Born King of the Jews: the genealogy and infancy of Jesus in Matthew

Matthew is the first book of the New Testament and the first of the four Gospels. A Gospel (Greek euangelion, 'good news') is a short ancient life of a person, written to proclaim him. The book does not name its author. From the second century the church attributed it to Matthew, the tax collector called by Jesus (Matthew 9:9), named Levi in Mark 2:14. Papias, a bishop writing in the early second century and quoted by the historian Eusebius, said that Matthew compiled the sayings of the Lord in the Hebrew manner of speech. What he meant is debated: a lost Aramaic original, a collection of sayings, or a description of style. Most modern scholars think the author used Mark and a body of teaching shared with Luke, while a minority defend the apostle's authorship of the book substantially as it stands.

The date is disputed. Those who accept the traditional authorship often place the Gospel in the 50s or 60s AD, before Rome destroyed Jerusalem. Most critical scholars place it around AD 80 to 90, partly because the king who burns a city in the parable of 22:7 seems to them to look back on that destruction. Others reply that Jesus could foretell it. The first readers were probably a church with Jewish roots and Gentile members, and Syria, perhaps Antioch, is a common suggestion. Matthew quotes the Old Testament constantly, assumes Jewish customs without explanation, and prefers 'kingdom of heaven' to 'kingdom of God', using 'heaven' as a reverent way of avoiding God's name. Its purpose is to show that Jesus is the Messiah promised in Israel's Scriptures and that the promise reaches the nations.

The world of chapters 1 and 2 is Judea under Herod the Great, whom Rome made king of the Jews in 40 BC. Most scholars place his death in 4 BC, so Jesus was born a few years before that. Herod rebuilt the Jerusalem temple on a grand scale, and he killed members of his own family to protect his throne. He was not of David's line. In a land under foreign rule the hope for a son of David was alive, and that hope is the setting for the Magi's question: where is the one born king of the Jews?

Chapters 1 and 2 are ancient biography with a theological purpose, and they begin with a genealogy. Biblical genealogies (Genesis 5; 1 Chronicles 1 to 9) are not complete lists. They select and arrange names to make a claim about identity, and 'father of' can mean 'ancestor of'. Matthew omits several kings, for instance three between Joram and Uzziah in verse 8 (compare 2 Kings 8 to 15), so the form is deliberate. Luke 3:23-38 gives a different list. Explanations vary: that Luke traces Mary's line, that levirate marriage (a brother raising children for a dead brother, Deuteronomy 25:5-10) accounts for some differences, or that the two writers have different aims. No answer has won general agreement.

The second rule concerns Matthew's formula, 'this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken through the prophet', used five times in these chapters. The word 'fulfil' (plero) does not always mean a prediction is being ticked off. Micah 5:2 is a prediction about a ruler from Bethlehem. Hosea 11:1 looks back to the exodus, so Matthew sees a pattern in which Israel's story is repeated and completed in Jesus. Jeremiah 31:15 describes mourning at the exile, and Matthew sees it renewed. R. T. France described this as finding in the Old Testament patterns that reach their goal in Christ. Aide's approach is to read each passage first as its first hearers would, and then to ask why Matthew sees Jesus in it.

Third, these chapters are the overture of the Gospel. Themes announced here recur to the end: Jesus as son of David and of Abraham, God with his people, hostility from Jerusalem's rulers and welcome from outsiders.

Chapter 1:1

'The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ' uses the Greek words biblos geneseos, as in the Greek of Genesis 2:4 and 5:1. The echo signals a new beginning. 'Christ' is the Greek form of the Hebrew mashiach, 'anointed', so the opening verse is already a title. David comes first because the king is the subject. Abraham comes second because God's promise of blessing for all nations (Genesis 12:3) is also in view.

Chapter 1:2–17

The list runs in three groups: Abraham to David, David to the exile in Babylon, and the exile to the Christ, fourteen in each (verse 17). A common explanation is that fourteen is the numerical value of the Hebrew letters of David's name (four, six and four). The turning points matter more than the arithmetic: the kingdom is established, the kingdom collapses, and the line continues until the Christ. Four women are named, unusual in a Jewish genealogy: Tamar (Genesis 38), Rahab (Joshua 2), Ruth, and the wife of Uriah, Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11). Each had a Gentile connection or an irregular and shameful story, and God worked through them. Verse 16 changes form. The pattern 'was the father of' stops, and the text says Joseph was the husband of Mary, 'of whom' (feminine, singular) Jesus was born. Joseph is the legal father, who gives Jesus the line of David by naming him (1:21, 25).

Chapter 1:18–25

Betrothal was legally binding in Jewish custom, and ending it required divorce. Mary was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Joseph is called righteous (dikaios): he keeps the law and is also merciful, so he resolves to divorce her quietly (compare Deuteronomy 24:1). The angel addresses him as son of David and gives the name Jesus, from Yeshua, 'the LORD saves', with the reason that he will save his people from their sins. The mission is deliverance from sin, which is deeper than deliverance from Rome. Matthew then quotes Isaiah 7:14 with the name Immanuel, translated 'God with us'. Joseph obeys.

Chapter 2, verses 1-12. The Magi (magoi) were originally a priestly class of Persia; the word later covered wise men and astrologers and, in Acts 13:6, a sorcerer. Matthew gives neither their number nor a royal title. Three gifts led to the later tradition of three, and Psalm 72:10-11 and Isaiah 60:3-6 led to the idea of kings. They ask for 'king of the Jews', as a foreigner would say (Israelites said 'king of Israel'), and the phrase returns on the lips of Pilate and the soldiers (27:11, 29, 37). The star may recall Numbers 24:17. What it was, a planetary conjunction, a comet or a miraculous light, is not stated. Herod is troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. The chief priests and scribes cite Micah 5:2 with 2 Samuel 5:2, naming Bethlehem as the birthplace of the shepherd-ruler. They know the Scripture and do not walk six miles to look, while the Gentile scholars travel far and worship. Herod's wish to 'worship' is a lie.

Chapter 1:13–18

Warned in a dream, Joseph flees to Egypt, an old refuge. Matthew cites Hosea 11:1, where God says he called his son out of Egypt. In Hosea the son is Israel (compare Exodus 4:22-23). Herod's killing of the boys of Bethlehem is not recorded outside Matthew, but it matches his known cruelty, and in a small village the number was probably small. Jeremiah 31:15 recalls Rachel weeping at Ramah as exiles departed; Rachel was buried near Bethlehem (Genesis 35:19). The verses that follow in Jeremiah promise return and a new covenant (31:16-17, 31-34), which Matthew leaves the reader to remember.

Chapter 1:19–23

Archelaus, who ruled Judea after Herod, was removed by Rome in AD 6 and was known for violence, so the family settles in Nazareth in Galilee. Matthew attributes the statement that Jesus would be called a Nazarene to 'the prophets', but no Old Testament verse says it. Scholars suggest a wordplay with netzer, 'branch' (Isaiah 11:1), or a reference to the scorn attached to Nazareth and to the despised servant of Isaiah 53:3.

Matthew places Jesus where the Old Testament's major promises meet. The covenant with Abraham promised a family, a land and blessing for all nations (Genesis 12:1-3). The covenant with David promised a son whose throne would last (2 Samuel 7:12-16; Psalm 89). The exile seemed to end the Davidic kingdom. The genealogy ends not with a return but with Jesus, so the Gospel claims that the real restoration is found in him. Some scholars, N. T. Wright among them, speak of Israel as still in a kind of exile in the first century, and Matthew's structure fits that reading.

The chapters also teach the virginal conception and the incarnation. Matthew tells the story from Joseph's side, and Luke 1:26-38 tells it independently from Mary's. The Holy Spirit, not a human father, brings about the conception, and the creeds confess that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. The name Immanuel is a statement about God: in Jesus he is with his people in a person. The salvation Jesus brings is from sin, which defines the human need more deeply than any political rescue.

The chapters also show the mission to the nations at the start. Gentile women stand in the genealogy and Gentile scholars come to worship, while Israel's leaders, who have the Scriptures, do not. This pattern runs through the Gospel to the great commission of 28:19.

Matthew's opening lines give Jesus a full set of titles. He is Christ, the anointed King; son of David, heir of the royal promise; son of Abraham, through whom the nations are blessed; Jesus, the Saviour from sin; and Immanuel, God with us. The last frames the whole book. At its close the risen Jesus says he is with his disciples always, to the end of the age (28:20). The promise of 1:23 is fulfilled in his person and presence.

The infancy narrative also presents Jesus as the true Israel and a new Moses. Herod's killing of Bethlehem's infants echoes Pharaoh's order to kill Hebrew boys (Exodus 1:22). Jesus is rescued, goes down to Egypt and is called out of it, repeating the pattern of Israel's exodus. Where Israel as God's son failed in the wilderness, Jesus will face the same tests in chapter 4 and prove faithful.

The title 'king of the Jews' links the first chapters to the last. The Magi ask for the newborn king in 2:2 and worship him; Pilate and the soldiers use the same words in mockery and on the cross (27:11, 29, 37). Herod tries to destroy a child who is a rival king, and at the end the leaders succeed in nailing the king to a cross. The gifts recall the offerings promised to the king in Psalm 72 and Isaiah 60, and Matthew uses the Magi's verb for worship (proskuneo) again when disciples worship the risen Jesus (28:9, 17).