die.
So the overwhelming way in which you get your honor is from the family of your birth. Do you now understand why genealogies are so important in the Bible?
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