Matthew Chapter 1

The genealogy of Jesus Christ

1 The record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham.

2 Abraham fathered Isaac; Isaac fathered Jacob; Jacob fathered Judah and his brothers;

3 Judah fathered Perez and Zerah by Tamar; Perez fathered Hezron; Hezron fathered Ram;

4 Ram fathered Amminadab; Amminadab fathered Nahshon; Nahshon fathered Salmon;

5 Salmon fathered Boaz by Rahab; Boaz fathered Obed by Ruth; Obed fathered Jesse;

6 Jesse fathered David the king; David the king fathered Solomon by her who had been Uriah's wife.

7 Solomon fathered Rehoboam; Rehoboam fathered Abijah; Abijah fathered Asa;

8 Asa fathered Jehoshaphat; Jehoshaphat fathered Joram; Joram fathered Uzziah;

9 Uzziah fathered Jotham; Jotham fathered Ahaz; Ahaz fathered Hezekiah;

10 Hezekiah fathered Manasseh; Manasseh fathered Amon; Amon fathered Josiah;

11 Josiah fathered Jeconiah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.

12 After the deportation to Babylon, Jeconiah fathered Shealtiel; Shealtiel fathered Zerubbabel;

13 Zerubbabel fathered Abiud; Abiud fathered Eliakim; Eliakim fathered Azor;

14 Azor fathered Zadok; Zadok fathered Achim; Achim fathered Eliud;

15 Eliud fathered Eleazar; Eleazar fathered Matthan; Matthan fathered Jacob;

16 Jacob fathered Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.

17 So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ, fourteen generations.

The birth of Jesus Christ

18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, before they came together¹ was found to be pregnant by the Holy Spirit.

19 Joseph her husband, a righteous man and unwilling to expose her publicly, resolved to divorce her quietly.

20 But as he was considering this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for what has been conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."

22 All this happened so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying,

23 "The virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel," which means "God with us."

24 Then Joseph, being raised from sleep², did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him, and took his wife.

25 And he did not know her until she had brought forth her firstborn son; and he called his name Jesus.

¹ v. 18 came together. Jewish betrothal (erusin)was already a binding marriage in law, not a modern engagement. It was made before witnesses and could be ended only by death or formal divorce. That is why Joseph is called her husband and why he plans to divorce her quietly (v. 19), even though they did not yet live together. The later stage, nisu’in, was the home-taking and the physical union. Mary was already legally his wife when she was found pregnant; they had not yet come together. Reflection: Paul uses the one-flesh union of marriage for Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:31–32). The covenant stands first; the shared life follows.

² Note — v. 24, “being raised from sleep.” The Greek verb is διεγερθείς (diegertheis, from διεγείρω, “to wake fully, rouse from sleep”). It is an ordinary word for waking from literal sleep, but it shares the same family as ἐγείρω, the standard New Testament verb for resurrection (“raised from the dead”).

The overlap is not only a coincidence of vocabulary. It is a shared metaphor. Scripture regularly uses “sleep” as a word for death (Daniel 12:2; 1 Thessalonians 4:13–14), and “waking” or “rising” as the word for what reverses it. Joseph’s small, ordinary waking in v. 24 sits inside a Gospel that will end with a much larger waking. In the biblical imagination, “getting up from sleep” and “being raised from death” were never fully separate; the first is treated as a nightly rehearsal of the second.

Word Study — אירוסין (erusin) and נישואין (nisu'in)

Word Study — διεγείρω (diegeirō) and ἐγείρω (egeirō)

Base text: Textus Receptus. A literal translation (KJV style) adapted to modern English, without comparison to Nestle-Aland, UBS, or Westcott-Hort.