Matthew 1:1-17·~1 min

The Genealogy of Jesus

The genealogy opens with Jesus Christ as son of David and son of Abraham, then moves through Abraham, Judah, Tamar, Rahab, Boaz, and Jesse to David the king.

T¹his is the record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham: ²Abraham was the father of Isaac, ³Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, ⁴Ram was the father of Amminadab, ⁵Salmon was the father of Boaz by Rahab, ⁶and Jesse the father of David the king.

The line continues through the kings after David, then reaches Josiah and Jeconiah, and marks the shift to the exile in Babylon.

⁷Solomon the father of Rehoboam, ⁸Asa was the father of Jehoshaphat, ⁹Uzziah was the father of Jotham, ¹⁰Hezekiah was the father of Manasseh, ¹¹and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers ¹²After the exile to Babylon:

After the exile, the genealogy moves through Zerubbabel and the later descendants to Joseph, the husband of Mary, and closes by counting three sets of fourteen generations.

¹³Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, ¹⁴Azor was the father of Zadok, ¹⁵Eliud was the father of Eleazar, ¹⁶and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, ¹⁷In all, then, there were fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ.

Section summaryMatthew first traces Jesus Christ through Abraham, David, the exile, and down to Joseph. The line is ordered and deliberate, ending with Mary and the numbered generations that mark the movement toward the Christ.

Role in the chapterThis opening movement establishes Jesus’ place in Israel’s story before the birth account begins. It presents ancestry as part of the chapter’s evidence, not as background filler.