A DESCENDANT OF KING DAVID

Saint Matthew refers to several prophecies to demonstrate that Jesus was the Messiah. Since the Jews expected the Messiah to be a descendant of King David, the first thing Saint Matthew does in his Gospel is to trace Jesus’ lineage back to King David. By basing it on the ‘father begot son’ principle, but ending with, “Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of Mary, who gave birth to Jesus. So the amount of generations is: 14 from Abraham to David, 14 from David to the Babylonian deportation and 14 from the Babylonian deportation to Christ” Saint Matthew encourages us to discover how Jesus could be a descendant of King David. With Mary having Jesus from her father-in-law, not only Joseph but also Jesus was a descendant of King David.

If what mattered was to prove that Jesus was a descendant of King David, why does Saint Matthew trace Jesus’ lineage back to Abraham? He starts with Abraham because if he had started with David and had fininished with “Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of Mary, who gave birth to Jesus. So the amount of generations is: 14 from David to the Babylonian deportation and 14 from the Babylonian deportation to Christ” there would not have been anything inconsistent* about dividing these generations in the columns David/Josiah and Jechoniah/Jesus. We would then not have questioned the traditional division and therefore not have discovered that to be able to be a descendant of David, Jacob must have had Jesus from Mary, his daughter-in-law.

Saint Matthew says there are 14 generations from David to the Babylonian deportation (an event) and 14 generations from the Babylonian deportation to Christ, because if he had said there are 14 generations from David to Josiah (a generation) and 14 generation from Josiah to Christ, it was obvious that he pointed out that Jacob had Jesus from Mary, Joseph’s wife.

God offered a covenant to Abraham, King David founded a kingdom and God said that the Messiah would be a descendant of him. Since also Josiah, who marks the Babylonian deportation, is special – he imposed an important religious reformation –, we see that Saint Matthew suggests that this special lineage going from Abraham to Jesus attracted a special spirit every 14 generations. Therefore, he encourages us to look up who is separated 14 generations from Abraham going back in time. When we consult the genealogies from Adam to Abraham in Genesis that are also based on the ‘father begot son’ principle, we find this was Enoch and also he is special. Enoch walked with God and God took him with Him when he was 365 years old.               

*The traditional division Abraham/David, David/Josiah and Jechoniah/Jesus is inconsistent because it repeats David in the second column, but not Josiah in the third column.