Nine days before Christmas: The genealogy of Jesus

In many communities in the world, the reading from Matthew 1:1-17 creates difficulties for the reader because of the strange and complicated names that form the genealogy "of Jesus Christ son of David son of Abraham" (Matthew 1:1). This text, the first that appears in the New Testament, places Jesus within the history of the people of Israel, son of a specific family, descendant of David and Abraham and the other figures, more or less known from the history of the people. In our communities, we are able to read the Hebrew names with relative ease but it is worthwhile to pay attention to the meaning of what is included in the genealogy.

As a principle in the spiritual-theological reading of the genealogy, each time Matthew exceeds the simple mention of a father who engenders a son, we are invited to take note of the addition and try to understand its meaning and what it adds to our understanding of God who sends his son. Here I will give but a few examples.

1. It is striking that Matthew mentions one unique historical event in the entire genealogy. "Josiah the father Jechoniah and his brothers at the time of the deportation to Babylon" (Matthew 1:11). The text continues and again underlines the event: "And after the deportation to Babylon" (Matthew 1:12). The mention of the event of the deportation is all the more outstanding when we note that Matthew mentions no other historical event: not the exodus from Egypt and not the giving of the Torah at Sinai, not the period in the Wilderness and not the entry into the land. Can it be that, in the eyes of Matthew, the deportation is the formative event in the history of a people preparing itself to receive its Messiah.

It is important to point out that the deportation is mentioned with a rare expression in the genealogy: a father engenders a son and his brothers. In fact, this expression only appears in one other place in this text: "Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers". In both cases, the text describes a great hero who engenders sinful sons: Jacob who engenders Judah and his brothers who betray their own brother Joseph and gravely wound their father, on the one hand, and on the other hand, Josiah, the righteous king, killed by the Egyptians, and his sons who betrayed the heritage of their father and led he people astray until the days of the destruction of Jerusalem (see 2King 22-25). The betrayal of the sons in both cases leads to a period of deportation: to Egypt (in the days of Jacob and his sons) and to Babylon (in the days of Josiah's sons).

However, something else also becomes clear as we meditate on the subject of Jacob, Josiah and their sons. The story of the people of Israel begins with Jacob and his sons. Until the time of Jacob and his sons, the people was simply a promise. The sons of Jacob constitute the people of Israel composed of the twelve tribes. The genesis of the people is with Jacob renamed Israel. The end of the people of Israel is with Josiah and his sons. Indeed, the people that experiences the collapse of the Kingdom of Judah, the devastation of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple is a people that is, according to nature, dead.  A people without a land, without a cult, without government is already no people at all. The deportation to Babylon is the tomb of the people. Therefore the expression "at the time of the deportation to Babylon" (1:11) expresses the tragic end of the people of Israel and the "failure" of the plan of God who chose the people to be a light to the nations. Instead of being a light to the nations, the sons of Josiah chose the nations to be their light (as did the many generations of kings of Israel and Judah before them). The reader of Matthew's genealogy is invited to pause here – a moment of silence in recognition of the tragedy that is expressed in the verse.

The continuation, in verse 12, "after the deportation to Babylon" is not a simple, banal continuation in a meaningless text but rather the proclamation of a miracle. The "after" here of the event of the deportation to Babylon reveals to us a central reality of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob: his fidelity to his people despite their betrayal of him. The people betrayed God and instead of choosing life chose death (cf. Deuteronomy 30:15-20). However, God will not allow death to be victorious but rather he will bring his people out of the tomb of the deportation. "The return to Zion" is a resurrection from the dead in the history of the people of Israel. With the deportation, the natural existence of the people came to an end. With the return, a supernatural existence begins that takes us all the way to the birth of Jesus Christ at the end of the genealogy. Matthew hints that the return is a preparation for the surprise of Jesus' life: his resurrection from the dead.

2. An important part of the genealogy is devoted to the kings of Judah from David until Jechoniah. The addition of the word "the king" (1:6) in the description of David separates him from the rest of the kings and marks David as the first king mentioned in the genealogy. A meditation on the figure of the king in Israel is also essential in reading Matthew's genealogy. The formative verse at the moment of the birth of the people during the Exodus from Egypt is: "The Lord will be our king for ever and ever" (Exodus 15:18). When the people enters the land, the demand for a king of flesh and blood marks that tragic abandoning of the way of the Torah. In the days of Gideon, the people asks for a king and Gideon, the just leader, reminds them that neither he nor his sons will be king because "God rules over you" (Judges 8:23). Yet, Avimelekh, the bastard son of Gideon, was crowned king in Shechem. In the days of Samuel, the people asked for a king despite the warnings of Samuel (1Samuel 8) and insisted until Saul was crowned. Even David, the beloved king, sinned greatly and it is interesting to note that his great sin is remembered by Matthew who note the mother of Solomon, she being the "one who was the wife of Uriah" (Matthew  1:6). A king of flesh and blood tends to be more like a Pharaoh than like his heavenly Father, God. This is the tragic reality the people discovers until the days of the deportation. This too is the reality the true king, Jesus Christ, lives in the confrontation with the kings of flesh and blood in his time. Matthew emphasizes this conflict from the beginning of the life of Jesus in the show down between Herod and the Messiah born in Bethlehem. Every believer is called to choose his or her king: to choose God or to choose the king of this world.

3. There is yet another interesting addition in the genealogy: the mention of five mothers. The fathers represent the continuity from Abraham until Jesus but five times the text remembers a mother who have birth to the son engendered by the father. The five mothers are: Tamar (1:3), Rahab (1:5), Ruth (1:5), the wife of Uriah (1:6) and Mary (1:16). Each one represents a surprise when we are reminded of their stories. Tamar, the daughter-in-law of Judah who plays the harlot in order to get her rights (Genesis 38), Rahab the Canaanite harlot from Jericho who is saved together with all her household because of her faith in the God of Israel (Joshua 2 and 6). Ruth the Moabite who belongs to an accursed race according to the Torah (Deuteronomy 23) but who brings light to the people of Israel in the dark times of the Judges through her faith and loyalty (Ruth). (It is interesting to note that Matthew notes what no other source notes: that Rahab is Ruth's second mother-in-law (her first having been Noemi). The presence of the wife of Uriah, not mentioned by name, points to the sin of King David (2Samuel 10-11). Finally, Mary, "of whom Jesus was born" appears as the fifth of the woman. Her presence prepares the reader for the narrative focused on Joseph the just who is both father of Jesus and not his father at all. These five women mark the always surprising entry of God into the history of a sinful people to lead them to life, light and truth.