Week 34 Matthew
Before I’m half a dozen words into the NT I’m into another list of names. More than forty family names in sixteen verses.
Matthew says in verse one that his gospel story is about Jesus. In fact he calls it: the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, and he starts by highlighting the family tree of Jesus that goes through David, all the way to Abraham.
Hundreds of pages of OT anecdotes are reduced to a list of about four dozen names.
One nice surprise is that I recognize a few of them: Abraham Isaac Jacob Judah Perez Tamar Rahab Boaz Ruth Obed Jesse David Solomon Rehoboam Asa Jehoshaphat Joram Uzziah Hezekiah Manasseh Josiah Zerubbabel.
There are stories behind the names. I’m guessing Matthew figured he could get away with sixteen verses of genealogical shorthand because his audience already knew the stories.
Matthew 1:1-16 is a kind of argument for reading the OT because Matthew is telling me that the NT story of Jesus, the last person in his list is where I’ve being headed for the last thirty-three weeks. A kind of ending-beginning.
Abraham and Judah and Ruth and Solomon and Uzziah all lived their own independent personal lives in what seemed to me a pretty jagged, haphazard, coincidental, mish-mashed chain of tragic & comic family history. But Matthew is saying that, no, there was purpose behind it all. Jesus is the last link. He’s the exact one.
Note: quote from Matthew 1:1 (NASB)