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Christ's Female AncestorsBy Richard T. Ritenbaugh
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It's become quite popular in America, especially in the last ten or fifteen years, to search out one's roots—genealogy—and to take it back as far as one can, with the information that is still available. This has been facilitated, to a great extent, by the computer. The computer puts a lot of statistical and public data at a person's fingertips. As a matter of fact, there's a site out there on the Internet that the Mormons keep. They allow you to go on there; and, if they have baptized any of your dead relatives, then you just might get your genealogy done by them—as far back as they might have gone.
Computer programs do make it very easy to store, and arrange, and rearrange the data—as well as print it out, so that you can give it to all your relatives and let them know that they came off the nutty branch of the tree. And the Internet, of course, helps in gathering and sharing information with others. It doesn't take much to go into one of the Search Engines and type in a name and come up, often times, with branches of one's family tree already done by somebody else.
Now, we're not the first people to do this. Obviously monarchies, that go back thousands of years (some of them), have to keep genealogies—because they have to satisfy the requirements of succession. If you are not the son of such-and-such, who is also the son of such-and-such, who was king—then you don't have any claim to the throne.
In times past, many peoples committed important genealogies to songs, or to chants, or to tales—so that they could be transmitted easier, rather than by paper. They would be passed down to the next generation over a campfire, or something like that.
But of all nations, the most prominent of genealogy keepers are probably the Jews. That includes the tribes of Judah and Levi. I don't want to leave Levi out. They had good reason to. Of course, Levi was the priestly branch of the tribes of Israel. They had to make sure that they sorted everyone out for the service of the tabernacle, or the temple, as well as who had the priestly duties (because that had to be, specifically, an heir of Aaron).
We can find several lists of priests in the Bible. And even, in one place, there is a list of the different families of Levi (specifically the Aaronic families) who are set in their courses to do their priestly duties. By just a few years, they had grown to the point where they had many courses of priests who could fill that office. And so a priest would only have to serve a few weeks out of the year, rather than continually. Of course, the high priest served all the time—until he died. But, at least, the priests (the ones who weren't directly in the Aaronic line, but firstborn to firstborn) were able to serve there too.
And, of course, the Jews were given the scepter promise (there in Genesis 49). So they had to keep track of the kingly line. And, more importantly (than just the kingly line) was the line of the Messiah—for it says that Shiloh should come out of Judah. And so it was very important for the Jews to keep track of who was really a Jew, so that they could (as much as they could) pinpoint who Messiah was.
We could say that no genealogy is as important as Christ's is. That is the premiere genealogy of all mankind. But wouldn't you know that God gave us two genealogies of Christ; and they appear contradictory—one in MATTHEW, one in LUKE. You know that if God gives something once, then it's important. When He gives something twice, it steps it up a level. It's like "good, better, and best." In this case, He gave us two. Not one genealogy is good enough, because we had to have two—to make it even better.
There must be something to this—if God gave us two genealogies. So for our admonition, for our instruction, I'm going to be speaking about CHRIST'S FAMILY TREE today. Solving the seeming contradiction between the two genealogies is fairly simple. Matthew's list records Joseph's line—all the way back to David and beyond (actually, all the way back to Abraham). But he goes through Solomon. Luke's list records Mary's line—back to David through another son, Nathan. And then, of course, he goes all the way back to Adam (whom he calls the son of God). This is very easy to see. Let's go to Matthew 1. We'll take a quick look at both genealogies, although we won't read them necessarily.
The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham. (Matthew 1:1)
Now, this is very interesting that he mentions that this is Christ's genealogy (Jesus' genealogy); and he mentions the two most important figures in that genealogy immediately. First he calls Him the son of David, which establishes His kingly claim. And he mentions Abraham, which establishes His spiritual claim. So immediately, as soon as Matthew opens his book, he lets everybody know who this wonderful Man was—the heir of David and the heir of Abraham.
Now, down to verse 16. You go through all those people and then it says:
And Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ. (Matthew 1:16)
Notice that it does not say--"Jacob begot Joseph who begot Jesus." Matthew is very careful to say that Jacob begot Joseph, who was Mary's husband; and Jesus came from Mary. So what we have here is a legal genealogy. He was really Joseph's son legally. But Joseph was not Jesus' father truly—that is, by birth (by genes, let's say). Matthew is very specific of this, because he doesn't want anyone to say "You're trying to fool us about this." Everything is put out, in line, exactly as it should be. So Jesus has a claim to the throne through His adoptive father, Joseph.
There is one problem, though, with this genealogy. That is, that it mentions Jeconiah.
Josiah begot Jeconiah and his brothers about the time they were carried away to Babylon. (Matthew 1:11)
Now notice Jeremiah 22:30. This is God speaking through Jeremiah to Jeconiah (also called Coniah); and He says:
Thus says the LORD: 'Write this man down as childless, a man who shall not prosper in his days. For none of his descendants shall prosper, sitting on the throne of David, and ruling anymore in Judah.' (Jeremiah 22:30)
Isn't that interesting? No heir of Jeconiah will sit on the throne of Judah. That seems to count Jesus out, in a way; but we have to remember that this is only a legal genealogy—not a natural one. Jesus was able to claim His throne through Jeconiah in a legal manner. But this prophecy back in Jeremiah 22 doesn't apply to Jesus Christ--because He was not a descendant of Jeconiah. Do you understand the difference? He had no blood of Jeconiah in His veins. His claim to the throne in this genealogy is purely legal; and the prophecy back in Jeremiah 22 is purely genetic. So it doesn't matter that Jeconiah is in the legal genealogy. All it does is set up a legal basis for His claim to the throne.
And this, by the way, is the line that was on the throne of Judah. That's why it had a little bit more "umps" (let's say) than Mary's line. You see it went from David to Solomon; and then from Solomon to Rehoboam; and then to Abijah, and to Asa, and Jehoshaphat, etc. You go back into the Bible, and you find out that those were the kings of Judah.
But when you to Mary's genealogy, you find something different. Let's go to Luke 3:23.
Now Jesus Himself began His ministry at about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, the son of Heli. (Luke 3:23)
And then it goes on back; and if you go down to verse 31:
The son of Melea, the son of Menan, the son of Mattathah, the son of Nathan, the son of David. (Luke 3:31)
So you see that Mary's line came through David's son Nathan, rather than Solomon. And so this was kind of (What would you call it?) a distaff branch of the family. They weren't the ones who were on the throne; and so their claim was much weaker legally—than the one who came through Solomon and down through Jeconiah. So Matthew uses this stronger line, by adoption, to be Christ's primary claim to the throne.
But Christ does, indeed, have a claim to the throne through Mary as well. Verse 23 says, "Joseph the son of Heli." [Pronounced "Eli."] (The Greeks put an "H" on it.) If you compare this with Matthew 1:16, it said that Joseph was the son of Jacob. So these are two different people. Jacob and Heli are not the same person. The way that you can figure this out is to go back and see who the father of [this] Jacob was, in Matthew 1. It's different than who the father of Heli was, in Luke 3. These two men had different fathers.
If you go back, you find out that the next person who is a common ancestor is Zerubbabel. So evidently what happened was that David had the two sons: Solomon and Nathan. They had separate lines that went down; but by the time that they got to "Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel" they came back together. Then, once Zerubbabel had sons, they split off again. And they came down two separate lines, until you had (on one side) Joseph, who was the son of Jacob—and (on the other side) you have Mary, who was the daughter of Heli. And Mary had Christ.
Thus you have two separate lines--actually, one corroborating the other (not contradicting it). God always proves things beyond a shadow of a doubt. So even if we cross out one of the genealogies as being not worthy (or something). Even if we cross one of them out, there is still the other one to take its place, and that is absolutely sterling in its quality.
This natural line, which Mary has through Heli (her father), is unblemished. This distaff line, of the line of David, is probably the better of the two—spiritually. We don't know many of these people. Nathan is never mentioned in the Bible outside of his name. That is, what kind of a person he was. Zerubbabel was, obviously, a righteous man. He was the one God chose to lead Judah back to Palestine after the exile. Everyone else, that we do know, in this line has pretty good character.
On the other hand, there's quite a bit written about the kings of Judah; and many of them did evil in the sight of the Lord. And, as we see in my dad's sermon (back in 1992) on WHY THREE KINGS ARE MISSING from the genealogy of Christ in Matthew 1—we can see that there was good reason why Matthew left some of them off. As a matter of fact, he left off three kings. Like my dad said in that [sermon]--they were Joash, Amaziah, and Azariah. (If you are interested in that, you can get the sermon tape.)
There are a few other differences in the [two] genealogies. The ones that I have mentioned so far are the best known. The first other difference is that Matthew divides his list into three sets of fourteen. If you go back to Matthew 1, it says in verse 17:
So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, from David until the captivity in Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the captivity in Babylon until the Christ are fourteen generations. (Matthew 1:16)
Well, that's not really true--because there are people missing. Obviously, those three kings are missing. That's three generations that are missing. But what he did was that he's evidently a very smart writer. He took a little poetic license here, so that they would be more easily memorized. Many people, of course, did not have a Bible. And so if they were going to memorize this portion of Scripture, it was much easier to remember three groups of fourteen. That's not saying that any of the names are wrong. It's just saying that he skips a few generations to make sure that it all fits into this very neat, three times, "fourteen" organization.
Luke does his straight up. As far as we know, there are no skips in his genealogy [of Christ]. And it has many more names. The genealogy in MATTHEW has 42 generations (3 x 14, obviously). But the one in LUKE has 56. That's 14 more. Now maybe you ask, "Why didn't Matthew just add another set of fourteen?" Well, that's because it didn't divide up very neatly; and three is a better number than four. At least, that's the only thing that I could think of. Maybe the line down through Solomon didn't quite have the 56 generations that the line through Nathan did. So it, therefore, didn't divide exactly into 4 x 14. Obviously, Matthew leaves out some links in the chain in order to keep his form of organization going.
Another difference is that Matthew's genealogy is done in the Jewish (or what you would call Old Testament) type of method. "X" begot "Y" and "Y" begot "Z"--and down through the list. If you go back to CHRONICLES, you find the same thing. If you go back to GENESIS, you'll find that they used the same—"X" begot "Y" and "Y" begot "Z."
But Luke was a Gentile. He did his a little bit different. He wasn't quite as grounded in the Hebrew way of doing things as Matthew was. Luke uses "Y" the son of "X." He turns it around. Luke goes backward. Matthew's goes forward—from Abraham to Jesus. Luke's goes backwards—from Jesus back to Adam and then to God.
There are reasons for this. Matthew really wanted to show Jesus as king; and so he tried to emphasize His kingly background. On the other hand, Luke (being a Gentile) was more interested in showing Jesus as a man for all men—a God for all men. He wanted to include the Gentiles, feeling that they would be more receptive to a Messiah who went all the way back to Adam—and thus, includes all of mankind. And so Luke does do that. He takes it back beyond Abraham to Noah (from whom all men came); and then he goes even further back to Adam (through whom, obviously, all man came as well). So there were different reasons for doing the genealogies in different ways.
Now, there are still more differences; and the one that I am going to talk about next will take the remainder of the sermon. Luke records a very plain genealogy. There are no breaks (no parenthetical statements)—from the time he speaks of Heli all the way back to Adam, the son of God. It's just straight right through, with no deviations. Matthew, on the other hand, adds a few details of historical significance. And, like I said, these are the ones that are going to take up the rest of the sermon time.
Matthew's most significant deviation, from the normal genealogy of the time, is that he includes four women. At that time, among the Jews all inheritance was based upon the father. They don't do this today; but back then it went from father to firstborn son, all the way down. And so the genealogies were recordings of men. When it said, "X" begot "Y" and "Y" begot "Z"—they were all men.
You'll find this in Luke's genealogy too. They are all men. He doesn't even mention Mary. He just says "Jesus... (as was supposed) the son of Joseph." And then he skips over to Heli, who was Mary's father.
The four women who are named in Matthew 1 are Tamar (in verse 3), Rahab and Ruth (in verse 5) and "her who had been the wife of Uriah" (in verse 6). That Matthew chooses to include these four women—these particular four women—is very curious. You probably noticed that there are a few women who aren't on the list. Why in the world would you pick Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba—when you could have such sterling examples of faith as Sarah (in that list), or Mrs. Noah? (She sure went through a lot, whatever her name was.) And there were others that could have been mentioned. As a matter of fact, if you go back through the books of KINGS and CHRONICLES, they mention several women as being the mother of such-and-such (a king). And it gives them credit, in a way, for preparing a good king (usually) for the people. But Matthew decides to list these four particular women. That's very strange.
Now, there are four curiosities here. One woman he does not even name. He calls her by her husband's name—"the wife of Uriah." He doesn't even say Bathsheba. Is this a kind of backhanded slap at David's favorite wife? Or it is maybe, on the other hand, trying to point us to the character of Uriah? I don't know. But it doesn't even mention her name--even though she's the one, obviously, that he means.
The second curiosity is that two of these women "sneaked into" the Messiah's line through levirate marriage—Tamar and Ruth. Now, "levirate marriage" (if you don't know what that is) was a custom that God put into His law. It was around, in the Middle East, before then. But that was the custom that, if a man died married, and he had not had any children (to carry on his name, or to inherit his property) then the wife was given to the next oldest son or the next oldest male relative. And he was to have a son, or a child, by the widowed woman—in order to pass on the inheritance. We'll see more about this a little bit later; but both Tamar and Ruth (as I used the word) "sneaked" into this line through levirate marriage. Otherwise, it wouldn't have happened that they would ever be mentioned.
The third one is that three had serious sexual sins. One posed as a harlot. One was a harlot. And one was an adulteress. Now if you want your claim as king to be taken seriously, do you throw your "skeletons" in? I guess Matthew thought, "Well, it doesn't matter. I might as well throw a few more of them in. There's guys like David in there, and Judah, and Solomon, and Manasseh, and several others. So I might as well throw in a few women, who'll make the genealogy that more colorful."
The fourth one is that three of these four ladies are Gentiles. The first is a Canaanite. The second is an Amorite; and the third is a Moabite. (And he forgot Sarah, who was a true-blooded Shemite —Hebrew.)
Now why did Matthew include these four in his list, and leave out such others? What's so special about these four women? Why did he include them, and leave out those three kings? Wouldn't it have been better to have just put Joash, and Amaziah, and Azariah in there—and leave these four women out? It's very curious, if you ask me. But maybe, if we study these women's lives a little bit, we might be able to understand why he might have decided to leave them in.
Let's go back to Genesis 38.Tamar--and her story--is found there. Where this is placed is very interesting. If you look in Genesis 37, you'll find that that's the chapter in which Joseph's brothers captured him and sold him off to the Midianites. Chapter 39 picks up the story again of Joseph, in Egypt as a slave in Potiphar's house.
Now why did Moses stick the story of Judah and Tamar right in the middle of this, seemingly, what should have been 'seamless' story of Joseph? Well, I think there might be two reasons for this. The first, if you think about it, is that it probably happened around the same time. Or, at least, it ended about the same time as when the story picks up with Joseph in Egypt.
The second, I think, is probably more likely. That is that it is dramatically similar. There's something about the story of Judah and Tamar that fits right here—that needed to be said, before we get into what happened to Joseph in Egypt. That there is something God is building here—some part of the story, some part of God's plan—that needs to go forward before we can go into the next part about Joseph.
With that in mind, we are going to read all the way through this chapter, because we need to see the whole story. We won't go to the part about Judah marrying this other woman first. But, by the way (just as a sidelight here), the woman's name—whom Judah married first—was Bathshua. Now don't confuse this with David's wife Bathsheba, or "Bathshua." Just remember that, because it will come up later in the Bathsheba story. But it says here that Judah's first wife's name was "a daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua." Well, "Bathshua" means "daughter of Shua." So that's her name. She's Bathshua, the daughter of Shua.
Then Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. (Genesis 38:6)
Tamar means "palm" (like a palm tree), if you'd like to know.
But Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD killed him. (Genesis 38:7)
We have no idea what he did. He was just a bad guy; and so God got rid of him. He did not want the Messiah to come through Er.
And Judah said to Onan, "Go in to your brother's wife and marry her, and raise up an heir to your brother."
This was the command from Judah, who was the patriarch of his particular family, to perform the levirate duties.
But Onan knew that the heir would not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in to his brother's wife, that he emitted on the ground, lest he should give an heir to his brother. 10 And the thing which he did displeased the LORD; therefore He killed him also. (Genesis 38:9-10)
Onan was not good enough for God. There was something about Onan's character that Onan would not live up to his part of the covenant.
Then Judah said to Tamar his daughter-in-law, "Remain a widow in your father's house till my son Shelah is grown." For he said, "Lest he also die like his brothers." (Genesis 38:11a)
He said, "This woman has a curse on her, or something. Every son I give her is dead by morning, it seems." So you wonder if Judah ever meant to give his son Shelah to his daughter-in-law, Tamar. It seems like he was lying through his teeth here; and that he was just trying to get rid of her. He thought, "In the intervening time (between now and the time when Shelah is able to have a wife) maybe somebody else will come along and take Tamar. Then, that will be a problem off my hands." Well, it didn't work out that way.
And Tamar went and dwelt in her father's house. 12 Now in the process of time [meaning, several years] the daughter of Shua [remember "Bathshua"], Judah's wife, died; and Judah was comforted, and went up to his sheepshearers at Timnah, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite. (Genesis 38:11b-12)
This begins to tell you a few things about Judah. When it says that Judah was "comforted," it's probably a way of saying that he went and had a real good time with his friend Hirah the Adullamite. They were probably out carousing and drinking.
Just as a sidelight here: if you go back and put together the people's ages, it looks like--when Judah first married this Bathshua--he was only about 15 years old. And he went and did it without consulting his father. He was doing the same sort of thing that, a generation ago, Esau had done.
And putting these things together, it seems like he let Er marry Tamar when he was only about 15 years old. Then he probably waited just a few more years until Onan was about that age, and then he gave Tamar to him. Who knows how many years younger Shelah was? So this all took place in a very short time. And so, by the time that Judah was only about 30 years old, this is taking place.
We don't usually think in these terms. We think of all these patriarchs as being old. But here is a case where Judah was probably a young man, very much in his prime. And so, what happens here shouldn't be surprising to us. He was still carousing and doing all kinds of stuff that he shouldn't be doing.
And it was told Tamar, saying "Look your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep." 14 So she took off her widow's garments, covered herself with a veil and wrapped herself, and sat in an open place which was on the way to Timnah; for she saw that Shelah was grown, and she was not given to him as a wife. (Genesis 38:13-14)
Now you come to her motives for what she was doing here. She saw that Judah was tricking her, or keeping her from what was rightfully hers. Whether she was thinking that she would be barren (because, remember, she was probably by this time in her early twenties and beginning to feel like she was an old maid) and that Judah had a responsibility to her and he wasn't fulfilling it. And so like Sarah and Rachel, and other—she was going to somehow take matters into her own hands and work this out. So she decides to pose as a harlot.
When Judah saw her, he thought she was a harlot, because she had covered her face. 16 Then he turned to her by the way, and said, "Please let me come in to you"; for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law [and he would be committing incest with her]. So she said, "What will you give me that you may come in to me?" 17 And he said, "I will send a young goat from the flock." (Genesis 38:15-17a)
Evidently, this "young goat from the flock" was considered a delicacy. So it was a fairly high price.
So she said, "will you give me a pledge till you send it?" (Genesis 38:17b)
That is, "something as an earnest, so that I'll know that you will actually give it to me."
Then he said, "What pledge shall I give you?" (Genesis 38:18a)
So she says, "Ah, ha." ?part two, in her scheme.
So she said, "Your signet and cord, and your staff that is in your hand." (Genesis 38:18b)
Now let me explain this. Why did she ask for all three things? The signet—which is like a ring, or some sort of piece of pottery or stone that had an impression on it so that, when you stuck it into a seal, it stuck. It was like your signature. You could be identified by that certain seal. The chain, or bracelet, or cord (it's said in different ways in various translations) was a piece of string, or cord, or leather, or whatever it happened to be, that they tied the signet to. Now, why did she ask for the walking stick? Well, usually, the staff was where you placed your signet and your cord. You hung the signet from the cord that you placed on your staff. So, all three kind of go together. And all three of them, then, would identify Judah. Not just any one, but all three of them would really say, "You're the man."
Then he gave them to her, and went in to her, and she conceived by him. 19 So she arose and went away, and laid aside her veil and put on the garments of her widowhood. 20 And Judah sent the young goat by the hand of his friend [Hirah] the Adullamite, to receive his pledge from the woman's hand, but he did not find her [That's because she wasn't there]. 21 Then he asked the men of that place, saying, "Where is the harlot who was openly by the roadside? And they said, "There was no harlot in this place." ["What are you talking about? We are an upstanding community. We don't have people like that here."] (Genesis 38:18b-21)
Now, I do need to explain something. It says there, in verse 15, that Judah thought that she was an harlot. That word is the normal word for prostitute, for harlot. But when you get down to verse 21, the word that Hirah the Adullamite uses is not "harlot." It's "ritual prostitute"—a different word. (Qedeshah.) It means "holy prostitute" or "set apart prostitute."
What she did was not pose as a mere prostitute. She posed as a priestess of Ashtoreth. And part of the ritual of that religion was that a woman could become a ritual prostitute in Ashtoreth's temple, as part of her service to the goddess.
Okay—more "skeletons" in Christ's closest. Not only was she posing as a prostitute, but also she was posing as an idolatrous prostitute--posing as an idolatrous priestess. And Judah had not compunction about doing this—worshipping Ashtoreth. That makes Judah's actions all the much worse. I just wanted to mention that so that you'll get a little bit fuller understanding of what was going on.
I don't know; but maybe, in this certain place, they were not worshippers of Ashtoreth. Thus the man, who responds to Hirah the Adullamite says, "We don't have anybody like that here." Maybe they were worshippers of Baal, or some other one; and they said, "No, no, no. We don't have people like that here."
So he returned to Judah and said, "I cannot find her. Also, the men of the place said there was no harlot in this place." (Genesis 38:22)
"Are you sure you have the right place, Judah?"
The Judah said, "Let her take them for herself, lest we be shamed; for I sent this young goat and you have not found her." (Genesis 38:23)
Basically, he said, "Okay. If she's going to play games with me, she can come get the goat from me herself."
And it came to pass, about three months after, that Judah was told, saying, "Tamar your daughter-in-law has played the harlot; furthermore she is with child by harlotry." So Judah said, "Bring her out and let her be burned!" (Genesis 38:24)
Oh, easy for him to say. Here he was so easy to condemn somebody of something of which he, himself, was guilty. He was very willing to use his power—as the patriarch of his little clan—to get rid of his problem, Tamar (the cursed woman).
When she was brought out, she sent to her father-in-law... (Genesis 38:25a)
RTR/plh/
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