Josaphat begat
Joram; and Joram begat Ozias; 9. And Ozias begat Joatham; and
Joatham begat Achaz; and Achaz begat Ezekias; 10. And Ezekias begat
Manasses; and Manasses begat Amon; and Amon begat Josias; 11. And
Josias begat Jechonias and his brethren, about the time they were
carried away to Babylon: 12. And after they were brought to
Babylon, Jechonias begat Salathiel; and Salathiel begat Zorobabel;
13. And Zorobabel begat Abiud; and Abiud begat Eliakim; and Eliakim
begat Azor; 14. And Azor begat Sadoc; and Sadoc begat Achim; and
Achim begat Eliud; 15. And Eliud begat Eleazar; and Eleazar begat
Matthan; and Matthan begat Jacob; 16. And Jacob begat Joseph the
husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called
Christ.'--MATT. 1. 1-16.

To begin a Gospel with a genealogy strikes us modern Westerns as
singular, to say the least of it. To preface the Life of Jesus with an
elaborate table of descents through forty-one generations, and then to
show that the forty-second had no real connection with the forty-first,
strikes us as irrelevant. Clause after clause comes the monotonous
'begat,' till the very last, when it fails, and we read instead: 'Jacob
begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus.' So, then,
whoever drew up this genealogy knew that Jesus was not Joseph's son.
Why, then, was he at the pains to compile it, and why did the writer of
the Gospel, if he was not the compiler, think it important enough to
open his narrative? The answer lies in two considerations: the ruling
idea of the whole Gospel, that Jesus is the promised Jewish Messiah,
David's son and Israel's king; and the characteristic ancient idea that
the full rights of sonship were given by adoption as completely as by
actual descent. Joseph was 'of the house and lineage of David,' and
Joseph took Mary's first-born as his own child, thereby giving Him
inheritance of all his own status and claims. Incidentally we may remark
that this presentation of Jesus as Joseph's heir seems to favour the
probability that He was regarded as His reputed father's first-born
child, and so disfavours the contention that the 'brethren' of Jesus
were Joseph's children by an earlier marriage. But, apart from that, the
place of this table of descent at the beginning of the Gospel makes it
clear that the prophecies of the Messiah as David's son were by the
Hebrew mind regarded as adequately fulfilled by Je