Matthew 1:12-17 12After the deportation to Babylon, Jeconiah beget Shealtiel, and Shealtiel beget Zerubbabel, 13and Zerubbabel beget Abihud, and Abihud beget Eliakim, and Eliakim beget Azor, 14and Azor beget Zadok, and Zadok beget Achim, and Achim beget Eliud, 15and Eliud beget Eleazar, and Eleazar beget Matthan, and Matthan beget Jacob, 16and Jacob beget Joseph the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah. 17So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations.
The descendants of Abraham learned a difficult lesson through the Babylonian exile. They were cured for the most part of the worship of foreign Gods. Idolatry just took on more sophisticated forms as the people struggled for centuries to put their full trust in God. There were always faithful remnants and groups who sought to live righteously according to the law. There were also others who compromised with foreign invaders in order to gain better positions or favors. The intertestamental period has great moments of victory and low moments of defeat. By the time Jesus was born, the time was ripe for the Messiah. People were eager to see God intervene in Israel’s behalf.
Most of the names in this list are not mentioned in the Old Testament because the story of Israel ends in the Biblical record after the people returned to Jerusalem, rebuilt the walls, and rebuilt the temple. The intertestamental period is not recorded in the canonical Scripture but scattered history can be found in the Apocryphal books. This list of names is a family heritage that transitions from kings and national leaders down to a lowly carpenter in the small town of Nazareth. By the point of Joseph, there were likely many descendants of the names listed here. But God chose one special man through whom the family heritage of the Messiah would come.
The equal number of generations in verse 17 may be symbolic, with fourteen being double of the special biblical number of seven. Fourteen is also the numeric value of David’s name in Hebrew. By patterning this genealogy in sections of fourteen, Matthew may intentionally be indicating Jesus to be the perfect fulfillment of the promises made to both Abraham and David and the one to fulfill the longings for Messiah that emerged after the Babylonian exile. We do not need to play number games in genealogy to see that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah. We can trust the ancient testimony of people like Matthew who very carefully recorded such details as a list of names to show who Jesus was. We can build our faith on the powerful testimony given in this list of names.
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