The Genealogy of Jesus
Audela Study Desk · 14 min read
Two lists open the story of Jesus, and they do not read the same way. Matthew begins with Abraham and moves forward. Luke begins with Jesus and moves back to Adam. Read both first, then look at what each writer is doing with the names he keeps.
Read it first
Before anything is explained, read both lists themselves. They are long, and they reward a slow read.
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The big picture
Matthew opens his Gospel with a sentence that tells you what the list is for: "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham" (Matthew 1:1). Two names are lifted above the rest. Both carry promises. God promised Abraham that in him all the families of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:3), and God promised David a that would not end (2 Samuel 7:12-16). Matthew's list is the answer to both promises arriving in one person.
Luke's list runs the other way. It begins after the baptism, where the voice from heaven has just called Jesus "" (Luke 3:22), and then walks backwards through David and Abraham to Noah, to Adam, and finally to God (Luke 3:38). Luke does not stop at Israel. He takes the line back to the first man, so that Jesus stands in relation to the whole human race.
So the difference in direction is not a mistake to be smoothed over. It is the point. One writer shows a promise kept to a people. The other shows a Saviour joined to humanity itself.
How Matthew's list moves
Abraham to David
The list begins with the promise and moves to the . Fourteen names carry the reader from a man called out of Ur to a king in Jerusalem.
Four of these names come with a comment attached. Judah is named with Tamar (Matthew 1:3), Boaz with Rahab (Matthew 1:5), Obed with Ruth (Matthew 1:5), and Solomon is said to be born of "her who had been the wife of Uriah" (Matthew 1:6). Genealogies of this kind usually name fathers. Matthew stops four times to name mothers, and does not tidy any of their stories.
David to the exile
The second stretch is the story of the , and it ends badly. The line runs through Solomon and Rehoboam and Hezekiah, and closes with "Jeconiah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon" (Matthew 1:11).
Matthew names the deportation twice, in verses 11 and 12. He will not let the reader move from David to Christ without passing through the exile. The is real, and so is the collapse.
The exile to Christ
The third stretch is the quietest. After Zerubbabel most of these names appear nowhere else in Scripture. Nothing is told of them. The line continues through people whose lives are not recorded.
Then the pattern breaks. Every earlier link reads "was the father of". The last link does not: "Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ" (Matthew 1:16). Matthew has spent sixteen verses building a chain of fathers, and at the final link he steps out of it.
The three sets of fourteen
Matthew then says what he has done: "So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations" (Matthew 1:17).
This is Matthew's own summary, not a modern reconstruction. Comparing the list with 1 Chronicles 3 shows that names known from the Old Testament are not all present, so the list is arranged rather than exhaustive. Ordered genealogies that skip generations are ordinary in Scripture; "the father of" can mean an ancestor, as when Jesus is called "the son of David" (Matthew 1:1).
How Luke's list moves
Backwards, one name at a time
Luke gives no summary and no groupings. He writes one long chain of "the son of", starting from Jesus and reaching back through Joseph, through names largely unknown to the Old Testament, to Nathan and to David (Luke 3:31).
Luke also marks the beginning of the list with care: "Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph" (Luke 3:23). The qualification is Luke's, and he places it at the head of the whole list.
Through David and Abraham
Luke passes through David, then Judah, then Isaac and Abraham. Everything Matthew builds towards, Luke passes through on the way to something older.
Back to Adam
Past Abraham the list keeps going: Noah, Enoch, Seth, "the son of Adam, the " (Luke 3:38). Luke's Gospel is the one that carries the widest reach, and this list is where it starts. Jesus is bound to Israel and also to the race that began with Adam.
The words "" at the end of the list sit only sixteen verses after the voice at the baptism said, "You are my beloved Son" (Luke 3:22). Adam is called God's son as a creature made by God. The Gospel goes on to show that Jesus is Son in a way Adam was not.
Why the two lists differ
The lists are not the same, and this study will not pretend they are. Each explanation below is labelled for what it is: something Scripture states, something it allows us to infer, or something it does not tell us.
Do the two lists give the same names between David and Joseph?
Scripture says
No. Matthew runs through Solomon (Matthew 1:6), Luke through Nathan (Luke 3:31). From David down to Joseph, most of the names differ, and even the name of Joseph's father differs: Jacob in Matthew 1:16, Heli in Luke 3:23. This is what the text plainly shows.
Could one list follow the legal line and the other the biological line?
Scripture allows us to infer
This is the oldest of the explanations. Matthew's line runs through the reigning , which suits a legal claim to the throne, while Luke's runs through a different son of David. Scripture does show that legal fatherhood and physical descent can differ, since Jesus is called the son of Joseph "as was supposed" (Luke 3:23) and Matthew avoids saying Joseph fathered him (Matthew 1:16). Neither writer says that one list is legal and the other biological, so this remains an inference.
Could levirate marriage account for two fathers for Joseph?
Scripture allows us to infer
The law required a man to raise up offspring for a brother who died childless (Deuteronomy 25:5-6), and Scripture records the practice, as with Boaz and Ruth (Ruth 4:9-10). Under that law a man could have a legal father and a biological father with different names. Applied to Jacob and Heli this would explain the difference, but Scripture never says this happened in Joseph's family.
Could Luke be giving Mary's line rather than Joseph's?
Scripture allows us to infer
Some read "the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli" (Luke 3:23) as marking Joseph out as a son-in-law, making Heli the father of Mary. Luke does record more of Mary than any other Gospel writer, which is why this reading is offered. But Luke names Joseph, not Mary, and never says the list is hers.
Which explanation is correct?
Scripture does not tell us
Scripture does not say. It gives two lists and tells us what each is for, and it does not tell us how they fit together. A reader can hold the possibilities open without pretending to a certainty the text does not offer. What both lists agree on is not in doubt: Jesus is descended from Abraham and from David, and Joseph is not said to be his father.
Covenant promises kept
Some names in the lists carry promises that took centuries to arrive. Where a life is not recorded, nothing is told here beyond what Scripture says.
Abraham
God called him out of his country and promised that in him all the families of the earth would be blessed.
Matthew's first name after Christ's own. The blessing promised to the nations begins in this man's family.
Judah
Jacob's blessing said the would not depart from Judah, and the obedience of the peoples would be his.
The royal line comes through the fourth son, not the first. Both lists pass through him.
David
God promised David an offspring whose would be established forever.
The hinge of Matthew's three sets and the name Matthew puts in his first sentence.
Jeconiah and the exile
The was carried away to Babylon. Jeremiah 22:30 said of him that none of his offspring would sit on the of David.
Matthew names the deportation twice, so the reader cannot skip the collapse. The promise survives the ruin of .
Zerubbabel
He led the returned exiles and began rebuilding . Haggai 2:23 calls him God's chosen servant, like a signet ring.
The last widely known name before the quiet stretch. The line continues after the is gone.
Joseph
He was told to take Mary as his wife and to name the child Jesus, which he did.
By naming the child, Joseph gives him his place in David's line. Matthew never says he fathered him.
Mary
She was told the child would be conceived by the and would be called the .
The only parent Matthew says Jesus was born of (Matthew 1:16).
The four women of Matthew's list
Genealogies of this kind usually name fathers. Matthew stops four times to name mothers, and he does not tidy any of their stories.
Tamar
Judah withheld what the law required of him, and Tamar is the one the text calls more than he (Genesis 38:26).
Rahab
A woman of Jericho who hid the spies and said the LORD had given them the land.
Ruth
A Moabite who bound herself to Naomi's people and God, and became the great-grandmother of David (Ruth 4:17).
The wife of Uriah
Matthew does not use her name. He writes "her who had been the wife of Uriah" (Matthew 1:6), and the wording keeps David's sin in view.
Details easy to miss
- Matthew's chain of fathers breaks at the last link. Joseph is called the husband of Mary, not the father of Jesus (Matthew 1:16).
- Luke's qualification comes at the head of his list, not buried in it: "as was supposed" (Luke 3:23).
- Matthew names the deportation to Babylon twice (Matthew 1:11-12). The exile is written into the structure, not left as background.
- Matthew's list keeps the four women whose stories a family record might have been to leave out.
- Most of the names after Zerubbabel appear nowhere else in Scripture. Nothing is told of their lives. Any story attached to them is invention.
- Luke's list ends with God (Luke 3:38), which is where his account of Jesus' ministry then begins.
Questions the text can answer
What does Matthew say his list is for?
Look in Scripture
- Matthew 1:1
- Matthew 1:17
Read the first verse and the last verse of the list together. Matthew states his subject and then states his structure. Notice which two names he singles out and what promises attach to them.
Does Matthew say Joseph fathered Jesus?
Look in Scripture
- Matthew 1:16
- Matthew 1:18-21
Compare the wording of the final link with every link before it. Then read what the angel tells Joseph. Ask what Joseph does give the child by naming him.
Why does Luke's list continue past Abraham?
Look in Scripture
- Luke 3:34-38
- Luke 2:30-32
- Acts 17:26
Follow the list to its last name. Then read what Simeon says the child is for, and how Paul speaks of the human race in Athens. Ask who Luke is writing for.
How can a promise made to David survive the exile?
Look in Scripture
- 2 Samuel 7:12-16
- Jeremiah 22:30
- Matthew 1:11-12
Read the promise, then the judgment on Jeconiah, then Matthew's twice-named deportation. Ask what God preserves when the itself is taken away.
What this teaches
- God keeps promises across generations that do not look promising. The list runs through kings, through an exile, and through people whose lives are not recorded at all.
- The line is not cleaned up. Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and the wife of Uriah are all named or pointed at, and the sin in the story is not hidden.
- Jesus is joined to a family and to a people, and also to the whole race. Matthew and Luke together say both.
Pray the passage
Father, you kept your word to Abraham and to David through hundreds of years and through the ruin of a kingdom. Teach me to trust your promises in the long quiet stretches when nothing is recorded and nothing seems to move. Thank you for the Son who came into a real family and a real history to save. Amen.
Carry it with you
Read Matthew 1:1 and Luke 3:38 in one sitting. One sentence puts Jesus in Abraham's family. The other puts him at the head of the human story. Both are true at once, and neither is invented.