Anchor My Faith

Title: Jechoniah to Joseph (Matthew 1:12-17)

John continues with the genealogy, which extends from the period after the deportation to Babylon to Mary, the mother of Jesus: “And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ” (Matthew 1:12 – 16 ESV).

After seventy years of exile under the Babylonians, some of the Jews were able to return to Judah in order to rebuild the city of Jerusalem. This return was started by Cyrus issuing a decree that exiles should return and rebuild, just as Isaiah had prophesied, in Isaiah 44:28, two centuries earlier. Zerubbabel led the people back during the reigns of the Persian kings Cyrus and Darius.

It is clear that Joseph was not the true father of Christ, but his supposed father since he was the husband of Mary, his mother. Since a mother does not establish a family, it is important that Jesus have an earthly father in the person of Joseph. His marriage to Mary gave to Jesus a right to all the privileges which a child was entitled to by adoption.

We see from this genealogy in Matthew that Jesus is the rightful legal heir to the covenant promises associated with the Davidic throne (verse 6) as well as the rightful legal heir to the covenant promises related to the Abrahamic seed (verses 1 – 2).

“So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations” (Matthew 1:17 ESV). Matthew does not mean that these are the only generations during those periods. It is just the ones he chose to include. It is not clear why Matthew wanted to have two groups of fourteen. There are various ideas about this, but we will not consider them.

Prayer

Father, these four lessons on Joseph’s genealogy reminds one of many stories in the Old Testament. The genealogy is more than a list of who begat who, but are names that bring to mind people of various personalities and relationship to you. Some walked closely and others were evil, but their stories put end to end, lay a path that leads us to our savior and redeemer, Jesus Christ. Father, thank you for bringing forth our perfect sacrifice to insure our salvation.