Mat 1:1. Βίβλος γενέσεως] Book of origin; מֵפֶר תּוֹלְדוֹת, Gen 2:4; Gen 5:1, LXX.; comp. Gen 6:9; Gen 11:10. The first verse contains the title of the genealogy which follows in Mat 1:2-16, which contains the origin of Christ from the Messianic line that runs on from the time of Abraham (genitive of contents). So Beza, Calvin, Grotius, Bengel, Wetstein, Paulus, Kuinoel, Gratz, de Wette, Baumgarten-Crusius, and others. The evangelist adopted the genealogical piece of writing (βίβλος), and which “velut extra corpus historiae prominet” (Grotius), without alteration, as he found it, and with its title also. Others (Bede, Maldonatus, Schleussner) take γένεσις as meaning life, and regard the words as a superscription to the entire Gospel: commentarius de vita Jesu. Contrary to the usage of the language; for in Jdt 12:18, and Wis 7:5, γένεσις denotes the origin, the commencing point of life; in Plato, Phaedr. p. 252 D, it means existence; in Hierocles, p. 298, the creation, or that which is created; and in Jam 3:6, τροχὸς τῆς γενέσεως is the τροχός which begins with birth. And if we were to suppose, with Olearius (comp. Hammond and Vitringa, also Euthym. Zigabenus), that the superscription liber de originibus Jesu Christi was selected first with reference to the commencement of the history, to which the further history was then appended with a distinctive designation (comp. Catonis Censorii Origines), as תּוֹלְדוֹת also confessedly does not always announce a mere genealogy (Gen 5:1 ff; Gen 11:27 ff.), nay, may even stand without any genealogical list following it (Gen 2:4; Gen 37:2 ff.),-so the immediate connection in which βίβλος … Χριστοῦ stands with υἱοῦ Δαυ., υἱοῦ Ἀβρ., here necessitates us to think from the very beginning, in harmony with the context, of the genealogy merely; and the commencement of Mat 1:18, where the γένεσις in the narrower sense, the actual origination, is now related, separates the section Mat 1:18-25 distinctly from the preceding genealogical list, so that the first words of chap. 2, τοῦ δὲ Ἰησοῦ γεννηθέντος, connect themselves, as carrying on the narrative, with Mat 1:18-25, where the origin of Jesus, down to His actual birth, is related. This is, at the same time, in answer to Fritzsche, who translates it as volumen de J. Christi originibus, and, appealing to the words in the beginning of ch. 2, regards βίβλος γενέσεως, κ.τ.λ., as the superscription of the first chapter (so also Delitzsch), as well as to Olshausen (see also Ewald and Bleek), who takes it as the superscription of the two first chapters.
If the Israelite set a high value, in his own individual instance, upon a series of ancestors of unexceptionable pedigree (Rom 11:1; Php 3:5; Josephus,c. Ap. ii. 7; Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. p. 178), how much more must such be found to be the case on the side of the Messiah!
Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ] The name יְהוֹשׁוּעַ (Exo 24:13; Num 13:16), or, after the exile, יֵשׁוּעַ (Neh 7:7), ܢܶܫܘܶܓ was very common,[350] and denotes Jehovah is helper. This meaning, contained in the name Jesus (comp. Sir 46:1), came to full personal manifestation in Christ, see Mat 1:21. Χριστός corresponds to the Hebrew מָשִׁיחַ, anointed, which was used partly of priests, Lev 4:3; Lev 5:16; Lev 6:15, Psa 105:15; partly of kings, 1Sa 24:7; 1Sa 24:11, Psa 2:2, Isa 45:1, comp. Dan 9:25-26; as a prophet also, according to 1Ki 19:16, might be an anointed person. From the time of the Book of Daniel-for throughout the whole later period also, down to the time of Christ, the Messianic idea was a living one amongst the people[351]-this theocratic name, and that as a king’s name, was applied, according to the Messianic explanation of the second Psalm, to the king of David’s race, whose coming, according to the predictions of the prophets, was ever more ardently looked for, but with hopes that became ever purer, who was to raise the nation to its theocratic consummation, to restore the kingdom to its highest power and glory, and extend his blessings to the heathen as well, while, as a necessary condition to all this, He was, in a religious and moral respect, to work out the true spiritual government of God, and bring it to a victorious termination. See on the development of the idea and hope of the Messiah, especially Ewald, Gesch. Christ. p. 133 ff., ed. 3 [E. T. by Glover, p. 140 ff.]; Bertheau in d. Jahrb. f. D. Th. IV. p. 595 ff., V. p. 486 ff.; Riehm in d. Stud. u. Kritik. 1865, I. and III. [E. T., Clark, Edinburgh, 1876]. According to B. Bauer (comp. Volkmar, Rel. Jesu, p. 113), Jesus is said to have first developed the Messianic idea out of His own consciousness, the community to have clothed it in figures, and then to have found these figures also in the Old Testament, while the Jews first received the idea from the Christians! In answer to this view, which frivolously inverts the historical relation, see Ebrard, Kritik. d. evang. Gesch., ed. 3, § 120 ff. [E. T. 2d ed., Clark, Edinburgh, p. 485 f.]; and on the Messianic ideas of the Jews at the time of Christ, especially Hilgenfeld, Messias Judaeorum libris eorum paulo ante et paulo post Christum natum conscriptis illustratus, 1869; also Holtzmann in d. Jahrb. f. D. Theol. 1867, p. 389 ff., according to whom, however, the original self-consciousness of the Lord had been matured at an earlier date, before He found[352] for it, in His confession of Himself as the Messiah, a name that might be uttered before His contemporaries, and an objective representation that was conceivable for Himself.
The official name Χριστός, for Jesus, soon passed over in the language of the Christians into a nomen proprium, in which shape it appears almost universally in the Epistles and in the Acts of the Apostles, with or without the article, after the nature of proper names in general. In the Gospels, Χριστός stands as a proper name only in Mat 1:1; Mat 1:16-18; Mar 1:1; Joh 1:17; and appropriately, because not congruous to the development of the history and its connection, but spoken from the standpoint of the much later period of its composition, in which ἸΗΣΟῦς ΧΡΙΣΤΌς had been already long established as a customary name in the language of Christians; as here also (comp. Mar 1:1) in the superscription, the whole of the great name Ἰησοῦς Χριστός is highly appropriate, nay, necessary.
Further, Jesus could be the bearer of the idea of Messiah, for the realization of which He knew from the beginning that He was sent, in no other way than in its national definiteness, therefore also without the exclusion of its political element, the thought of which, however,-and this appears most fully in John,-was transfigured by Him into the idea of the highest and universal spiritual government of God, so that the religious and moral task of the Messiah was His clear aim from the very outset, in striving after and attaining which He had to prepare the way for the Messiah’s kingdom, and finally had to lay its indestructible, necessary foundation (founding of the new covenant) by His atoning death, while He pointed to the future, which, according to all the evangelists, was viewed by Himself as near at hand, for the final establishment, glory, and power of the kingdom, when He will solemnly appear (Parousia) as the Messiah who is Judge and Ruler.
υἱοῦ Δαυείδ] for, according to prophetic promise, He must be a descendant of David, otherwise He would not have been the Messiah, Joh 7:42; Rom 1:3; Act 13:22 f.; the Messiah is called pre-eminently בֶּן דָּוִד, Mat 12:23; Mat 21:9; Mat 22:42; Luk 18:38. Comp. Wetstein, and Babylon. Sanhedr. fol. 97. David is designated as Abraham’s descendant, because the genealogical table must begin nationally with Abraham, who, according to the promise, is the original ancestor of the series of generations (Gal 3:16), so that consequently the venerable chiefs of this genealogy immediately appear in the superscription. Luke’s point of view (Mat 8:23) goes beyond the sphere of the nation, while Mark (l.c.) sets out from the theocratico-dogmatic conception of the Messiah.
[350] See the different persons who bear this name in Keim, Gescht. J. I. p. 384 ff.
[351] Comp. Langen, d. Judenthum in Palaestina zur Zeit Christi, 1866. Weissenbach, Jesu in regno coel. dignitas, 1868, p. 47 ff.
[352] In connection with this view, we would be obliged to acquiesce in the belief of a very radical misunderstanding, which would permeate the gospel history from the baptism and the witness of John, namely, that the evangelists “apprehended as a beginning what was rather a result.” On exegetical grounds this cannot be justified.
Mat 1:2-3. Κ. τ. ἀδελφοὺς αὐτ.] “Promissiones fuere in familia Israelis,” Bengel.
Mat 1:3. These twin sons of Judah were illegitimate, Gen 38:16-30. The Jews were inclined to find a good side to the transgressions of their ancestors, and alleged here, e.g., that Thamar entertained the idea of becoming an ancestress of kings and prophets. See Wetstein and Fritzsche. The reason why Thamar is here brought forward, as well as Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba in Mat 1:5-6 (for οὐκ ἦν ἔθος γενεαλογεῖσθαι γυναῖκας, Euth. Zigabenus), is not “ut tacitae Judaeorum objectioni occurreretur,” Wetstein; for the reproach of illegitimate birth was not raised against Jesus in the apostolic age, nor probably before the second century (see Thilo, ad Cod. Apocr. I. p. 526 f.), and would be very indelicately referred to by the naming of these women; nor the point of view of exactness (Fritzsche), which would not explain why these women and no others were mentioned; least of all the tendency to cast into the shade the Jewish genealogical tree (Hilgenfeld). In keeping with the whole design of the genealogical register, which must terminate in the wonderful one who is born of woman, that reason cannot, without arbitrariness, be found save in this, that the women named entered in an extraordinary manner into the mission of continuing the genealogy onwards to the future Messiah, and might thereby appear to the genealogist and the evangelist as typi Mariae (Paulus, de Wette, Ebrard; comp. Grotius on Mat 1:3), and in so doing the historical stains which cleaved to them (to Ruth also, in so far as she was a Moabitess) were not merely fully compensated by the glorious approval which they found precisely in the light in which their history was regarded by the nation (Heb 11:31; Jam 2:25), but far outweighed and even exalted to extraordinary honours. See the numerous Rabbinical passages, relating especially to Thamar, Rahab, and Ruth, in Wetstein in loc., and on Heb 11:31. Olshausen is too indefinite: “in order to point to the marvellous gracious leading of God in the ordering of the line of the Messiah.” Luther and some of the Fathers drag in here what lies very remote: because Christ interested Himself in sinners; Lange, more remote still, “in order to point to the righteousness which comes, not from external holiness, but from faith;” and Delitzsch (in Rudelbach and Guericke’s Zeitschrift, 1850, p. 575 f.), “because the sinless birth of Mary was prepared throughout by sin.”
Mat 1:5. Boaz is also called, in Rth 4:21 and 1Ch 2:11, son of Salma; but his mother Rahab is not mentioned. The author without doubt drew from a tradition which was then current, and presupposed as known (according to Ewald it was apocryphal), which gave Salma as a wife to her who had risen to honour by her conduct in. Jericho (Heb 11:31; Jam 2:25). The difficulties which, according to Rosenmüller, Kuinoel, and Gratz, arise from the chronology,-namely, that Rahab must have become a mother at seventy or eighty years of age,-are, considering the uncertainty of the genealogical tradition, which already appeals in Rth 4:20, as well as the freedom of Orientals in general with regard to genealogies, not sufficient to justify here the assumption of some other Rahab. According to Megill. f. 14, 2, and Koheleth R. 8, 10, Joshua married Rahab,-a tradition which is not followed by our genealogy.
Mat 1:6. Τὸν Δαυεὶδ τὸν βασιλέα] Although an apposition with the article follows the proper name, yet Δαυείδ also takes the article, not for the sake of uniformity with the preceding name (de Wette), but in order to designate David demonstratively, as already marked out in Mat 1:1. In Mat 1:16, also, the article before Ἰωσήφ, which is accompanied by an apposition, has, in keeping with the deep significance of his paternal relation to Jesus, demonstrative power (Kühner, II. p. 520).
The τὸν βασιλέα also, and the subsequent emphatic repetition of ὁ βασιλεύς, are a distinction for David, with whom the Messiah’s genealogy entered upon the kingly dignity.
τῆς τοῦ Οὐρίου] Such methods of expression by the simple genitive suppose the nature of the relationship in question to be known, as here it is that of wife. Comp. Hectoris Andromache, Luther’s Katharina, and the like. See Kühner, II. p. 285 f. Winer, p. 178 [E. T. p. 237].
Mat 1:8. Ἰορὰμ … Ὀζίαν] Three kings, Ahaziah, Joaz, and Amazia, are wanting between these (2Ki 8:24; 1Ch 3:11; 2Ch 22:1; 2Ch 22:11; 2Ch 24:27). The common opinion is that of Jerome, that the omission was made for the sake of obtaining an equal division of the names, in order not to go beyond the three Tesseradecades. Such omissions were nothing unusual: 1Ch 8:1; Gen 46:21. See Surenhusius, βιβλ. καταλλ. p. 97. Lightfoot, Hor. p. 181. On the same phenomenon in the Book of Enoch, see Ewald in the Kieler Monatschrift, 1852, p. 520 f. The evangelist accepted the genealogical list without alteration, just as he found it; and the cause of that omission cannot be pointed out, but probably was only, and that without special design, the similarity of those names, in which way the omission also which occurs in Mat 1:11 is to be explained. Ebrard and Riggenbach, erroneously introducing the point of view of theocratic illegality (comp. Lange), are of opinion that Matthew omitted the three kings for this reason, that Joram, on account of his marriage with the daughter of Jezebel, and of his conduct, had deserved that his posterity should be exterminated down to the fourth generation (so already some of the Fathers, Maldonatus, Spanheim, Lightfoot); that Matthew accordingly declared the descendants of the heathen Jezebel, down to the fourth generation, unworthy of succeeding to the theocratic throne. This breaks down at once before the simple ἐγέννησε. The omissions are generally not to be regarded as consciously made, otherwise they would conflict with Mat 1:17 (πᾶσαι), and would amount to a falsification.
Mat 1:11. The son of Josiah was Joakim, and his son was Jechoniah. Here, consequently, a link is wanting, and accordingly several uncials, curss., and a few versions[353] contain the supplement: ἸΩΣΊΑς ΔῈ ἘΓΈΝΝΗΣΕ ΤῸΝ ἸΩΑΚΕΊΜ· ἸΩΑΚΕῚΜ ΔῈ ἘΓΈΝΝΗΣΕ ΤῸΝ ἸΕΧΟΝΊΑΝ (1Ch 3:15-16). The omission is not, with Ebrard, to be explained from the circumstance that under Joakim the land passed under the sway of a foreign power (2Ki 24:4), and that consequently the theocratic regal right became extinct (against this arbitrary view, see on Mat 1:8); but merely from a confusion between the two similar names, which, at the same time, contributed to the omission of one of them. This clearly appears from the circumstance that, indeed, several brothers of Joakim are mentioned (three, see 1Ch 3:15), but not of Jechoniah. Zedekiah is, indeed, designated in 2Ch 36:10 as the brother of the latter (and in 1Ch 3:16 as his son), but was his uncle (2Ki 24:17; Jer 37:1). That our genealogy, however, followed the (erroneous, see Bertheau, p. 430) statement in 2Ch 36:10, is not to be assumed on account of the plural τοὺς ἀδελφούς, which rather points to 1Ch 3:15 and the interchange with Joiakim. It is quite in an arbitrary manner, finally, that Kuinoel has assigned to the words ΚΑῚ … ΑὐΤΟῦ their place only after ΣΑΛΑΘΊΗΛ, and Fritzsche has even entirely deleted them as spurious.
ἘΠῚ Τῆς ΜΕΤΟΙΚ. ΒΑΒΥΛῶΝΟς] during (not about the time, Luther and others) the migration. See Bernhardy, p. 246; Kühner, II. p. 430. The statement, however, is inexact, as Jechoniah was carried away along with others (2Ki 24:15). The genitive Βαβυλ. is used in the sense of ΕἸς ΒΑΒΥΛῶΝΑ. Comp. Eurip. Iph. T. 1073: γῆς πατρῷας νόστος. Mat 10:5 : ὉΔῸς ἘΘΝῶΝ; Mat 4:15, al. Winer, p. 176 [E. T. p. 234].
[353] Amongst the editions this interpolation has been received into the text by Colinaeus, H. Stephens, and Er. Schmidt, also by Beza (1James , 2 d); by Castalio in his translation. It has been defended by Rinck, Lucub. crit. p. 245 f.; Ewald assumes that ver. 11 originally ran: Ἰωσίας δὲ ἐγένν. τ. Ἰωακὶμ καὶ τοῦς ἀδελφοὺς αὐτοῦ· Ἰωακὶμ δὲ ἐγένν. τὸν Ἰεχονίαν ἐπὶ τῆς μετοικ. Βαβ. The present form of the text may be an old error of the copyists, occasioned by the similarity of the two names.
Mat 1:12. Μετὰ … μετοικ.] After the migration had taken place. 1Ch 3:16; 2Ki 14:8; Joseph. Antt. x. 9. Not to be translated “during the exile” (Krebs, Kypke), which is quite opposed to the language.
μετοικεσία] change of abode, migration; consequently here, “the being carried away to Babylon,” not the sojourn in the exile itself, which would lead to an erroneous view of the μετά. The above meaning is yielded by the Hebrew נּוֹלָה, 1Ch 5:22; Eze 12:11; 2Ki 24:16; Nah 3:10. Comp. the LXX. Anthol. 7. 731 (Leon. Tar. 79). The usual word in the classics is μετοικήσις (Plato, Legg. 8, p. 850 A), also μετοικισμός (Plutarch. Popl. 22).
Σαλαθίηλ] he is called in Luk 3:27 a son of Neri and a grandson of Melchi; a variation which, like many others in both genealogies, is to be acknowledged, and not put aside by the assumption of several individuals of the same name, by the presupposing of levirate relationships (Hug, Ebrard), or arbitrary attempts of any other kind. 1Ch 3:17. When, however, in Jer 22:30 the father of Sealthiel is prophetically designated as עֲרִירִי, the prophet himself explains this in the sense that none of his descendants will sit upon the throne of David. Comp. Paulus in loc., Hitzig on Jerem. l.c. The Talmudists are more subtle, see Lightfoot in loc. Moreover, according to 1Ch 3:19, Pedaiah is wanting here between Salathiel and Zerubbabel. Yet Zerubbabel is elsewhere also called the son of Salathiel (Ezr 3:2; Ezr 5:2; Hag 1:1; Luk 3:27), where, however, 1Ch 3:19 is to be regarded as a more exact statement. See Bertheau. Observe, moreover, that also according to 1 Chronicles 3. both men belong to the Solomonic line.
Mat 1:13. None of the members of the genealogy after Zerubbabel, whose son Abiud is not named in 1Ch 3:19 f. along with the others, occurs in the O. T. The family of David had already fallen into a humble position. But even after the exile, the preservation and, relatively, the restoration of the genealogies remained a subject of national, especially priestly, concern; comp. Joseph, c. Apion. This concern could not but be only all the more lively and active in reference to the house of David, with which the expectation of the Messiah was always connected.
Mat 1:16. Ἰακὼβ … Ἰωσήφ] In Luk 3:24, Joseph is called a son of Eli. This variation, also, cannot be set aside. As in the case of most great men who have sprung from an obscure origin, so also in the case of Jesus, the ancestors of no reputation were forgotten, and were given by tradition in varying form. The view, however (Epiphanius, Luther, Calovius in answer to Grotius, Bengel, Rosenmüller, Paulus, Gratz, Hofmann, Olshausen, Ebrard, Lange, Arnoldi, Bisping, Auberlen), that Luke gives the genealogy of Mary, and consequently that in Luk 3:24 Joseph is entered as son-in-law of Eli, or Eli as maternal grandfather of Jesus (Spanheim, Wieseler, Riggenbach in the Stud. u. Kritik. 1855, p. 585 ff., Krafft), is just as baseless and harmonistically forced an invention as that of Augustine, de consen. ev. ii. 3; or of Wetstein, Delitzsch, that Joseph was the adopted son of Eli; or that of Julius Africanus in Eusebius i. 7, that Matthew gives the proper father of Joseph, while Luke gives his legal father according to the law of Levirate marriage (Hug), or conversely (Schleiermacher after Ambrose and others). The contradictions which our genealogy presents to that of Luke are to be impartially recognised. See a more minute consideration of this in Luke after ch. 3.
It is well known that the Jews (the Talmud, and in Origen, c. Celsum, i. 32) call Jesus the son of Pandira[354] or Panthera. See Paulus, exeget. Handb. I. p. 290; Nitzsch in the Stud. u. Kritik. 1840, 1; Keim, Leben Jesu, I. p. 368; Ewald, Gesch. Christi, p. 187, ed. 3.
ἄνδρα] is to be rendered husband, and not (Olshausen, after Theophylact, Grotius) betrothed. For when the genealogist wrote, Joseph had been long ago the husband of Mary; and the signification of ἈΝΉΡ is never that of sponsus.
ἐξ ἧς] see on Gal 4:4.
ὁ λεγόμενος Χριστός] if the assumption of Storr (Zweck d. evangel. Gesch. u. d. Briefe Joh. p. 273), that this addition expresses the doubt of the genealogist, an unbelieving relative of Jesus, is a pure imagination, and completely opposed to the standpoint of the evangelist, who adopted the genealogy, still we are not to say, with Olshausen (comp. Gersdorf, and already Er. Schmidt), that λέγεσθαι here means to be called, and also actually to be. This would be to confuse it improperly with ΚΑΛΕῖΣΘΑΙ. See Winer, p. 571 [E. T. 769]. The genealogical source, which found a reception in our Matthew, narrates in a purely historical manner: who bears the name of Christ (Mat 4:18, Mat 10:2, Mat 27:17); for this name, which became His from the official designation, was the distinctive name of this Jesus. Comp., besides, Remark 3, after Mat 1:17.
[354] פַּנְדִירָא. Epiphanius, Haeres. 78. 7, thus (Πάνθηρ) terms the father of Joseph. John of Damascus, de fide Orthodox. iv. 15, removes this name still further back in the roll of ancestors. The Jewish book, Toledoth Jeschu, calls the father of Jesus, Joseph Pandira. See Eisenmenger, p. 105; Paulus, exeget. Handb. I. p. 156 f.; Thilo, Cod. apocr. I. p. 526 f.
Mat 1:17. This contains the remark of the evangelist in accordance with (οὖν) this genealogical tree, contained in Mat 1:2-16. The key to the calculation, according to which the thrice-recurring fourteen links are to be enumerated, lies in Mat 1:11-12. According to Mat 1:11, Josiah begat Jechoniah at the time of the migration to Babylon; consequently Jechoniah must be included in the terminus ad quem, which is designated by ἕως τῆς μετοικεσίας Βαβυλῶνος in Mat 1:17. The same Jechoniah, however, must just as necessarily again begin the third division, as the same begins with ἀπὸ τῆς μετοικεσίας Βαβυλῶνος. Jechoniah, however, who was himself begotten at the time of the migration, did not become a father until after the migration (Mat 1:12), so that he therefore belonged as begotten to the period ἕως τῆς μετοικ. Βαβυλ., but as a father to the period ἀπὸ τῆς μετοικ. Βαβυλ., standing in his relation to the epoch of the μετοικεσία as a twofold person. It is not so with David, as the latter, like every other except Jechoniah, is only named, but not brought into connection with an epoch-making event in the history, in relation to which he might appear as son and father in a twofold personality. He has therefore no right to be counted twice. According to this view, the three tesseradecades are to be thus divided,[355]-
[355] Comp. Strauss, 2d ed.; Hug, Gutachten; Wieseler in the Stud. u. Kritik. 1845, p. 377; Köstlin, Urspr. d. synopt. Evang. p. 30; Hilgenfeld, Evang. p. 46; also Riggenbach in the Stud. u. Kritik. 1856, p. 580 f., Leb. Jes. p. 261. So early as Augustine, and at a later date, Jansen and several others, count Jechoniah twice; so also Schegg; substantially also Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, who only express themselves awkwardly in saying that the time of the Exile is placed ἐν τάξει γενεᾶς.
In the third division we have to notice that in any case Jesus also must be counted, because Mat 1:17 says ἕως τοῦ Χριστοῦ, in keeping with Mat 1:1, where Ἰησοῦς Χριστός is announced as the subject of the genealogy, and consequently as the last of the entire list. If Jesus were not included in the enumeration, we should then have a genealogy of Joseph, and the final terminus must have been said to be ἕως Ἰωσήφ. Certainly, according to our Gospel, no proper γενεά existed between Joseph and Jesus, a circumstance which in reality takes away from the entire genealogical tree its character as a genealogy of Jesus in the proper sense. The genealogist himself, however, guards so definitely against every misinterpretation by the words τὸν ἄνδρα Μαρίας, ἐξ ἧς ἐγεννήθη Ἰησοῦς, that we distinctly see that he means to carry the descent of Jesus beyond Joseph back to David and Abraham, only in so far as Joseph, being husband of the mother of Jesus, was His father, merely putatively so indeed, but by the marriage his father in the eye of the law, although not his real parent. After all this, we are neither, with Olearius, Bengel, Fritzsche, de Wette (who is followed by Strauss, 4th ed., I. p. 139), Delitzsch, Bleek, and others, to divide thus: (1) Abraham to David, (2) David to Josiah, (3) Jechoniah to Christ; nor, with Storr (Diss. in libror. hist. N. T. loca, p. 1 ff.), Rosenmüller, Kuinoel, Olshausen: (1) Abraham to David, (2) David to Josiah, (3) Josiah to Joseph; nor are we to say, with Paulus, that among the unknown links, Mat 1:13-16, one has fallen out owing to the copyists; nor, with Jerome, Gusset, Wolf, Gratz, to make Jechoniah in Mat 1:11 into Joiakim, by the insertion of which Ewald completes (see on Mat 1:11) the second tesseradecade, without counting David twice; nor, with Ebrard, Lange, Krafft, to insert Mary as an intermediate link between Joseph and Jesus, by whose marriage with Joseph, Jesus became heir to the theocratic throne. The latter is erroneous on this account, that it contradicts the text, which does not speak of succession to the theocratic throne, but of γενεαί, the condition of which is ἐγέννησε and ἐγεννήθη.
We must assume that the reason for the division into three tesseradecades was not merely to aid the memory (Michaelis, Eichhorn, Kuinoel, Fritzsche), which is not sufficient to explain the emphatic and solemn prominence given to the equal number of links in the three periods, Mat 1:17; nor even the Cabbalistic number of the name David (דוד, i.e. 14; so Surenhusius, Ammon, Leben Jesu, I. p. 173), as it is not David, but Jesus, that is in question; nor a reminiscence of the forty-two encampments in the wilderness (Origen, Luther, Gfrörer, Philo, II. p. 429, after Numbers 33), which would be quite arbitrary and foreign to the subject; nor a requirement to the reader to seek out the theocratic references concealed in the genealogy (Ebrard), in doing which Matthew would, without any reason, have proposed the proper design of his genealogical tree as a mere riddle, and by his use of ἐγέννησε would have made the solution itself impossible: but that precisely from Abraham to David fourteen links appeared, which led the author to find fourteen links for the two other periods also, in which, according to Jewish idiosyncrasy, he saw something special, which contained a mystic allusion to the sytematic course of divine leading in the Messiah’s genealogy, where perhaps also the attraction of holiness in the number seven (the double of which was yielded by the first period) came into play. Comp. Synops. Soh. p. 132. 18 : “Ab Abrahamo usque ad Salom. quindecim sunt generationes, atque tunc luna fuit in plenilunio, a Salomone usque ad Zedekiam iterum sunt quindecim generationes, et tunc luna defecit, et Zedekiae effossi sunt oculi.” See also Gen 5:3 ff; Gen 11:10 ff., where, from Adam to Noah, and from Noah to Abraham, ten links in each case are counted. It is altogether arbitrary, however, because there is no allusion to it in Matthew, when Delitzsch (in Rudelbach and Guericke’s Zeitschrift, 1850, p. 587 ff.) explains the symmetry of the three tesseradecades from this, that Matthew always makes a generation from Abraham to David amount to eighty years, but each of the following to forty, and consequently has calculated 1120 + 560 + 560 years. To do so is incorrect, because γενεαί receives its designation from ἐγέννησε, it being presupposed that γενεά denotes a generation.
REMARK 1.
It is clear from πᾶσαι that the evangelist supposed that he had the genealogical tree complete, and consequently was not aware of the important omissions.
REMARK 2.
Whether Mary also was descended from David, as Justin, Dial. c. Tryph. xxiii. 45. 100, Irenaeus, iii. 21. 5, Julius Africanus, ap. Eusebium, i. 7, Tertullian, and other Fathers, as well as the Apocrypha of the N. T., e.g. Protev. Jacobi 10, de nativ. Mariae, already teach,[356] is a point upon which any evidence from the N. T. is entirely wanting, as the genealogical tree in Luke is not that of Mary. Nor can a conclusion be drawn to that effect, as is done by the Greek Fathers, from the Davidic descent of Joseph; for even if Mary had been an heiress, which, however, cannot at all be established (comp. on Luk 2:5), this would be quite a matter of indifference so far as her descent is concerned, since the law in Num 36:6 only forbade such daughters to marry into another tribe, Ewald, Alterth. p. 239 f. [E. T. p. 208], Saalschütz, M. R. p. 829 f., and in later times was no longer observed; see Delitzsch, l.c. p. 582. The Davidic descent of Mary would follow from passages such as those in Act 2:30, Rom 1:3-4, 2Ti 2:8, comp. Heb 7:14, if we were certain that the view of the supernatural generation of Jesus lay at the basis of these; Luk 1:27; Luk 1:32; Luk 1:69 prove nothing, and Luk 2:4 just as little (in answer to Wieseler, Beitr. z. Würdig. der Evang. p. 144); we might rather infer from Luk 1:36 that Mary belonged to the tribe of Levi. The Davidic descent of Jesus, however, is established as certain by the predictions of the prophets, which, in reference to so essential a mark of the Messiah, could not remain without fulfilment, as well as by the unanimous testimony of the N. T. (Rom 1:3; 2Ti 2:8; Heb 7:14; Joh 7:41; Rev 5:5; Rev 22:16), and is also confirmed by Hegesippus (in Eusebius iii. 20), according to whom, grandsons of Jude, the Lord’s brother, were brought, as descendants of David (ὡς ἐκ γένους ὄντας Δαυίδ), before Domitian. To doubt this descent of Jesus, and to regard it rather as a hypothesis which, as an abstraction deduced from the conception of Messiah, had attached itself to the Messianic predicate Son of David (comp. Schleiermacher, Strauss, B. Bauer, Weiss, Schenkel, Holtzmann, Eichthal), is the more unhistorical, that Jesus Himself lays down that descent as a necessary condition of Messiahship; see on Mat 22:42 ff.; besides Keim, Gesch. Jesu, I. p. 326 ff., also Weiss, bibl. Theolog. § 18, and Ewald, Gesch. Chr. p. 242 ff. ed. 3.
[356] In the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, on the other hand, the tribe of Levi is definitely alluded to as that to which Mary belonged. See pp. 542, 546, 654, 689. In another passage, p. 724, she is represented as a descendant of Judah. Comp. on Luk 1:36, and see Thilo, ad Cod. apocr. p. 375. Ewald’s remark, that the Protevang. Jacobi leaves the tribe of Mary undetermined, is incorrect, ch. 10. b. In Thilo, p. 212, it is said: ὅτι Μαριὰμ ἐκ φυλῆς Δαβίδ ἐστι.
REMARK 3.
As the evangelist relates the divine generation of Jesus, he was therefore far removed from the need of constructing a genealogy of Joseph, and accordingly we must suppose that the genealogy was found and adopted by him (Harduin, Paulus, Olshausen, and most moderns), but was not his own composition (older view, de Wette, Delitzsch). Add to this that, as clearly appears from Luke, various genealogical trees must have been in existence, at the foundation of which, however, had originally[357] lain the view of a natural γένεσις of Jesus, although the expression of such a view had already disappeared from them, so that Mat 1:16 no longer ran Ἰωσὴφ δὲ ἐγέννησεν Ἰησοῦν, and in Luk 3:23, ὡς ἐνομίζετο was already interpolated. Such anti-Ebionitic alterations in the last link of the current genealogical registers of Jesus are not to be ascribed, first, to the evangelists themselves (Strauss, Schenkel); nor is the alteration in question which occurs in Matthew to be derived from a supposed redactor who dealt freely with a fundamental gospel document of a Judaistic kind (Hilgenfeld). The expression ὁ λεγόμενος Χριστύς in Mat 1:16 rather betrays that the genealogical written source passed over into the Gospel in the shape in which it already existed; neither the author nor an editor would have written ὁ λεγόμενος (comp. Mat 1:1; Mat 1:18), or, had they made an alteration in Mat 1:16, they would not have allowed it to remain.
[357] It must be admitted that the genealogies owe their origin to the view that Joseph’s paternal relation was real, and that their original purpose bore that Joseph was the actual, and not merely the putative, father of Jesus, because otherwise the composition of a genealogical tree of Joseph would have been without any motive of faith. But we must also grant that the evangelists, so early as the time when they composed their works, found the genealogies with the definite statements announcing the putative paternal relationship, and by that very circumstance saw it adapted for reception without any contradiction to their belief in the divine generation of Jesus. They saw in it a demonstration of the Davidic descent of Jesus according to the male line of succession, so far as it was possible and allowable to give such in the deficiency of a human father, that is, back beyond the reputed father. The circumstance, however, that Joseph recognised Jesus as a lawful son, presented to him in a miraculous manner, although he was not his flesh and blood (Delitzsch and others), assuredly leads, in like manner, only to a γενεά which is not real.
Mat 1:18. Τοῦ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ] provided with the article, and placed first with reference to Mat 1:16. “The origin of Jesus Christ, however, was as follows.”
μνηστευθείσης] On the construction, see Buttmann, neut. Gram. p. 270 f. [E. T. 315]. On the betrothal, after which the bride still remained in the house of her parents without any closer intercourse with the bridegroom until she was brought home, see Maimonides, Tract. אִישׁוֹת; Saalschütz, M. R. p. 728 ff.; Keil, Archaeol. § 109.
γάρ] explicative, namely, see Klotz, ad Devar. p. 234 ff.; Baeumlein, Partik. p. 86 ff.
πρὶν ἤ] belongs as much as the simple πρίν to the Ionic, and to the middle age of the Attic dialect; see Elmsley, ad Eur. Med. 179; Reisig, ad Soph. Oed. Colm. 36; it is, however, already found alone in Xenophon (Kühner, ad Anab. iv. 5. 1), as also in Thucydides, v. 61. 1, according to our texts (see, however, Krüger in loc.), but is foreign to the Attic poets. With the aorist infinitive, it denotes that the act is fully accomplished. Klotz, ad Devar. p. 726. Comp. Act 2:20; Act 7:2; Mar 14:30; Joh 4:49; Tob 14:15.
συνελθεῖν] Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, Erasmus, Maldonatus, Jansen, Bengel, Elsner, Loesner, and others understand it of cohabitation in marriage. The usage of the language is not opposed to this. See the passages of Philo in Loesner, Obss. p. 2; Joseph. Antt. vii. 9. 5; Diodorus Siculus, iii. 57, Test. XII. Patr. pp. 600, 701. Just as correct, however, in a linguistic point of view (Kypke, Obss. p. 1 f.), and at the same time more appropriate to the reference to Mat 1:20; Mat 1:24, is the explanation of others (Luther, Beza, Er. Schmid, Lightfoot, Grotius, Kypke, Kuinoel, Fritzsche, de Wette, Arnoldi, Bleek) of the bringing home and of domestic intercourse. Others (Calvin, Wetstein, Rosenmüller, Olshausen) combine both explanations. But the author in the present case did not conceive the cohabitation in marriage to be connected with the bringing home, see Mat 1:25.
εὑρέθη] Euth. Zigabenus (comp. Chrysostom and Theophylact) appropriately renders it: ἐφάνη. Εὑρέθη δὲ εἶπε διὰ τὸ ἀπροσδόκῃτον. Εὑρεθῆναι is nowhere equivalent to εἶναι. See Winer, p. 572 [E. T. 769].
ἐν γαστρὶ ἔχειν or φέρειν, to be pregnant, very often in the LXX., also in Greek writers, Herodotus, iii. 32, Vit. Hom. ii.; Plato, Legg. vii. p. 792 E.
ἐκ πν. ἁγ.] without the article, see Winer, p. 116 [E. T. 151]. רוּהַ יְהֹוָה or רוּחַ קֹרֶשׁ יְהֹוָה, πνεῦμα, πν. ἅγιον, πν. τοῦ Θεοῦ, is the personal divine principle of the higher, religious-moral, and eternal life, which works effectually for the true reign of God, and especially for Christianity, which rules in believers, and sanctifies them for the Messiah’s kingdom, and which, in reference to the intellect, is the knowledge of divine truth, revelation, prophecy, etc., in reference to morals is the consecration of holiness and power in the moral life of the new birth with its virtues and world-subduing dispositions, bringing about, in particular, the truth and fervour of prayer, the pledge of everlasting life. Here the πνεῦμα ἅγιον is that which produces the human existence of Christ, through whose action-which so appeared only in this, the single case of its kind-the origin of the embryo in the womb of Mary was causally produced (ἐκ) in opposition to human generation, so that the latter is thereby excluded. It is not, however, that divine power of the Spirit (Luk 1:35), which only concurs in the action of human generation and makes it effectual, as in the generation of Isaac and of the Baptist, and, as the idea is expressed in the Sohar Gen. (comp. Schmidt in the Bibl. f. Krit. v. Exeg. d. N. T. I. p. 101): “Omnes illi, qui, sciunt se sanctificare in hoc mundo, ut par est (ubi generant), attrahunt super id Spiritum sanctitatis et exeuntes ab eo illi vocantur filii Jehovae.” Theodore of Mopsuestia (apud Fred. Fritzsche, Theodori Mops, in N. T. Commentar. p. 2): ὥσπερ γὰρ (τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον) κοινωνόν ἐστι πατρί τε καὶ υἱῷ εἰς τὴν τοῦ παντὸς δημιουργίαν, οὕτω καὶ τὸ ἐκ τῆς παρθένου τοῦ σωτῆρος σῶμα κατεσκεύασε.
ἐκ πνεύμ. ἅγ., moreover, is added, not as an object to εὑρέθη, but from the historical standpoint, to secure at once a correct judgment upon the ἐν γαστρὶ ἔχουσα (ἐθεράπευσε τὸν λόγον, Euth. Zigabenus).
REMARK.
As regards the conception of Jesus by a virgin, we have to notice the following points in their exegetical bearing:-(1) Mary was either a daughter of David (the common view), or she was not. See on Mat 1:17, Remark 2. In the first case, Jesus, whose divine generation is assumed, was, as Matthew and Luke relate, a descendant of David, although not through an unbroken line of male succession, but in such a way that His mother alone conveyed to Him the Davidic descent. But if Mary were not a daughter of David, then, by the divine conception, the possibility of Jesus being a descendant of David is simply excluded; because, on that view, the Davidite Joseph remains out of consideration, and this would be in contradiction not only with the statements of prophecy, but also with the unanimous testimony of the N. T. (2) As it is nowhere said or hinted in the N. T. that Mary was a descendant of David, we must assume that this is tacitly presupposed in the narratives of Matthew and Luke. But as a consequence of this supposition, the genealogical trees would lose all their importance, in so far as they are said to prove that Jesus was υἱὸς Δαυείδ (Mat 1:1). Joseph’s descent from David, upon which in reality nothing would turn, would be particularly pointed out; while Mary’s similar descent, upon which everything would depend, would remain unmentioned as being a matter of course, and would not be, even once, incidentally alluded to in what follows, say by θυγάτηρ Δαυείδ, as Joseph is at once addressed in Mat 1:20 as υἱὸς Δαυείδ. (3) Paul and Peter (Rom 1:3-4; Act 2:30 : ἐκ σπέρματος, ἐκ καρποῦ τῆς ὀσφύος; comp. 2Ti 2:8) designate the descent of Jesus from David in such a way, that without calling in the histories of the birth in the first and third Gospels, there is no occasion for deriving the Davidic descent from the mother, to the interruption of the male line of succession, for which Gal 4:4[358] also affords neither cause nor justification. Nowhere, moreover, where Paul speaks of the sending of the Son of God, and of His human yet sinless nature (2Co 5:21; Rom 8:3; Php 2:6 f.), does he betray any indication that he presupposes that divine conception.[359] (4) Just as little does John, whose expression ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο, although he was so intimate with Jesus and His mother, leaves the question as to the how of this ἐγένετο without a direct answer, indeed; but also, where Jesus is definitely designated by others as Joseph’s son, contributes no word of correction (Joh 1:46, Joh 6:42; comp. Joh 7:27),-nay, relates the self-designation “Son of a man” from Jesus’ own mouth (see on Joh 5:27), where the context does not allow us to refer ἀνθρώπου to His mother. (5) It is certain, further, that neither in Nazareth (Mat 13:55; Mar 6:3; Luk 4:22), nor in Capernaum (Joh 6:42), nor elsewhere in the neighbourhood (Joh 1:46), do we meet with such expressions, in which a knowledge of anything extraordinary in the descent of Jesus might be recognised; and in keeping with this also is the unbelief of His own brethren (Joh 7:3),-nay, even the behaviour and bearing of Mary (Mar 3:21; Mar 3:31; comp. on Mat 12:46-50; see also Luk 2:50 f.). (6) We have still to observe, that what is related in Mat 1:18 would obviously have greatly helped to support the suspicion and reproach of illegitimate birth, and yet nowhere throughout the N. T. is there found the slightest whisper of so hostile a report.[360] If, moreover, in the narratives of the first and third evangelists, angelic appearances occur, which, according to the connection of the history, mutually exclude each other (Strauss, I. p. 165 ff.; Keim, Gesch. Jesu, I. p. 362 ff.),-namely, in Matthew, after the conception, in order to give an explanation to Joseph; in Luke, before the conception, to make a disclosure to Mary,-nevertheless that divine conception itself might remain, and in and of itself be consistent therewith, if it were elsewhere certainly attested in the N. T., or if it could be demonstrated as being an undoubted presupposition, belonging to the conception of Christ as the Son of God.
[358] Certainly, in Rom 1:4, Paul expressly refers Christ’s relation to God as His Son to His πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης, not to His σάρξ. See on Rom 1:3. The supernatural generation is not a logical consequence of his system, as Weiss, bibl. Theol. p. 315, thinks. If Paul had conceived the propagation of sin as taking place by means of generation (which is probable, although he has not declared himself upon the point), he cannot, in so thinking,-after the history of the fall (2Co 11:3), and after Psa 51:7,-have regarded the woman’s share as a matter of indifference.
[359] We should all the more have expected this origin to have been stated by Paul, that he, on the one side, everywhere ascribes to Christ true and perfect humanity (Rom 5:15; 1Co 15:21, al.), and, on the other, so often gives prominence to His elevation above sinful humanity; for which reason he also designates the σάρξ of Christ-which was human, and yet was not, as in other men, the seat of sin-as ὁμοίωμα σαρκὸς ἁμαρτίας (Rom 8:3), with which Heb 2:14; Heb 2:17 also agrees.
[360] The generation (nay, according to Luk 2:5, the birth also) before the marriage was concluded is necessarily connected with faith in the divine generation. The reproach of illegitimate birth was not raised by the Jews until a later time (Origen, c. Celsum, 1:28), as a hostile and base inference from the narratives of Matthew and Luke. Thilo, ad Cod. Apocr. I. p. 526 f. They called Jesus a Mamser [i.e. one born in incest]. See Eisenmenger, Entdeckt. Judenth. I p. 105 ff.
Taking into account all that precedes, it is clear, in the first place, that the doctrine which became dominant in the church, in opposition to all Ebionitism, of the birth of Jesus Christ from a virgin, is indeed fully justified on exegetical grounds by the preliminary history in Matthew and Luke; but that, secondly, apart from the preliminary history, no glimpse of this doctrine appears anywhere in the N. T.,-nay, that elsewhere in the N. T. it has to encounter considerable difficulties of an exegetical kind, without, however, breaking down before physiological or theological impossibilities (in answer to Strauss). Exegetically, therefore, the proposition of faith, that in Jesus the only-begotten Son of God entered as man into humanity, cannot be made to depend upon the conception, which is recorded only in Matthew and Luke,[361] but must also, irrespective of the latter, remain fast and immutable in its full and real meaning of the incarnation of the divine Logos, which took place, and takes place, in no other; so that that belief cannot be made to depend on the manner in which Jesus was conceived, and in which the Spirit of God acted at the very commencement of His human existence. And this not merely for exegetical, but also for dogmatical reasons, since the incarnation of the Son of God is by no means to be subjected to the rule of universal sinful origin (Joh 3:6) in fallen humanity (by which His whole redemptive work would be reduced to nothing); and which indeed must also-considering the supernatural conception-be conceived as exempted on the mother’s side from this rule of traducianism.[362]
[361] The comparison with heathen παρθενογενεῖς, called παρθένιοι in Homer, such as Buddha, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Plato, Romulus (see the literature in Hase, Leb. Jesu, § 27 a), should have been here left entirely out of consideration,-partly because they belong, for the most part, to an entirely foreign sphere of life, have no analogies in the N. T., and amount to apotheoses ex eventu (Origen, c. Celsum, 1:37); partly because so many of the παρθένιοι are only the fruits of the lust of the gods (see Homer, Ilias, 16:180 ff.). Far too much weight has been attached to them, and far too much has been transferred to them from the Christian idea of the Son of God, when the thought is found expressed in them that nothing can come forth by the way of natural generation which would correspond to the ideal of the human mind, Olshausen, Neander, Krabbe, Schmid, bibl. Theol. I. p. 43; Döllinger, Heidenth. u. Judenth. p. 256.
[362] Comp. Schleiermacher, Christl. Glaube, § 97, p. 64 ff., and Leben Jesu, p. 60 ff. Too much is asserted, when (see also Gess, Pers. Christ. p. 218 f.) the limitation is imposed upon the divine counsel and will, that the freedom of Jesus from original sin must necessarily presuppose the divine conception in the womb of the Virgin. The incarnation of the Logos is, once for all, a mystery of a peculiar kind; the fact is as certain and clear of itself as the manner in which it took place by way of human birth is veiled in mystery, and is in no way determinable à priori. This is also in answer to Philippi’s assertion (Dogmatik, IV. 1, p. 153, ed. 2), that the idea of the God-man stands or falls with that of the birth from a virgin,-a dangerous but erroneous dilemma. Dangerous, because Mary was not free from original sin; erroneous, because God could also have brought about the incarnation of the Logos without original sin in some other way than by a birth from a virgin.
Mat 1:19. Ἀνήρ] Although only her betrothed, yet, from the standpoint of the writers, designated as her husband. The common assumption of a proleptic designation (Gen 29:21) is therefore unfounded. It is different with τὴν γυναῖκά σου in Mat 1:20.
δίκαιος] not: aequus et benignus. So (after Chrysostom and Jerome) Euth. Zigabenus (διὰ τὴν πρᾳότητα καὶ ἀγαθωσύνην), Luther, Grotius, Kuinoel, Fritzsche, B.-Crusius, Bleek. For δίκαιος, like צַדַּיק, means generally, he who is as he ought to be (Hermann, ad Soph. Ajac. 543; Kühner, ad Xen. Memor. iv. 4. 5; Gesen. Thes. III. p. 1151); therefore rightly constituted, and, in a narrower sense, just, but never kind, although kindness, compassion, and the like may be in given cases the concrete form in which the δικαιοσύνη expresses itself. Here, according to the context, it denotes the man who acts in a strictly legal manner. Δίκαιος down to δειγματίσαι contains two concurring motives. Joseph was an upright man according to the law, and could not therefore make up his mind to retain Mary, as she was pregnant without him; at the same time he could not bring himself to abandon her publicly; he therefore resolved to adopt the middle way, and dismiss her secretly. Observe the emphasis of λάθρα.
δειγματίσαι] to expose; see on Col 2:15. Here the meaning is: to expose to public shame. This, however, does not refer to the punishment of stoning (Deu 22:23), which was to be inflicted; nor to a judicial accusation generally (the common view), because δειγματίσαι must mean a kind of dismissal opposed to that denoted by λάθρα; comp. de Wette. Therefore: he did not wish to compromise her, which would have been the result had he given her a letter of divorce, and thus dismissed her φανερῶς.
λάθρα] secretly, in private, i.e. by means of a secret, private interview, without a letter of divorce. This would, indeed, have been in opposition to the law in Deu 24:1, which applied also to betrothed persons (Maimonides, Tract. אישוֹת, c. 1; Wetstein in loc.; Philo, de leg. spec. p. 788); but he saw himself liable to a collision between the two cases,-of either, in these circumstances, retaining the bride, or of exposing her to public censure by a formal dismissal; and from this no more legal way of escape presented itself than that on which he might with the more propriety lay hold, that the law itself in Deut. l.c. speaks only of married persons, not of betrothed. De Wette thinks, indeed, of dismissal by a letter of divorcement, but under arrangements providing for secrecy. But the letter of divorce of itself, as it was a public document (see Saalschütz, M. R. p. 800 ff.; Ewald, Alterth. p. 272 [E. T. p. 203 ff.]), is in contradiction with the λάθρα.
On the distinction between θέλω and βούλομαι,-the former of which expresses willing in general, the action of the will, of the inclination, of desire, etc., in general; while βούλομαι denotes a carefully weighed self-determination,-see Buttmann, Lexil. I. p. 26 ff. [E. T., Fishlake, p. 194 ff.], partly corrected by Ellendt, Lex. Soph. I. p. 316. Observe the aorist ἐβουλήθη: he adopted the resolution.
Mat 1:20. Ἰδού] as in Hebrew and in Greek writers, directs attention quickly to an object brought into view. Very frequent in Matthew.
κατʼ ὄναρ] in somnis, Vulg., Virg. Aen. ii. 270; ἐν ὀνείροις, Niceph. Schol. in Synes. p. 442. Frequent in later Greek, but not in the LXX. and Apocrypha; rejected by Photius, p. 149. 25, as βάρβαρον; amongst the old writers, commonly only ὄναρ. See Phrynichus, ed. Lobeck, p. 423 f.; κατά serves to designate the manner and way, and yields the adverbial meaning, in a dream, ὄψις ὀνείρου ἐν τῷ ὕπνῳ, Herod. i. 38. The appearance of the angel was an appearance in a dream; see Kühner, II. 1, p. 413. It might denote the time, if, as in Joseph. Antiq. xi. 9. 3, κατὰ τοὺς ὕπνους, or καθʼ ὕπνον (Gen 20:6), had been employed. Express visions in dreams in the N. T. are related only by Matthew. Comp. besides, Act 2:17.
υἱὸς Δ.] The reason of this address (nominative, see Kühner, II. 1, p. 43) is not difficult to see (de Wette); it is highly natural in the case of the angel, because he has to bring news of the Messiah. B.-Crusius says too little: Joseph is so addressed as one favoured by God, or, as he for whom something miraculous was quite appropriate. Fritzsche says too much: “ut ad Mariam ducendam promtiorem redderet.” The former neglects the special connection, the latter imports a meaning.
τὴν γυναῖκά σου] apposition to Μαριάμ: the Mary, who is thy wife: in which proleptic designation there lies an element stating the cause. This view (in answer to Fritzsche, who explains: Mary, as thy wife) is required by Mat 1:24.
ἐν αὐτῇ) not for ἐξ αὐτῆς, but also not to be translated, with Fritzsche: per eam, as ἐν with persons is never merely instrumental, and as the context (Mat 1:18 : ἐν γαστρὶ ἔχουσα ἐκ. πν. ἁγ.) demands a different rendering; but, quite literally, in utero Mariae, that which has been begotten in her.
The neuter places the embryo still under the impersonal, material point of view. Comp., first, Mat 1:21 : τέξεται δὲ υἱόν. See Wetstein, and on Luk 1:35.
ἐκ πν. ἐστιν ἁγίου] proceeds from the Holy Ghost as author, by whom, accordingly, your suspicions are removed. Observe the emphatic position, which lays the determining emphasis upon πνεύματος, in opposition to sexual intercourse. Upon the distinction between ἐνθυμεῖσθαι with the genitive (rationem habere alic. rei) and the accusative (“when he had considered this”), see Kühner, ad Xen. Memorabilia, i. 1. 17; Krüger on Thucyd. i. 42. 1.
Mat 1:21. Τέξεται δέ] and she will bear. “Non additur tibi, ut additur de Zacharia, Luk 1:13,” Bengel.
Καλέσεις … Ἰησοῦν] literally: thou wilt call His name “Jesus.” Comp. LXX. Gen 17:19; 1Sa 1:20; Mat 1:23; Mat 1:25; Luk 1:13; Luk 1:31; Luk 2:21. Exactly so in Hebrew: קרא אֶת־שְׁמוֹ. The Greeks, however, would say: καλέσεις τὸ ὄνομα αὐτὸν (or also αὐτῷ) Ἰησοῦν; Matthiae, p. 935 [E. T., Kenrick, p. 675 ff.]; Heindorf, ad Plat. Phaedr. p. 238 A.
καλέσεις] the future serves in classical writers to denote the softened idea of the imperative. Bernhardy, p. 378; Kühner, II. 1, p. 149. In the LXX. and in the N. T. it is especially used of divine injunctions, and denotes thereby the imperative sense apodeictically, because it supposes the undoubted certainty of the result; comp. Winer, p. 296 [E. T. 396 f.]. So also here, where a divine command is issued. When Fritzsche would here retain the proper conception of the future, it becomes a mere prediction, less appropriate in the connection; for it is less in keeping with the design of the angelic annunciation, according to which the bestowal and interpretation of the name Jesus is referred to a divine causality, and consequently the genus of the name itself must, most naturally, appear as commanded.
αὐτός] He and no other.
τὸν λαὸν αὐτοῦ] The people of Israel: because for these first, and then also for the heathen, was the Messiah and His work intended, Joh 4:22; Rom 1:16; Gal 3:14. As certainly, moreover, as the manner and fashion in which the promised one was to accomplish the salvation, and by means of His redemptive work has accomplished it, is to be conceived as being present to the eye of God at the sending of this news, as certainly must Joseph be conceived as regarding it only in its national definiteness, consequently as referring to the theocratic liberation and prosperity of the people (comp. Luk 1:68 ff.), along with which, however, the religious and moral renewal also was regarded as necessary; which renewal must have presupposed the antecedent forgiveness of sin (Luk 1:77). ἁμαρτιῶν, therefore, is to be taken, not as punishment of sin, but, as always, simply as sins.
αὐτοῦ, not to be written αὑτοῦ (for the angel speaks of Him as a third person, and without any antithesis): His people, for they belong to the Messiah, comp. Joh 1:11; on the plural αὐτῶν, see Buttmann, neut. Gr. p. 114 [E. T. 130].
Mat 1:22-23. No longer the words of the angel (in answer to Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, Paulus, Arnoldi), but of the evangelist, who continues his historical narrative, and that with a pragmatic observation, which serves to advance his object. Comp. Mat 21:4, Mat 26:56
ἵνα is never ἐκβατικόν: so that (Kuinoel and older interpreters), but always τελικόν: in order that; it presupposes here that what was done stood in the connection of purpose with the O. T. declaration, and consequently in the connection of the divine necessity, as an actual fact, by which the prophecy was destined to be fulfilled. The divine decree, expressed in the latter, must be accomplished, and to that end, this, namely, which is related from Mat 1:18 onwards, came to pass, and that according to the whole of its contents (ὅλον). The prophecy itself is Isa 7:14 according to the LXX., without any essential variation.
ἡ παρθένος corresponds here to הָעַלְמָה, which denotes an unmarried young woman of nubile years, not also a young woman (for which Pro 30:19 is erroneously appealed to by Gesenius and Knobel). See Hengstenberg, Christol. II. p. 53 ff. On the other hand, בְּתוּלָה means virgin in the strict sense of the word. The evangelist, nevertheless, interpreting the passage according to its Messianic destination, understands the pregnant Mary as a real virgin. Here we have to observe that such interpretations of O. T. passages are not to be referred to any principle of accommodation to the views of the time, nor even to a mere occasional application, but express the typical reference, and therewith the prophetic meaning, which the N. T. writers actually recognised in the relative passages of the O. T. And in so doing, the nearest, i.e. the historical meaning of these passages in and of itself, did not rule the interpretation, but the concrete Messianic contents according to their historical definiteness a posteriori-from their actual fulfilment-yielded themselves to them as that which the Spirit of God in the prophecies had had in view as the ideal theocratic subject-matter of the forms which they assumed in the history of the time. Comp. Riehm in the Stud. u. Kritik. 1869, p. 272 f. [E. T., Clark, Edin. 1876, p. 160 ff.]. The act by which they saw them Messianically fulfilled, i.e. their Messianic contents become an accomplished fact, was recognised by them as lying in the purpose of God, when the declaration in question was spoken or written, and therefore as “eventum non modo talem, qui propter veritatem divinam non potuerit non subsequi ineunte N. T.,” Bengel. This Messianic method of understanding the O. T. in the New, which they adopted, had its justification not merely in the historically necessary connection in which the N. T. writers stood to the popular method of viewing the O. T. in their day, and to its typological freedom of exposition, but as it had its justification also generally in the truth that the idea of the Messiah pervades the whole of the prophecies of the O. T., and is historically realized in Christ; so also, in particular, in the holy guidance of the Spirit, under which they, especially the apostles, were able to recognise, both as a whole as well as in details, the relation of prophecy to its N. T. fulfilment, and consequently the preformations of Christian facts and doctrines, as God, in conformity with His plan of salvation, had caused them to take a beginning in the O. T., although this result was marked by varying degrees of certainty and of clearness of typological tact among the individual writers. Although, according to this view, the N. T. declarations regarding the fulfilment of prophecies are to be presupposed as generally having accuracy and truth on their side, nevertheless the possibility of erroneous and untenable applications in individual instances, in accordance with the hermeneutical licence of that age, is thereby so little excluded, that an unprejudiced examination upon the basis of the original historical sense is always requisite. This way of estimating those declarations, as it does justice on the one side to their importance and ethical nature, so on the other it erects the necessary barrier against all arbitrary typological hankering, which seeks to find a connection between prophecy and fulfilment, between type and antitype, where the N. T. has not attested the existence of such. Comp. also Düsterdieck, de rei prophet. natura ethica, Gottingen 1852, p. 79 ff. In reference to types and prophecies generally, we must certainly say with the N. T.: τούτῳ πάντες οἱ προφῆται μαρτυροῦσιν κ.τ.λ., Act 10:43, but not with the Rabbins: “Omnes prophetae in universum non prophetarunt nisi de diebus Messiae,” Sanhedrin, f. 99, 1. As regards Isa 7:14,[363] the historical sense is to the effect that the prophet, by his promise of a sign, desires to prevent Ahab from begging the aid of the Assyrians against the confederated Syrians and Ephraimites. The promise itself does not indeed refer directly, by means of an “ideal anticipation,” to Mary and Jesus (Hengstenberg), but neither also to the wife of the prophet (Gesenius, Knobel, Olshausen, Keim, Schenkel, and others; comp. also Tholuck, das A. T. in N. T. p. 43, ed. 6), nor to any other mother elsewhere of an ordinary child (Stähelin, H. Schultz), but to the mother-who at the time when the prophecy was uttered was still a virgin-of the expected theocratic Saviour, i.e. the Messiah,[364] the idea of whom lives in the prophetic consciousness, but has attained its complete historic realization in Jesus Christ. See especially Ewald on Isaiah, p. 339 f., ed. 2; Umbreit in the Stud. u. Kritik. 1855, p. 573 ff.; Bertheau in the Jahrb. f. Deutsche Theologie, 1859, 4; Drechsler on Isaiah, l.c.; Delitzsch; Oehler in Herzog’s Encykl. IX. p. 415; Engelhardt, l.c. That we might, however, from the consideration of the fulfilment of the prophetic oracle, accomplished in the birth of Jesus from a virgin, find in the word עלמה the mother of the Messiah designated as a virgin, follows, as a matter of course, from the meaning of עלמה, which by no means excludes the idea of virginity, and was not first rendered possible by the ΠΑΡΘΈΝΟς of the LXX., by means of the “subtleties of Jewish Christians” (Keim), and this all the less that even ΠΑΡΘΈΝΟς also in Greek does not always denote virgin in the strict sense, but also “nuptas et devirginatas.” See Ellendt, Lex. Soph. II. p. 210. Matthew might also just as well have made use of νεᾶνις, which Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus employ.
On the article, Bengel appropriately remarks: “ex specula divinae praescientiae singularem demonstrandi vim habet;” she who is present to the prophet’s eye is intended.
καλέσουσι] they will call. The LXX. incorrectly gives ΚΑΛΈΣΕΙς. The evangelist generalizes the third person singular of the original Hebrew into the plural.
ἘΜΜΑΝΟΥΉΛ] עִמָּנוּ אֵל, God is with us, which symbolical name, according to the historical sense in the prophet, derives its significance from the saving by divine help from the destruction threatened by the war in question, but, according to its Messianic fulfilment, which the evangelist now sees beginning, has the same essential meaning as the name Jesus. The ΚΑΛΈΣΟΥΣΙ ΤῸ ὌΝΟΜΑ ΑὐΤΟῦ ἘΜΜΑΝΟΥΉΛ corresponds to the ΚΑΛΈΣΕΙς ΤῸ ὌΝΟΜ. ΑὐΤΟῦ ἸΗΣΟῦΝ (Mat 1:21), and therefore the translator of the Gospel has added the interpretation of the significant name. The Fathers of the church (Hilary, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Lactantius), and expositors like Calvin, Flacius, Maldonatus, Jansen, Schegg, interpreted it of the divine nature in Christ. In the divine nature of the Lord as the Son of God is found the divine help and safety, which make up the meaning of the name (Jerome), its dogmatic foundation in the developed Christian consciousness, as the latter is certainly to be assumed in the evangelists Matthew (Mat 1:20) and Luke (Luk 1:35), according to whom, as a consequence of the superhuman generation, the superhuman character, not merely the Messianic vocation, is to come forth.
[363] Comp. H. Schultz, alttest. Theolog. II. p. 244 ff.; Engelhardt in the Luther. Zeitschrift, 1872, p. 601 ff.
[364] Hofmann has corrected his earlier explanation (Weissagung und Erfüllung, I. p. 221) in point of grammar (Schriftbeweis, II. I, p. 85), but not in accordance with the meaning. He sees in the son of the virgin mother the Israel which does not arise in the way of a natural continuation of the present, but in a miraculous manner, to which God again turns in mercy. In the person of Jesus this Israel of the future of salvation takes its beginning; while that which in Isaiah was figurative language, is now realized in the proper sense. With greater weight and clearness Kahnis (Dogmatik, I. p. 345 f.) remarks: The Virgin and Immanuel are definite but ideal persons. The latter is the Israel of the future according to its ideal side; the Virgin, the Israel of the present and of the past according to its ideal side, in accordance with which its vocation is, by virtue of the Spirit of God, to give birth to the holy seed; this Israel will one day come to its true realization in a virgin, who will be the mother of the Messiah. Substantially similar also is the view of W. Schultz in the Stud. u. Kritik. 1861, p. 713 ff., who understands by the Virgin the quiet ones in the land, the better portion of the community who are truly susceptible of the working of the Lord. But the whole style of expression, and the connection in the context farther on, are throughout not of such a character that in the Virgin and her son, ideal, and indeed collective persons, should have been present, first of all, to the prophet’s view. I must continue, even after the objections of Hengstenberg, Tholuck, W. Schultz, H. Schultz, and others, to regard Ewald’s view as the right one.
Mat 1:24. Ἀπὸ τοῦ ὕπνου] from the sleep in which he had had the vision.
καὶ παρέλ.] The course of the thought proceeds simply, without any participial construction, by means of the epexegetic and.
Mat 1:25. Ἐγίνωσκεν] He had no sexual intercourse with her (imperfect). In this sense ידע is used by the Hebrews, and γινώσκειν by the Greeks of a later age (often in Plutarch); also the Latin novi and cognosco (Justin, v. 2, xxvii. 3; Ovid. Meta. iv. 594; comp. Caesar, de bello Gallico, vi. 21 : feminae notitiam habuisse). See Wetstein and Kypke. Since Epiphanius, Jerome, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Luther, Calvin, very many expositors have maintained, with a view to support the perpetual virginity of Mary, but in opposition to the straightforward and impartial character of the narrative, that Joseph, even after the birth of Jesus, had no sexual intercourse with Mary.[365]
But (1) from ἕως οὗ of itself no inference can be drawn either in favour of or against such a view, as in all statements with “until” the context alone must decide whether, with regard to that which had not formerly occurred, it is or is not intended to convey that it afterwards took place. But (2) that it is here conceived as subsequently taking place, is so clear of itself to every unprejudiced reader from the idea of the marriage arrangement, that Matthew must have expressed the thought, “not only until-but afterwards also he had not,” if such had been his meaning. That he did not, however, mean this is clearly shown (3) by his use of πρωτότοκον, which is neither equivalent to ΠΡῶΤΟς ΚΑῚ ΜΌΝΟς (Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus), nor does it designate the first-born, without assuming others born afterwards (so formerly most expositors). The latter meaning is untenable, because the evangelist employed πρωτότοκον as an historian, from the standpoint of the time when his Gospel was composed, and consequently could not have used it had Jesus been present to his historical consciousness as the only son of Mary. But Jesus, according to Matthew (Mat 12:46 ff., Mat 13:55 f.), had also brothers and sisters, amongst whom He was the firstborn. Lucian’s remark (Demonax, 29), speaking of Agathocles, is correct: εἰ μὲν πρῶτος, οὐ μόνος· εἰ δὲ μόνος, οὐ πρῶτος. (4) All a priori suppositions are untenable, from which the perpetual virginity of Mary is said to appear,-such as that of Euth. Zigabenus: πῶς ἂν ἐπεχείρησεν, ἢ καὶ ὅλως ἐνεθυμήθη γνῶναι τὴν συλλαβοῦσαν ἐκ πνεύματος ἁγίου καὶ τοιοῦτον δοχεῖον γεγενημένην; of Olshausen: “it is manifest that Joseph, after such experiences, might with good reason believe that his marriage with Mary was intended for another purpose than that of begetting children.” Hofmann has the correct meaning (Schriftbeweis, II. 2, p. 405), so also Thiersch, Wieseler, Bleek, Ewald, Laurent, neut. Stud. p. 153 ff., Schenkel, Keim, Kahnis, I. p. 426 f. Comp. on the passage before us, Diogenes Laertius, 3:22, where it is said of Plato’s father: ὅθεν καθαρὰν γάμου φυλάξαι ἕως τῆς ἀποκυήσεως; see also Wetstein; Paulus, exeget. Handb. I. p. 168 f.; Strauss, I. p. 209 ff.
ἐκάλεσε] is not to be referred to Mary, so that ἝΩς ΟὟ ἜΤΕΚΕ … ΚΑῚ ἘΚΆΛΕΣΕ would be taken together, as Paulus, after some older interpreters, maintains, but to Joseph, as is certain after Mat 1:21; comp. Grotius.
[365] As a logical consequence of this supposition, Joseph was made to be a worn-out old man (Thilo, ad cod. Apocr. I. p. 361; Keim, Gesch. Jes. I. p. 365), and his children were regarded either as children of a former marriage (Origen, Epiphanius, and many other Fathers), or the brothers of Jesus were transformed into cousins (Jerome). Of any advanced age in the case of Joseph there is no trace in the N. T. In Joh 6:42, the Jews express themselves in such a way that Joseph might be conceived as still alive at the time.
As all are not agreed about these two genealogies, which are given by Matthew and Luke, we must first see whether both trace the genealogy of Christ from Joseph, or whether Matthew only traces it from Joseph, and Luke from Mary. Those who are of this latter opinion have a plausible ground for their distinction in the diversity of the names: and certainly, at first sight, nothing seems more improbable than that Matthew and Luke, who differ so widely from each other, give one and the same genealogy. For from David to Salathiel, and again from Zerubbabel till Joseph, the names are totally different.
Again, it is alleged, that it would have been idle to bestow so great pains on a thing of no use, in relating a second time the genealogy of Joseph, who after all was not the father of Christ. “Why this repetition,” say they, “which proves nothing that contributes much to the edification of faith? If nothing more be known than this, that Joseph was one of the descendants and family of David, the genealogy of Christ will still remain doubtful.” In their opinion, therefore, it would have been superfluous that two Evangelists should apply themselves to this subject. They excuse Matthew for laying down the ancestry of Joseph, on the ground, that he did it for the sake of many persons, who were still of opinion that he was the father of Christ. But it would have been foolish to hold out such an encouragement to a dangerous error: and what follows is at total variance with the supposition. For as soon as he comes to the close of the genealogy, Matthew points out that Christ was conceived in the womb of the virgin, not from the seed of Joseph, but by the secret power of the Spirit. If their argument were good, Matthew might be charged with folly or inadvertence, in laboring to no purpose to establish the genealogy of Joseph.
But we have not yet replied to their objection, that the ancestry of Joseph has nothing to do with Christ. The common and well-known reply is, that in the person of Joseph the genealogy of Mary also is included, because the law enjoined every man to marry from his own tribe. It is objected, on the other hand, that at almost no period had that law been observed: but the arguments on which that assertion rests are frivolous. They quote the instance of the eleven tribes binding themselves by an oath, that they would not give a wife to the Benjamites, (Jud 21:1.) If this matter, say they, had been settled by law, there would have been no need for a new enactment. I reply, this extraordinary occurrence is erroneously and ignorantly converted by them into a general rule: for if one tribe had been cut off, the body of the people must have been incomplete if some remedy had not been applied to a case of extreme necessity. We must not, therefore, look to this passage for ascertaining the common law.
Again, it is objected, that Mary, the mother of Christ, was Elisabeth’s cousin, though Luke has formerly stated that she was of the daughters of Aaron, (Luk 1:5.) The reply is easy. The daughters of the tribe of Judah, or of any other tribe, were at liberty to marry into the tribe of the priesthood: for they were not prevented by that reason, which is expressed in the law, that no woman should “remove her inheritance” to those who were of a different tribe from her own, (Num 36:6.) Thus, the wife of Jehoiada, the high priest, is declared by the sacred historian to have belonged to the royal family, —
“Jehoshabeath, the daughter of Jehoram,
the wife of Jehoiada the priest,”
(2Ch 22:11.)
It was, therefore, nothing wonderful or uncommon, if the mother of Elisabeth were married to a priest. Should any one allege, that this does not enable us to decide, with perfect certainty, that Mary was of the same tribe with Joseph, because she was his wife, I grant that the bare narrative, as it stands, would not prove it without the aid of other circumstances.
But, in the first place, we must observe, that the Evangelists do not speak of events known in their own age. When the ancestry of Joseph had been carried up as far as David, every one could easily make out the ancestry of Mary. The Evangelists, trusting to what was generally understood in their own day, were, no doubt, less solicitous on that point: for, if any one entertained doubts, the research was neither difficult nor tedious. (85) Besides, they took for granted, that Joseph, as a man of good character and behavior, had obeyed the injunction of the law in marrying a wife from his own tribe. That general rule would not, indeed, be sufficient to prove Mary’s royal descent; for she might have belonged to the tribe of Judah, and yet not have been a descendant of the family of David.
My opinion is this. The Evangelists had in their eye godly persons, who entered into no obstinate dispute, but in the person of Joseph acknowledged the descent of Mary; particularly since, as we have said, no doubt was entertained about it in that age. One matter, however, might appear incredible, that this very poor and despised couple belonged to the posterity of David, and to that royal seed, from which the Redeemer was to spring. If any one inquire whether or not the genealogy traced by Matthew and Luke proves clearly and beyond controversy that Mary was descended from the family of David, I own that it cannot be inferred with certainty; but as the relationship between Mary and Joseph was at that time well known, the Evangelists were more at ease on that subject. Meanwhile, it was the design of both Evangelists to remove the stumbling-block arising from the fact, that both Joseph and Mary were unknown, and despised, and poor, and gave not the slightest indication of royalty.
Again, the supposition that Luke passes by the descent of Joseph, and relates that of Mary, is easily refuted; for he expressly says, that Jesus was supposed to be the son of Joseph, etc. Certainly, neither the father nor the grandfather of Christ is mentioned, but the ancestry of Joseph himself is carefully explained. I am well aware of the manner in which they attempt to solve this difficulty. The word son, they allege, is put for son-in-law, and the interpretation they give to Joseph being called the son of Heli is, that he had married Heli’s daughter. But this does not agree with the order of nature, and is nowhere countenanced by any example in Scripture.
If Solomon is struck out of Mary’s genealogy, Christ will no longer be Christ; for all inquiry as to his descent is founded on that solemn promise,
“I will set up thy seed after thee; I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son,”
(2Sa 7:12.)
“The Lord hath sworn in truth unto David; he will not turn from it; Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne,”
(Psa 132:11.)
Solomon was, beyond controversy, the type of this eternal King who was promised to David; nor can the promise be applied to Christ, except in so far as its truth was shadowed out in Solomon, (1Ch 28:5.) Now if the descent is not traced to him, how, or by what argument, shall he be proved to be “the son of David”? Whoever expunges Solomon from Christ’s genealogy does at the same time, obliterate and destroy those promises by which he must be acknowledged to be the son of David. In what way Luke, tracing the line of descent from Nathan, does not exclude Solomon, will afterwards be seen at the proper place.
Not to be too tedious, those two genealogies agree substantially with each other, but we must attend to four points of difference. The first is; Luke ascends by a retrograde order, from the last to the first, while Matthew begins with the source of the genealogy. The second is; Matthew does not carry his narrative beyond the holy and elect race of Abraham, (86) while Luke proceeds as far as Adam. The third is; Matthew treats of his legal descent, and allows himself to make some omissions in the line of ancestors, choosing to assist the reader’s memory by arranging them under three fourteens; while Luke follows the natural descent with greater exactness. The fourth and last is; when they are speaking of the same persons, they sometimes give them different names.
It would be superfluous to say more about the first point of difference, for it presents no difficulty. The second is not without a very good reason: for, as God had chosen for himself the family of Abraham, from which the Redeemer of the world would be born, and as the promise of salvation had been, in some sort, shut up in that family till the coming of Christ, Matthew does not pass beyond the limits which God had prescribed. We must attend to what Paul says,
“that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers,”
(Rom 15:8)
with which agrees that saying of Christ, “Salvation is of the Jews,” (Joh 4:22.) Matthew, therefore, presents him to our contemplation as belonging to that holy race, to which he had been expressly appointed. In Matthew’s catalogue we must look at the covenant of God, by which he adopted the seed of Abraham as his people, separating them, by a “middle wall of partition,” (Eph 2:14,) from the rest of the nations. Luke directed his view to a higher point; for though, from the time that God had made his covenant with Abraham, a Redeemer was promised, in a peculiar manner, to his seed, yet we know that, since the transgression of the first man, all needed a Redeemer, and he was accordingly appointed for the whole world. It was by a wonderful purpose of God, that Luke exhibited Christ to us as the son of Adam, while Matthew confined him within the single family of Abraham. For it would be of no advantage to us, that Christ was given by the Father as “the author of eternal salvations” (Heb 5:9,) unless he had been given indiscriminately to all. Besides, that saying of the Apostle would not be true, that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever,” (Heb 13:8,) if his power and grace had not reached to all ages from the very creation of the world. Let us know; therefore, that to the whole human race there has been manifested and exhibited salvation through Christ; for not without reason is he called the son of Noah, and the son of Adam. But as we must seek him in the word of God, the Spirit wisely directs us, through another Evangelist, to the holy race of Abraham, to whose hands the treasure of eternal life, along with Christ, was committed for a time, (Rom 3:1.)
We come now to the third point of difference. Matthew and Luke unquestionably do not observe the same order; for immediately after David the one puts Solomon, and the other, Nathan; which makes it perfectly clear that they follow different lines. This sort of contradiction is reconciled by good and learned interpreters in the following manner. Matthew, departing from the natural lineage, which is followed by Luke, reckons up the legal genealogy. I call it the legal genealogy, because the right to the throne passed into the hands of Salathiel. Eusebius, in the first book of his Ecclesiastical History, adopting the opinion of Africanus, prefers applying the epithet legal to the genealogy which is traced by Luke. But it amounts to the same thing: for he means nothing more than this, that the kingdom, which had been established in the person of Solomon, passed in a lawful manner to Salathiel. But it is more correct and appropriate to say, that Matthew has exhibited the legal order: because, by naming Solomon immediately after David, he attends, not to the persons from whom in a regular line, according to the flesh, Christ derived his birth, but to the manner in which he was descended from Solomon and other kings, so as to be their lawful successor, in whose hand God would “stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever,” (2Sa 7:13.)
There is probability in the opinion that, at the death of Ahaziah, the lineal descent from Solomon was closed. As to the command given by David — for which some persons quote the authority of Jewish Commentators — that should the line from Solomon fail, the royal power would pass to the descendants of Nathan, I leave it undetermined; holding this only for certain, that the succession to the kingdom was not confused, but regulated by fixed degrees of kindred. Now, as the sacred history relates that, after the murder of Ahaziah, the throne was occupied, and all the seed-royal destroyed “by his mother Athaliah, (2Kg 11:1,) it is more than probable that this woman, from an eager desire of power, had perpetrated those wicked and horrible murders that she might not be reduced to a private rank, and see the throne transferred to another. If there had been a son of Ahaziah still alive, the grandmother would willingly have been allowed to reign in peace, without envy or danger, under the mask of being his tutor. When she proceeds to such enormous crimes as to draw upon herself infamy and hatred, it is a proof of desperation arising from her being unable any longer to keep the royal authority in her house.
As to Joash being called “the son of Ahaziah,” (2Ch 22:11,) the reason is, that he was the nearest relative, and was justly considered to be the true and direct heir of the crown. Not to mention that Athaliah (if we shall suppose her to be his grandmother) would gladly have availed herself of her relation to the child, will any person of ordinary understanding think it probable, that an actual son of the king could be so concealed by “Jehoiada the priest,” as not to excite the grandmother to more diligent search? If all is carefully weighed, there will be no hesitation in concluding, that the next heir of the crown belonged to a different line. And this is the meaning of Jehoiada’s words,
“ Behold, the king’s son shall reign, as the Lord hath said of the sons of David,”
(2Ch 23:3.)
He considered it to be shameful and intolerable, that a woman, who was a stranger by blood, should violently seize the scepter, which God had commanded to remain in the family of David.
There is no absurdity in supposing, that Luke traces the descent of Christ from Nathan: for it is possible that the line of Solomon, so far as relates to the succession of the throne, may have been broken off. It may be objected, that Jesus cannot be acknowledged as the promised Messiah, if he be not a descendant of Solomon, who was an undoubted type of Christ But the answer is easy. Though he was not naturally descended from Solomon, yet he was reckoned his son by legal succession, because he was descended from kings.
The fourth point of difference is the great diversity of the names. Many look upon this as a great difficulty: for from David till Joseph, with the exception of Salathiel and Zerubbabel, none of the names are alike in the two Evangelists. The excuse commonly offered, that the diversity arose from its being very customary among the Jews to have two names, appears to many persons not quite satisfactory. But as we are now unacquainted with the method, which was followed by Matthew in drawing up and arranging the genealogy, there is no reason to wonder, if we are unable to determine how far both of them agree or differ as to individual names. It cannot be doubted that, after the Babylonish captivity, the same persons are mentioned under different names. In the case of Salathiel and Zerubbabel, the same names, I think, were purposely retained, on account of the change which had taken place in the nation: because the royal authority was then extinguished. Even while a feeble shadow of power remained, a striking change was visible, which warned believers, that they ought to expect another and more excellent kingdom than that of Solomon, which had flourished but for a short time.
It is also worthy of remark, that the additional number in Luke’s catalogue to that of Matthew is nothing strange; for the number of persons in the natural line of descent is usually greater than in the legal line. Besides, Matthew chose to divide the genealogy of Christ into three departments, and to make each department to contain fourteen persons. In this way, he felt himself at liberty to pass by some names, which Luke could not with propriety omit, not having restricted himself by that rule.
Thus have I discussed the genealogy of Christ, as far as it appeared to be generally useful. If any one is tickled (87) by a keener curiosity, I remember Paul’s admonition, and prefer sobriety and modesty to trifling and useless disputes. It is a noted passage, in which he enjoins us to avoid excessive keenness in disputing about “genealogies, as unprofitable and vain,” (Titus 3:9.)
It now remains to inquire, lastly, why Matthew included the whole genealogy of Christ in three classes, and assigned to each class fourteen persons. Those who think that he did so, in order to aid the memory of his readers, state a part of the reason, but not the whole. It is true, indeed, that a catalogue, divided into three equal numbers, is more easily remembered. But it is also evident that this division is intended to point out a threefold condition of the nation, from the time when Christ was promised to Abraham, to “the fullness of the time” (Gal 4:4) when he was “manifested in the flesh,” (1Ti 3:16.) Previous to the time of David, the tribe of Judah, though it occupied a higher rank than the other tribes, held no power. In David the royal authority burst upon the eyes of all with unexpected splendor, and remained till the time of Jeconiah. After that period, there still lingered in the tribe of Judah a portion of rank and government, which sustained the expectations of the godly till the coming of the Messiah.
1.The book of the generation Some commentators give themselves unnecessary trouble, in order to excuse Matthew for giving to his whole history this title, which applies only to the half of a single chapter. For this ἐπιγραφή, or title, does not extend to the whole book of Matthew: but the wordβίβλος , book, is put for catalogue: as if he had said, “Here follows the catalogue of the generation of Christ.” It is with reference to the promise, that Christ is called the son of David, the son of Abraham: for God had promised to Abraham that he would give him a seed, “in whom all the families of the earth should be blessed,” (Gen 12:3.) David received a still clearer promise, that God would “stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever,” (2Sa 7:13;) that one of his posterity would be king “as long as the sun and moon endure,” (Psa 72:5;) and that “his throne should be as the days of heaven,” (Psa 89:29.) And so it became a customary way of speaking among the Jews to call Christ the son of David
(85) “Il, leur estoit aise de le monstrer comme au doigt, et sans long ropos.” — “It was easy for them to point it out, as with the finger, and without a long story.”
(86) “Matthieu, en sa description, ne passe point plus haut qu'Abraham, qui a este le pere du peuple sainct et esleu.” — “Matthew, in his description, does not pass higher than Abraham, who was the father of the holy and elect people.”
(87) “Si quem titillat major curiositas.” — “S'il y a quelqu'un chatouille de curiosite qui en demande d'avantage.” — “If any one is tickled by a curiosity, which asks for more of it.”
2. Jacob begat Judah and his brethren While Matthew passes by in silence Ishmael, Abraham’s first-born, and Esau, who was Jacob’s elder brother, he properly assigns a place in the genealogy to the Twelve Patriarchs, on all of whom God had bestowed a similar favor of adoption. He therefore intimates, that the blessing promised in Christ does not refer to the tribe of Judah alone, but belongs equally to all the children of Jacob, whom God gathered into his Church, while Ishmael and Esau were treated as strangers. (88)
(88) “Quum essent extranei.” — “En lieu qu'Ismael et Esau en avoyent este rejettez et bannis comme estrangers.” — “Whereas Ishmael and Esau were thrown out and banished from it as strangers.”
3. Judah begat Pharez and Zarah by Tamar This was a prelude to that emptying of himself, (89) of which Paul speaks, (Phi 2:7). The Son of God might have kept his descent unspotted and pure from every reproach or mark of infamy. But he came into the world to
“empty himself, and take upon him the form of a servant,”
(Phi 2:7)
to be
“a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people,”
(Psa 22:6)
and at length to undergo the accursed death of the cross. He therefore did not refuse to admit a stain into his genealogy, arising from incestuous intercourse which took place among his ancestors. Though Tamar was not impelled by lust to seek connection with her father-in-law, yet it was in an unlawful manner that she attempted to revenge the injury which she had received. Judah again intended to commit fornication, and unknowingly to himself, met with his daughter-in-law. (90) But the astonishing goodness of God strove with the sin of both; so that, nevertheless, this adulterous seed came to possess the scepter. (91)
(89)᾿Αλλ ᾿ ἑαυτὸν ἐχένωσε, — but he emptied himself. Such is the literal import of the words which are rendered in the English version, But made himself of no reputation. —Ed.
(90) “In nurum suam incidit.” — “Judas a commis sa meschancete avec sa bru, pensant que ce fust une autre.” — “Judah committed his wickedness with his daughter-in-law, supposing her to be a different person”
(91) “Afin que neantmoins ceste semence bastarde vint a avoir un jour en main le scepter Royal.” — “So that nevertheless this bastard seed came to have one day in its hand the Royal scepter.”
6. Begat David the King In this genealogy, the designation of King is bestowed on David alone, because in his person God exhibited a type of the future leader of his people, the Messiah. The kingly office had been formerly held by Saul; but, as he reached it through tumult and the ungodly wishes of the people, the lawful possession of the office is supposed to have commenced with David, more especially in reference to the covenant of God, who promised that “his throne should be established for ever,” (2. a 7:16.) When the people shook off the yoke of God, and unhappily and wickedly asked a king, saying, “Give us a king to judge us,” (1. a 8:5,) Saul was granted for short time. But his kingdom was shortly afterwards established by God, as a pledge of true prosperity, in the hand of David. Let this expression, David the King, be understood by us as pointing out the prosperous condition of the people, which the Lord had appointed.
Meanwhile, the Evangelist adds a human disgrace, which might almost bring a stain on the glory of this divine blessing. David the King begat Solomon by her that had been the wife of Uriah; by Bathsheba, whom he wickedly tore from her husband, and for the sake of enjoying whom, he basely surrendered an innocent man to be murdered by the swords of the enemy, (2. a 11:15.) This taint, at the commencement of the kingdom, ought to have taught the Jews not to glory in the flesh. It was the design of God to show that, in establishing this kingdom, nothing depended on human merits.
Comparing the inspired history with the succession described by Matthew, it is evident that he has omitted three kings. (92) Those who say that he did so through forgetfulness, cannot be listened to for a moment. Nor is it probable that they were thrown out, because they were unworthy to occupy a place in the genealogy of Christ; for the same reason would equally apply to many others, who are indiscriminately brought forward by Matthew, along with pious and holy persons. A more correct account is, that he resolved to confine the list of each class to fourteen kings, and gave himself little concern in making the selection, because he had an adequate succession of the genealogy to place before the eyes of his readers, down to the close of the kingdom. As to there being only thirteen in the list, it probably arose from the blunders and carelessness of transcribers. Epiphanius, in his First Book against Heresies, assigns this reason, that the name of Jeconiah had been twice put down, and unlearned (93) persons ventured to strike out the repetition of it as superfluous; which, he tells us, ought not to have been done, because Jehoiakim, the father of king Jehoiakim, had the name Jeconiah, in common with his son, (1. h 3:17; 2. g 24:15; Jer 27:20.) Robert Stephens quotes a Greek manuscript, in which the name of Jehoiakim is introduced. (94)
(92) “Assavoir Ochozias fils de Joram, Joas, et Amazias.” — “Namely, Ahaziah son of Jehoram, Joash, and Amaziah,” (2. h 22:1.)
(93) “Indocti;” — “quelques gens n'entendans pas le propos,” — “some peope not understanding the design.”
(94) “Robert Etienne a ce propos allegue un exemplaire Grec ancien, ou il y a ainsi, Josias engendra Joacim, et Joacim engendra Jechonias.”— “Robert Stephens, with this view, quotes an ancient Greek manuscript, which runs thus: Josiah begat Jehoiakim, and Jehoiakim begat Jeconiah.”
12. After the Babylonish exile That is, after the Jews were carried into captivity: for the Evangelist means, that the descendants of David, from being kings, then became exiles and slaves. As that captivity was a sort of destruction, it came to be wonderfully arranged by Divine providence, not only that the Jews again united in one body, but even that some vestiges of dominion remained in the family of David. For those who returned home submitted, of their own accord, to the authority of Zerubbabel. In this manner, the fragments of the royal scepter (95) lasted till the coming of Christ was at hand, agreeably to the prediction of Jacob, “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come,” (Gen 49:10.) And even during that wretched and melancholy dispersion, the nation never ceased to be illuminated by some rays of the grace of God. The Greek word μετοικεσία, which the old translator renders transmigration, and Erasmus renders exile, literally signifies a change of habitation. The meaning is, that the Jews were compelled to leave their country, and to dwell as “strangers in a land that was not theirs,” (Gen 15:13.)
(95) “Qui avoit este mis bas, et comme rompu;” — “which had been thrown down, and, as it were, broken.”
16. Jesus, who is called Christ By the surname Christ, Anointed, Matthew points out his office, to inform the readers that this was not a private person, but one divinely anointed to perform the office of Redeemer. What that anointing was, and to what it referred, I shall not now illustrate at great length. As to the word itself, it is only necessary to say that, after the royal authority was abolished, it began to be applied exclusively to Him, from whom they were taught to expect a full recovery of the lost salvation. So long as any splendor of royalty continued in the family of David, the kings were wont to be called χριστοί, anointed. (96) But that the fearful desolation which followed might not throw the minds of the godly into despair, it pleased God to appropriate the name of Messiah, Anointed, to the Redeemer alone: as is evident from Daniel, (Dan 9:25.) The evangelical history everywhere shows that this was an ordinary way of speaking, at the time when the Son of God was “manifested in the flesh,” (1. i 3:16.)
(96) Every reader of the Bible is familiar with the phrase, the Lord's anointed, as applied to David and his successors, (2. a 19:21; Lam 4:20.) — Ed.
18. Now the birth of Jesus Christ Matthew does not as yet relate the place or manner of Christ’s birth, but the way in which his heavenly generation was made known to Joseph. First, he says that Mary was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit Not that this secret work of God was generally known: but the historian mixes up, with the knowledge of men, (97) the power of the Spirit, which was still unknown. He points out the time: When she was espoused to Joseph, and before they came together So far as respects conjugal fidelity, from the time that a young woman was betrothed to a man, she was regarded by the Jews as his lawful wife. When a “damsel betrothed to an husband” was convicted of being unchaste, the law condemned both of the guilty parties as adulterers:
“the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city;
and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbor’s wife,”
(Deu 22:23.)
The phrase employed by the Evangelist, before they came together, is either a modest appellation for conjugal intercourse, or simply means, “before they came to dwell together as husband and wife, and to make one home and family.” The meaning will thus be, that the virgin had not yet been delivered by her parents into the hands of her husband, but still remained under their roof.
(97) (“Qui voyoyent bien par signes externes que Marie estoit enceinte.”) —(“Who saw well by outward marks that Mary was pregnant.”)
19. As he was a just man Some commentators explain this to mean, that Joseph, because he was a just man, determined to spare his wife: (98) taking justice to be only another name for humanity, or, a gentle and merciful disposition. But others more correctly read the two clauses as contrasted with each other: that Joseph was a just man, but yet that he was anxious about the reputation of his wife. That justice, on which a commendation is here bestowed, consisted in hatred and abhorrence of crime. Suspecting his wife of adultery, and even convinced that she was an adulterer, he was unwilling to hold out the encouragement of lenity to such a crime. (99) And certainly he is but a pander (100) to his wife, who connives at her unchastity. Not only is such wickedness regarded with abhorrence by good and honorable minds, but that winking at crime which I have mentioned is marked by the laws with infamy.
Joseph, therefore, moved by an ardent love of justice, condemned the crime of which he supposed his wife to have been guilty; while the gentleness of his disposition prevented him from going to the utmost rigor of law. It was a moderate and calmer method to depart privately, and remove to a distant place. (101) Hence we infer, that he was not of so soft and effeminate a disposition, as to screen and promote uncleanness under the pretense of merciful dealing: he only made some abatement from stern justice, so as not to expose his wife to evil report. Nor ought we to have any hesitation in believing, that his mind was restrained by a secret inspiration of the Spirit. We know how weak jealousy is, and to what violence it hurries its possessor. Though Joseph did not proceed to rash and headlong conduct, yet he was wonderfully preserved from many imminent dangers, which would have sprung out of his resolution to depart.
The same remark is applicable to Mary’s silence. Granting that modest reserve prevented her from venturing to tell her husband, that she was with child by the Holy Spirit, it was not so much by her own choice, as by the providence of God that she was restrained. Let us suppose her to have spoken. The nature of the case made it little short of incredible. Joseph would have thought himself ridiculed, and everybody would have treated the matter as a laughing-stock: after which the Divine announcement, if it had followed, would have been of less importance. The Lord permitted his servant Joseph to be betrayed by ignorance into an erroneous conclusion, that, by his own voice, he might bring him back to the right path.
Yet it is proper for us to know, that this was done more on our account than for his personal advantage: for every necessary method was adopted by God, to prevent unfavorable suspicion from falling on the heavenly message. When the angel approaches Joseph, who is still unacquainted with the whole matter, wicked men have no reason to charge him with being influenced by prejudice to listen to the voice of God. He was not overcome by the insinuating address of his wife. His previously formed opinion was not shaken by entreaties. He was not induced by human arguments to take the opposite side. But, while the groundless accusation of his wife was still rankling in his mind, God interposed between them, that we might regard Joseph as a more competent witness, and possessing greater authority, as a messenger sent to us from heaven. We see how God chose to employ an angel in informing his servant Joseph, that to others he might be a heavenly herald, and that the intelligence which he conveyed might not be borrowed from his wife, or from any mortal.
The reason why this mystery was not immediately made known to a greater number of persons appears to be this. It was proper that this inestimable treasure should remain concealed, and that the knowledge of it should be imparted to none but the children of God. Nor is it absurd to say, that the Lord intended, as he frequently does, to put the faith and obedience of his own people to the trial. Most certainly, if any man shall maliciously refuse to believe and obey God in this matter, he will have abundant reason to be satisfied with the proofs by which this article of our faith is supported. For the same reason, the Lord permitted Mary to enter into the married state, that under the veil of marriage, till the full time for revealing it, the heavenly conception of the virgin might be concealed. Meanwhile, the knowledge of it was withheld from unbelievers, as their ingratitude and malice deserved.
(98) “Que Joseph a voulu pardonner a sa femme, et couvrir la faute, d'autant qu'il estoit juste.” — “That Joseph intended to forgive his wife, and conceal her offense, because he was just.”
(99) “Il ne vouloit point nourrir le mal en dissimulant et faisant semblant de n'y voir rien.” — “He did not wish to encourage wickedness, by dissembling and pretending that he did not see it.”
(100) “Leno;” — “macquereau.”
(101) “Le moyen le plus doux et le moins scandaleux estoit, que secretement il departist du lieu, et la laissast sans faire aueun bruit.” — “The mildest and least scandalous method was, that he should depart secretly from the place, and leave her without making any noise.”
20. And while he was considering these things We see here how seasonably, and, as we would say, at the very point, the Lord usually aids his people. Hence too we infer that, when he appears not to observe our cares and distresses, we are still under his eye. He may, indeed, hide himself, and remain silent; but, when our patience has been subjected to the trial, he will aid us at the time which his own wisdom has selected. How slow or late soever his assistance may be thought to be, it is for our advantage that it is thus delayed.
The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream This is one of two ordinary kinds of revelations mentioned in the book of Numbers, where the Lord thus speaks:
“If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so. With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speechess,”
(Num 12:6.)
But we must understand that dreams of this sort differ widely from natural dreams; for they have a character of certainty engraven on them, and are impressed with a divine seal, so that there is not the slightest doubt of their truth. The dreams which men commonly have, arise either from the thoughts of the day, or from their natural temperament, or from bodily indisposition, or from similar causes: while the dreams which come from God are accompanied by the testimony of the Spirit, which puts beyond a doubt that it is God who speaks.
Son of David, fear not This exhortation shows, that Joseph was perplexed with the fear of sharing in the criminality of his wife, by enduring her adultery. The angel removes his suspicion of guilt, with the view of enabling him to dwell with his wife with a safe conscience. The appellation, Son of David, was employed on the present occasion, in order to elevate his mind to that lofty mystery; for he belonged to that family, and was one of the surviving few, (102) from whom the salvation promised to the world could proceed. When he heard the name of David, from whom he was descended, Joseph ought to have remembered that remarkable promise of God which related to the establishment of the kingdom, so as to acknowledge that there was nothing new in what was now told him. The predictions of the prophets were, in effect, brought forward by the angel, to prepare the mind of Joseph for receiving the present favor.
(102) “Quia esset ex ea familia, et quidem superstes cum paucis;” — “d'autant qu'il estoit de cette famille, et mesmes que d'icelle il estoit quasi seul vivant, avec quelques autres en bien petit nombre;” — “because he was of that family, and even of that he was almost sole survivor, with some others in very small number.”
21. And thou shalt call his name JESUS. I have already explained briefly, but as far as was necessary, the meaning of that word. At present I shall only add, that the words of the angel set aside the dream of those who derive it from the essential name of God, Jehovah; for the angel expresses the reason why the Son of God is so called, Because he shall SAVE his people; which suggests quite a different etymology from what they have contrived. It is justly and appropriately added, they tell us, that Christ will be the author of salvation, because he is the Eternal God. But in vain do they attempt to escape by this subterfuge; for the nature of the blessing which God bestows upon us is not all that is here stated. This office was conferred upon his Son from the fact, from the command which had been given to him by the Father, from the office with which he was invested when he came down to us from heaven. Besides, the two words ᾿Ιησοῦς and יהוה , Jesus and Jehovah, agree but in two letters, and differ in all the rest; which makes it exceedingly absurd to allege any affinity whatever between them, as if they were but one name. Such mixtures I leave to the alchymists, or to those who closely resemble them, the Cabalists who contrive for us those trifling and affected refinements.
When the Son of God came to us clothed in flesh, he received from the Father a name which plainly told for what purpose he came, what was his power, and what we had a right to expect from him. for the name Jesus is derived from the Hebrew verb, in the Hiphil conjugation, הושיע, which signifies to save In Hebrew it is pronounced differently, Jehoshua; but the Evangelists, who wrote in Greek, followed the customary mode of pronunciation; for in the writings of Moses, and in the other books of the Old Testament, the Hebrew word יהושוע, Jehoshua, or Joshua, is rendered by the Greek translators ᾿Ιησοῦς, Jesus But I must mention another instance of the ignorance of those who derive — or, I would rather say, who forcibly tear — the name Jesus from Jehovah They hold it to be in the highest degree improper that any mortal man should share this name in common with the Son of God, and make a strange outcry that Christ would never allow his name to be so profaned. As if the reply were not at hand, that the name Jesus was quite as commonly used in those days as the name Joshua Now, as it is sufficiently clear that the name Jesus presents to us the Son of God as the Author of salvation, let us examine more closely the words of the angel.
He shall save his people from their sins The first truth taught us by these words is, that those whom Christ is sent to save are in themselves lost. But he is expressly called the Savior of the Church. If those whom God admits to fellowship with himself were sunk in death and ruin till they were restored to life by Christ, what shall we say of “strangers” (Eph 2:12) who have never been illuminated by the hope of life? When salvation is declared to be shut up in Christ, it clearly implies that the whole human race is devoted to destruction. The cause of this destruction ought also to be observed; for it is not unjustly, or without good reason, that the Heavenly Judge pronounces us to be accursed. The angel declares that we have perished, and are overwhelmed by an awful condemnation, because we stand excluded from life by our sins. Thus we obtain a view of our corruption and depravity; for if any man lived a perfectly holy life, he might do without Christ as a Redeemer. But all to a man need his grace; and, therefore, it follows that they are the slaves of sin, and are destitute of true righteousness.
Hence, too, we learn in what way or manner Christ saves; he delivers us from sins This deliverance consists of two parts. Having made a complete atonement, he brings us a free pardon, which delivers us from condemnation to death, and reconciles us to God. Again, by the sanctifying influences of his Spirit, he frees us from the tyranny of Satan, that we may live “unto righteousness,” (1. e 2:24.) Christ is not truly acknowledged as a Savior, till, on the one hand, we learn to receive a free pardon of our sins, and know that we are accounted righteous before God, because we are free from guilt; and till, on the other hand, we ask from him the Spirit of righteousness and holiness, having no confidence whatever in our own works or power. By Christ’s people the angel unquestionably means the Jews, to whom he was appointed as Head and King; but as the Gentiles were shortly afterwards to be ingrafted into the stock of Abraham, (Rom 11:17,) this promise of salvation is extended indiscriminately to all who are incorporated by faith in the “one body” (1. o 12:20) of the Church.
22. Now all this was done It is ignorant and childish trifling to argue, that the name Jesus is given to the Son of God, because he is called Immanuel For Matthew does not confine this assertion to the single fact of the name, but includes whatever is heavenly and divine in the conception of Christ; and that is the reason why he employs the general term all We must now see how appropriately the prediction of Isaiah is applied. It is a well-known and remarkable passage, (Isa 7:14,) but perverted by the Jews with their accustomed malice; though the hatred of Christ and of truth, which they thus discover, is as blind and foolish as it is wicked. To such a pitch of impudence have many of their Rabbins proceeded, as to explain it in reference to King Hezekiah, who was then about fifteen years of age. And what, I ask, must be their rage for lying, when, in order to prevent the admission of clear light, they invert the order of nature, and shut up a youth in his mother’s womb, that he may be born sixteen years old? But the enemies of Christ deserve that God should strike them with a spirit of giddiness and insensibility, should
“pour out upon them a spirit of deep sleep and close their eyes,”
(Isa 29:10.)
Others apply it to a creature of their own fancy, some unknown son of Ahaz, whose birth Isaiah predicted. But with what propriety was he called Immanuel, or the land subjected to his sway, who closed his life in a private station and without honor? for shortly afterwards the prophet tells us that this child, whoever he was, would be ruler of the land. Equally absurd is the notion that this passage relates to the prophet’s son. On this subject we may remark, that Christian writers have very strangely misapprehended the prediction contained in the next chapter, by applying it to Christ. The prophet there says, that, instructed by a vision, he “went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son,” and that the child whom she bore was named by Divine command, ”Maher-shalal-hash-baz,” “Making speed to the spoil, hasten the prey,” (Isa 8:3.) All that is there described is approaching war, accompanied by fearful desolation; which makes it very manifest that the subjects are totally different.
Let us now, therefore, investigate the true meaning of this passage. The city of Jerusalem is besieged. Ahaz trembles, and is almost dead with terror. The prophet is sent to assure him that God will protect the city. But a simple promise is not sufficient to compose his agitated mind. The prophet is sent to him, saying,
“Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God;
ask it either in the depth, or in the height above,”
(Isa 7:11.)
That wicked hypocrite, concealing his unbelief, disdains to ask a sign. The prophet rebukes him sharply, and at length adds,
“The Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel,”
(Isa 7:14.)
We expound this as relating to Christ in the following manner: “You, the whole posterity of David, as far as lies in your power, endeavor to nullify the grace which is promised to you;” (for the prophet expressly calls them, by way of disgrace, the house of David, Isa 7:13;) “but your base infidelity will never prevent the truth of God from proving to be victorious. God promises that the city will be preserved safe and unhurt from its enemies. If his word is not enough, he is ready to give you the confirmation of such a sign as you may demand. You reject both favors, and spurn them from you; but God will remain steady to his engagement. For the promised Redeemer will come, in whom God will show himself to be fully present to his people.”
The Jews reply, that Isaiah would have been at variance with everything like reason or probability, if he had given to the men of that age a sign, which was not to be exhibited till after the lapse of nearly eight hundred years. And then they assume the airs of haughty triumph, (103) as if this objection of the Christians had originated in ignorance or thoughtlessness, and were now forgotten and buried. But the solution, I think, is easy; provided we keep in view that a covenant of adoption was given to the Jews, on which the other acts of the divine kindness depended. There was then a general promise, by which God adopted the children of Abraham as a nation, and on which were founded all the special promises. Again, the foundation of this covenant was the Messiah. Now we hold, that the reason for delivering the city was, that it was the sanctuary of God, and out of it the Redeemer would come. But for this, Jerusalem would a hundred times have perished.
Let pious readers now consider, when the royal family had openly rejected the sign which God had offered to them, if it was not suitable that the prophet should pass all at once to the Messiah, and address them in this manner: “Though this age is unworthy of the deliverance of which God has given me a promise, yet God is mindful of his covenant, and will rescue this city from its enemies. While he grants no particular sign to testify his grace, this one sign ought to be deemed more than sufficient to meet your wishes. from the stock of David the Messiah will arise.” Yet it must be observed that, when the prophet reminds unbelievers of the general covenant, it is a sort of reproof, because they did not accept of a particular sign. I have now, I think, proved that, when the door was shut against every kind of miracle, the prophet made an appropriate transition to Christ, for the purpose of leading unbelievers to reflect, that the only cause of the deliverance was the covenant that had been made with their fathers. And by this remarkable example has God been pleased to testify to all ages, that he followed with uninterrupted kindness the children of Abraham, only because in Christ, and not through their own merits, he had made with them a gracious covenant.
There is another piece of sophistry by which the Jews endeavor to parry our argument. Immediately after the words in question, the prophet adds:
“Before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings,”
(Isa 7:16.)
Hence they infer, that the promised birth of the child would be delayed for a very short time; otherwise, it would not agree with the rapidly approaching change of the kingdoms, which, the prophet announeed, would take place before that child should have passed half the period of infancy. I reply, when Isaiah has given a sign of the future Savior, and declared that a child will be born, who is the true Immanuel, or — to use Paul’s language —God manifest in the flesh, (1. i 3:16,) he proceeds to speak, in general terms, of all the children of his own time. A strong proof of this readily presents itself; for, after having spoken of the general promise of God, he returns to the special promise, which he had been commissioned to declare. The former passage, which relates to a final and complete redemption, describes one particular child, to whom alone belongs the name of God; while the latter passage, which relates to a special benefit then close at hand, determines the time by the childhood of those who were recently born, or would be born shortly afterwards.
Hitherto, if I mistake not, I have refuted, by strong and conclusive arguments, the calumnies of the Jews, by which they endeavor to prevent the glory of Christ from appearing, with resplendent luster, in this prediction. It now remains for us to refute their sophistical reasoning about the Hebrew word עלמה , virgin (104) They wantonly persecute Matthew for proving that Christ was born of a virgin, (105) while the Hebrew noun merely signifies a young woman; and ridicule us for being led astray by the wrong translation (106) of a word, to believe that he was born by the Holy Spirit, of whom the prophet asserts no more than that he would be the son of a young woman. And, first, they display an excessive eagerness for disputation, by laboring (107) to prove that a word, which is uniformly applied in Scripture to virgins, denotes here a young woman who had known a man. The etymology too agrees with Matthew’s translation of the word: for it means hiding, (108) which expresses the modesty that becomes a virgin. (109) They produce a passage from the book of Proverbs, “the way of a man with a maids,” בעלמה, (Pro 30:19.) But it does not at all support their views. Solomon speaks there of a young woman who has obtained the affections of a young man: but it does not follow as a matter of course, that the young man has seduced the object of his regard; or rather, the probability leans much more strongly to the other side. (110)
But granting all that they ask as to the meaning of the word, the subject demonstrates, and compels the acknowledgment, that the prophet is speaking of a miraculous and extraordinary birth. He exclaims that he is bringing a sign from the Lord, and not an ordinary sign, but one superior to every other.
The Lord himself shall give you a sign.
Behold, a virgin shall conceive,
(Isa 7:14.)
If he were only to say, that a woman would bear a child, how ridiculous would that magnificent preface have been? Thus we see, that the insolence of the Jews exposes not only themselves, but the sacred mysteries of God, to scorn.
Besides, a powerful argument may be drawn from the whole strain of the passage. Behold, a virgin shall conceive Why is no mention made of a man? It is because the prophet draws our attention to something very uncommon. Again, the virgin is commanded to name the child. Thou shalt call his name Immanuel In this respect, also, the prophet expresses something extraordinary: for, though it is frequently related in Scripture, that the names were given to children by their mothers, yet it was done by the authority of the fathers. When the prophet addresses his discourse to the virgin, he takes away from men, in respect to this child, that authority which is conferred upon them by the order of nature. Let this, therefore, be regarded as an established truth, that the prophet here refers to a remarkable miracle of God, and recommends it to the attentive and devout consideration of all the godly, — a miracle which is basely profaned by the Jews, who apply to the ordinary method of conception what is said in reference to the secret power of the Spirit.
(103) “Faisant grand cas de leur argument;” — “setting great store by their argument.”
(104) “Le mot Hebrieu Alma, pour lequel l'Evangeliste a use du mot de Vierge;” — “the Hebrew word Alma, for which the Evangelist has used the word Virgin.”
(105) “Le blamant de ce qu'il pretend prouver Jesus Christ estre nay d'une Vierge;” — “blaming him for offering to prove Jesus Christ to be born of a Virgin.”
(106) “Abusez par un mot mal tourne;” — “deceived by a word ill translated.”
(107) “Urgent;” — “ils veulent a toute force;” — “they attempt with their whole strength.”
(108) עלמה is derived from עלם, to hide, —a verb not found in Kal, but so frequently in Niphal, (נעלם,) Hiphil, (העלים,) Hithpahel, (התעלם,) that its meaning is fully ascertained. — Ed.
(109) “Car il emporte Retraitte ou Cachette, qui est pour denoter ceste honte honeste qui doit estre es vierges;” — “for it signifies Retreat or Concealment, which serves to denote that becoming shame which ought to be in virgins.”
(110) “C'est bien autrement: car il y a plus d'apparence au contraire;”— “it is quite otherwise: for there is more probability on the opposite side.
23. His name Immanuel The phrase, God is with us, is no doubt frequently employed in Scripture to denote, that he is present with us by his assistance and grace, and displays the power of his hand in our defense. But here we are instructed as to the manner in which God communicates with men. For out of Christ we are alienated from him; but through Christ we are not only received into his favor, but are made one with him. When Paul says, that the Jews under the law were nigh to God, (Eph 2:17,) and that a deadly enmity (Eph 2:15) subsisted between him and the Gentiles, he means only that, by shadows and figures, God then gave to the people whom he had adopted the tokens of his presence. That promise was still in force, “The Lord thy God is among you,” (Deu 7:21,) and, “This is my rest for ever,” (Psa 132:14.) But while the familiar intercourse between God and the people depended on a Mediator, what had not yet fully taken place was shadowed out by symbols. His seat and residence is placed “between the Cherubim,” (Psa 80:1,) because the ark was the figure and visible pledge of his glory.
But in Christ the actual presence of God with his people, and not, as before, his shadowy presence, has been exhibited. (111) This is the reason, why Paul says, that “in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,” (Col 2:9.) And certainly he would not be a properly qualified Mediator, if he did not unite both natures in his person, and thus bring men into an alliance with God. Nor is there any force in the objection, about which the Jews make a good deal of noise, that the name of God is frequently applied to those memorials, by which he testified that he was present with believers.
For it cannot be denied, that this name, Immanuel, contains an implied contrast between the presence of God, as exhibited in Christ, with every other kind of presence, which was manifested to the ancient people before his coming. If the reason of this name began to be actually true, when Christ appeared in the flesh, it follows that it was not completely, but only in part, that God was formerly united with the Fathers.
Hence arises another proof, that Christ is God manifested in the flesh, (1. i 3:16.) He discharged, indeed, the office of Mediator from the beginning of the world; but as this depended wholly on the latest revelation, he is justly called Immanuel at that time, when clothed, as it were, with a new character, he appears in public as a Priest, to atone for the sins of men by the sacrifice of his body, to reconcile them to the Father by the price of his blood, and, in a word, to fulfill every part of the salvation of men. (112) The first thing which we ought to consider in this name is the divine majesty of Christ, so as to yield to him the reverence which is due to the only and eternal God. But we must not, at the same time, forget the fruit which God intended that we should collect and receive from this name. For whenever we contemplate the one person of Christ as God-man, we ought to hold it for certain that, if we are united to Christ by faith, we possess God.
In the words, they shall call, there is a change of the number. But this is not at all at variance with what I have already said. True, the prophet addresses the virgin alone, and therefore uses the second person, Thou shalt call But from the time that this name was published, all the godly have an equal right to make this confession, that God has given himself to us to be enjoyed in Christ. (113)
(111) “Mais quand Christ est apparu en sa personne, le peuple a eu une presence de Dieu veritable, et non pas ombratile comme paravant.”— “But when Christ appeared in his person, the people had a real presence of God, and not shadowy, as before.”
(112) “Somme, pour faire et accomplir toutes choses requises au salut du genre humain;” — “in a word, to do and accomplish all things requisite for the salvation of the human race.”
(113) “Il appartient a tous fideles d'advouer et confesser que Dieu s'est communique et baille a nous en Christ;” — “it belongs to all believers to own and confess that God has communicated and made over himself to us in Christ.”
24. Joseph, being raised from sleep The ready performance, which is here described, serves not less to attest the certainty of Joseph’s faith, than to commend his obedience. For, if every scruple had not been removed, and his conscience fully pacified, he would never have proceeded so cheerfully, on a sudden change of opinion, to take unto him his wife, whose society, he lately thought, would pollute him. (114) The dream must have carried some mark of Divinity, which did not allow his mind to hesitate. Next followed the effect of faith. Having learned the will of God, he instantly prepared himself to obey.
(114) “Laquelle un peu auparavant il ne vouloit recevoir, et lui sembloit qu'il se fust pollue en conversant avec elle;” — “whom a little before he refused to receive, and seemed to him that he would be polluted by conversing with her.”
25. And knew her not This passage afforded the pretext for great disturbances, which were introduced into the Church, at a former period, by Helvidius. The inference he drew from it was, that Mary remained a virgin no longer than till her first birth, and that afterwards she had other children by her husband. Jerome, on the other hand, earnestly and copiously defended Mary’s perpetual virginity. Let us rest satisfied with this, that no just and well-grounded inference can be drawn from these words of the Evangelist, as to what took place after the birth of Christ. He is called first-born; but it is for the sole purpose of informing us that he was born of a virgin. (115) It is said that Joseph knew her not till she had brought forth her first-born son: but this is limited to that very time. What took place afterwards, the historian does not inform us. Such is well known to have been the practice of the inspired writers. Certainly, no man will ever raise a question on this subject, except from curiosity; and no man will obstinately keep up the argument, except from an extreme fondness for disputation.
(115) “Il est nomme Premier nay, mais non pour autre raison, sinon afin que nous sachions qu'il est nay d'une mere vierge, et qui jamais n'avoit eu enfant;” — “he is called First-born, but for no other reason than that we may know that he was born of a pure virgin, and who never had had a child.”
