The Genealogy of Jesus Christ
Mat. 1:1 This is the genealogy of Yeshua the Messiah, son of David, son of Avraham:
The New Testament begins with the genealogy of Yeshua in order to show that he meets the requirements set by the Tanakh for who the Messiah must be-a descendant of Avraham (Gen. 22:18), Ya'akov (Num. 24:17), Y'hudah (Gen. 49:10), Yishai (Isa. 11:1), David (2Sam. 7:13; see below on Son of David and Z'rubavel (Hag. 2:22-23). All these names appear in Mat. 1:1-16. This genealogy recalls the pattern of those in the Tanakh (Gen. 5, 10; 1 Chr. 1-9, etc.).
Christ Greek: Christos, Anointed. Used in the New Testament 569 times. Like the name Jesus it has no reference to deity, but to the humanity of the Son of God, who received the anointing of the Spirit 30 years after He was born of Mary (Mat. 3:16; John 3:34; Isa. 11:1; 42:1-5; 61:1; Acts 10:38). God made Him both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36). The Hebrew is Mashiyach (Dan. 9:24-26; John 1:41; 4:25).
son of David, Son of Abraham and David by direct descent (Mat. 1:2-16; Rom. 9:5), and by promise (Gen. 12:1-3; Gal. 3:6-22; Isa. 11:1; Mat. 22:41-46; 2Tim. 2:8). Son of David is used nine times of Christ in Matthew (Mat. 1:1; 9:27; 12:23; 15:22; 20:30-31; 21:9, 21:15; 22:42). David is mentioned first because he was the most illustrious of His ancestors as king and prophet and because his line is singled out by later prophets as the one of Abraham’s seed through whom the Messiah was to come.
Presentation
by ancestry
From the very first words of his Gospel, Matthew recorded his central theme and character. Jesus Christ is the main character in Matthew’s presentation, and the opening verse connected Him back to two great covenants in Jewish history: the Davidic (2Sam. 7:1-29) and the Abrahamic (Gen. 12:1-20; 15:1-21). If Jesus of Nazareth is the fulfillment of these two great covenants, is He related to the rightful line? This is a question the Jews would have asked, so Matthew traced Jesus’ lineage in detail.
Yeshua the Messiah is rendered Jesus Christ in other English versions, as if the man's first name were Jesus and his last name Christ. Neither is the case. Yeshua' is Jesus' name in Hebrew and Aramaic, the languages he spoke; in his thirty-some years on earth people called him Yeshua. The word Jesus represents the efforts of English-speakers to pronounce the name of the Messiah as it appears in the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, Iêsous-yee-soos in modern Greek, perhaps yay-soos in ancient Koinê Greek, which began to displace Aramaic as the lingua franca of the Near East after Alexander's conquests (331-323 B.C.E.). In turn the word Iêsous represents the ancient Greek-speakers' attempts at pronouncing Yeshua'. By using Hebrew Yeshua throughout, the JNT calls attention to the Jewishness of the Messiah. On the name Yeshua itself see Mat. 1:21.
The Messiah. The Greek word here is christos, which means the same thing as Hebrew mashiach, namely, anointed or poured on. The significance of being known as The Anointed One is that both kings and cohanim priests were invested with their authority in a ceremony of anointing with olive oil. Thus, inherent in the concept of Messiah is the idea of being given God's priestly and kingly authority.
The Greek word Christos is usually brought over into English as Christ. In two verses of the New Testament (John 1:41, 4:25) the Greek text has Messias, obviously, like English Messiah, a transliteration of the Hebrew word; there the JNT uses Mashiach (see John 1:41).
The JNT also renders Christos as Mashiach in two narratives where its specifically Jewish significance stands out in bold relief: at 16:15 and at 26:63 and equivalently at Mark 8:29, 14:61; Luke 9:20, 22:67). Others might have used this criterion to introduce Mashiach in other passages, for example, at Acts 2:31, 2:36, 2:38. A translator's decision to use Christ, Messiah or Mashiach depends on the purpose of his translation; in the end it may come down to his intuition or personal preference.
But usually in the text of the JNT Greek Christos is rendered by Messiah; Christ does not appear even once. This is because Messiah has meaning in Jewish religion, tradition and culture; whereas the word Christ has an alien ring and a negative connotation because of the persecutions Jews have suffered from those claiming to be his followers. Further, the use of the word Messiah more than 380 times in the text of the JNT is a continual reminder that the New Testament claims Yeshua to be none other than the promised Mashiach for whom the Jewish people have yearned. The English word Christ does not point to Yeshua's fulfillment of Jewish hopes and biblical prophecy.
Son of. The Hebrew word ben son, son of is commonly used in three distinctive ways in the Bible and in Judaism:
(1) In both the Bible and in Judaism a man is normally identified as the son of his father. For example, if Sam Levine's son Joe is called up to read from the Torah scroll in the synagogue, he will be announced not as Joseph Levine but as Yosef ben-Shmu'el Joseph, son of Samuel.
(2) Ben can also mean not the actual son but a more distant descendant, as is the case in this verse: David and Avraham were distant ancestors of Yeshua also v. 8: Yoram was not the father but the great-great-grandfather of Uziyahu.
(3) Thirdly, ben can be used more broadly to mean having the characteristics of, and this too applies here: Yeshua had qualities found both in Avraham and in King David.
Son of David. Avraham and David are singled out because they have unique importance in the Messiah's lineage. The term Son of David is actually one of the titles of the Messiah, based on the Tanakh's prophecies that the Messiah will be a descendant of David and will sit on David's throne forever for the Tanakh references see Acts 13:23. While Son of David does not appear as a Messianic title in the Tanakh and is first seen as such in the pseudepigraphic Psalms of Sol. 17:23, 36, written in the first century B.C.E., the New Testament records the use of this term some 15-20 times?, and it has been used continuously in Judaism till the present.
Son of Avraham. This term is significant in at least four ways:
(1) Both King David and King Yeshua trace their ancestry back to the individual chosen by God as the father of the Jewish people (Gen. 12:1-3).
(2) Yeshua is the promised seed of Avraham (Gen. 13:15, explained by Gal. 3:16).
(3) The Messiah's mystical identity with the Jewish people (sees Mat. 2:15) is hinted at, since every Jew is a son of Avraham (Mat. 3:9).
(4) Yeshua also has a mystical identity with everyone who believes in him, whether Jewish or Gentile (Rom. 4:1, 4:11, 4:17-20; Gal. 3:29).
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