Matthew 1: 1-17 Compare to Luke 3: 23-38

[ManFromHeaven]

Matthew 1:17
There were thus fourteen generations in all from Abraham t David, fourteen from David until the deportation to Babylon, and fourteen from the deportation until the Messiah.
Long ago when I first read the New Testament the importance of this writing of Matthew escaped me until much later whilst seeking deeper meaning within the scriptures. I believe not a single word in all the scripture is without meaning or relevance.
So I ask myself why? what is the relevance of the fourteen sets of generations for the three time periods? A noted scholar informed me that this was contrived by Matthew to create a symmetry of numbers! For what reason I cannot fathom. Also interesting is the complete difference between Matthew's Table of descent of Jesus Christ Matt 1:1-17, compared to Luke's Birth records according to "as the people thought" Luke 3:23-38

I came to the answer long ago but hesitate to post here as my understanding is way off base with orthodox belief. You may be I would however like to put my first foot forward in coming to my understanding and would like to invite informed understanding from others. So in your opinion what is the relevance of the fourteen generations? and why are the records of Matthew and Luke so very different?

[ManFromHeaven]

Well here goes my second foot forward:

After counting the number of generations Matt 1:1-16

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW

A Table of the descent of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham.
[1]Abraham was the father of Isaac, [2]Isaac of Jacob, [3]Jacob of Judah and his brothers [4]Judah of Perez and Zarah [their mother was Tamar], [5]Perez of Hezron, [6]Hezron of Ram, [7]Ram of Amminadab, [8]Amminadab of Nahshon, [9]Nahshon of Salma, [10]Salma of Boaz [his mother was Rahab], [11]Boaz of Obed [his mother was Ruth], [12]Obed of Jesse; and [13]Jesse was the father of king David.
[1]David was the father of Solomon [his mother had been the wife of Uriah], [2]Solomon of Rehoboam, [3]Rehoboam of Abijah, [4]Abijah of Asa, [5]Asa of Jehoshaphat, [6]Jehoshaphat of Joram, [7]Joram of Azariah, [8]Azariah Jotham, [9]Jotham of Ahaz, [10]Ahaz of Hezekiah, [11]Hezekiah of Manasseh, [12]Manasseh of Amon, [13]Amon of Josiah; and [14]Josiah was the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the deportation to Babylon.
After the deportation [1]Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel, [2]Shealtiel of Zerubbabel, [3]Zerubbabel of Abiud, [4]Abiud of Eliakim, [5]Eliakim of Azor, [6]Azor of Zadok, [7]Zakok of Achim, [8]Achim of Eliud, [9]Eliud of Eleazar, [10]Eleazar of Matthan, [11]Matthan of Jacob, [12]Jacob of Joseph, [13]the husband of Mary, who gave birth to Jesus called Messiah.

There were thus fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David until the deportation to Babylon, and fourteen from the deportation until the Messiah.
There is however only thirteen sets of father and sons from the time of Abraham to King David and also from the time after the deportation unto the birth of the Messiah. One must include the paternal father of Amminadab [Admin] and the paternal father of Jesus [Joseph the son of Heli] as listed and according to what people believed in Luke 3:23-38, to arrive at the correct number of generations. OK I know it is stretching the bow to some extent but please bear with me if you will.


An early witness of scripture has; Joseph, and Joseph, to whom Mary, a virgin (not in the literal sense of the Hebrew word ha-al-mah, but in the sense of a young unmarried women of the Hebrew word bethu. Lah..) was betrothed, was the father of…You see clearly now that Jesus has two fathers and his mother was not a virgin in the literal sense of many churches understanding.

Also;

David was the father of Solomon [his mother had been the wife of Uriah]
One may presume that King David was the step father of Solomon; but he was the paternal father of Nathan as according to the birth records of Luke and general opinion. There is clearly a message of reasoning unto the knowledge of who was the paternal father of Jesus called the Messiah.

The great miracle was keeping a blood line from Adam to Yeshua secrete from the baby killing King Herod. You see, the census records that established Yeshua's ancestry for the authorities were recorded upon the marriage of Mary and Joseph (the son of Jacob), whilst Yeshua's true blood line was kept hidden in family genealogy records. And prophecy was made true with a twist on the meaning of virgin.

Interesting also is that;

Mary would travel to the high country and visit her friend Elizabeth who's husband is Zachariah a Priest.
When one understands that the true meaning of the scriptures are hidden between the lines of meaning and that an angel is a person who’s wings are symbols of a person being able to rise unto heaven and the presence of God, then one will see the conspiracy between all the participants unfold. You will know that you are in the presence of angel when given heavenly direction by a person in service to Jehovah.
And the Holy Spirit moves in mysterious ways.

Luke 1:26;…the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, with a message for a girl betrothed to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David; the girls name was Mary. The angel went in and said to her, ‘Greetings, most favoured one! The Lord is with you.’ But she was deeply troubled by what he said and wondered what this greeting might mean. Mary was not at all troubled by the presence of the angel, only the meaning of the angels greeting. Clearly Mary new she was in the presence of a man. ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for God has been gracious to you; you shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall give him the name Yeshua. He will be great; he will bear the title “Son of the most high”; the Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David, and he shall be king over Israel for ever; his rein shall never end.’ ‘How can this be,’ said Mary, ‘when I have no husband?’ The angel answered, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy child to be born will be called “Son of God”. Moreover your kinswoman Elizabeth has herself conceived a son in her old age; and she who is reputed barren is now in her sixth month, for God’s promises can never fail.’
38; ‘Here am I’ said Mary; ‘I am the Lords servant; as you have spoken, so be it.’ Then the angel left her.
39; About this time Mary set out and went straight to a town in the uplands of Judah. She went into Zechariah’s house and greeted Elizabeth. I think perhaps that Zechariah’s house is similar to The House of David in that it represents the place in which one abides in a spiritual sense under the roof of God. But that's just me stretching my bow.
And when Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby stirred in her womb. Then Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and cried aloud, ‘God’s blessing is on you above all women, and his blessing is on the fruit of your womb. Who am I, that the mother of my Lord should visit me? I tell you, when your greeting sounded in my ears, the baby in my womb leapt for joy. How happy is she who has had faith that the Lord’s promise would be fulfilled!’ Elizabeth surely knew of Gabriell's message to Mary and was expecting her arrival unto her house, the house of Zachariah.
56; And Mary stayed with her about three months and then returned home. Three months to fulfil the Lords promise and conceive a child to Joseph the son of Heli.

Perhaps Joseph the son of Heli was also the father to Elizabeth’s baby in her womb whom leapt for joy at the greeting from his soon to be mother of his half brother. John the Baptist may well be the half brother to Jesus the Messiah.

The angel had expressed to Mary the circumstances in which Elizabeth had conceived, and one may assume that Mary was to conceive in a similar way. They were both moved by the Holy Spirit and also directed by the priesthood called after Abijah; [My father is Jehovah]. Elizabeth’s husband, Zechariah, was a priest of the Order of Abijah, and Elizabeth was also of priestly descent. The pregnancies of both Mary and Elizabeth were orchestrated under the guidance of the priesthood through the direction of Jehovah’s servant otherwise known as the angel Gabriel. And poor old Zechariah was left speechless with the scenario presented to him, as one would expect if another man were to father the child of his wife, Elizabeth. Zechariah had not fathered any children to Elizabeth, so one might assume that he was perhaps infertile and Elizabeth was quite capable of conceiving even though she was well on in years. Small miracles perhaps and a long drawn bow, but that's just the way I read it.

[B. W.]

Matthew 1:17

There were thus fourteen generations in all from Abraham t David, fourteen from David until the deportation to Babylon, and fourteen from the deportation until the Messiah.

Long ago when I first read the New Testament the importance of this writing of Matthew escaped me until much later whilst seeking deeper meaning within the scriptures. I believe not a single word in all the scripture is without meaning or relevance.

So I ask myself why? what is the relevance of the fourteen sets of generations for the three time periods? A noted scholar informed me that this was contrived by Matthew to create a symmetry of numbers! For what reason I cannot fathom. Also interesting is the complete difference between Matthew's Table of descent of Jesus Christ Matt 1:1-17, compared to Luke's Birth records according to "as the people thought" Luke 3:23-38

I came to the answer long ago but hesitate to post here as my understanding is way off base with orthodox belief. You may be I would however like to put my first foot forward in coming to my understanding and would like to invite informed understanding from others. So in your opinion what is the relevance of the fourteen generations? and why are the records of Matthew and Luke so very different?

The two gospel accounts deal with the genealogy of Joseph and the other of Mary.

As for your other comment about the 14 generations may have to do with the Jewish practice of gemantia where the consonants spell of David’s name in numeric language; hence, D+V+D = 4+6+4=14 and David being the 14th name on the list in Matthews listed genealogy.
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[jlay]

Everything in Matthew including the geneology was to convince Israel that their Kingly Messiah had come.
As BW said, numbers and gematria had significant meanings to Israel. This was a sign to Israel, as it would have no significance for the gentile.

[ManFromHeaven]

Matthew 1:17

There were thus fourteen generations in all from Abraham t David, fourteen from David until the deportation to Babylon, and fourteen from the deportation until the Messiah.

Long ago when I first read the New Testament the importance of this writing of Matthew escaped me until much later whilst seeking deeper meaning within the scriptures. I believe not a single word in all the scripture is without meaning or relevance.

So I ask myself why? what is the relevance of the fourteen sets of generations for the three time periods? A noted scholar informed me that this was contrived by Matthew to create a symmetry of numbers! For what reason I cannot fathom. Also interesting is the complete difference between Matthew's Table of descent of Jesus Christ Matt 1:1-17, compared to Luke's Birth records according to "as the people thought" Luke 3:23-38

I came to the answer long ago but hesitate to post here as my understanding is way off base with orthodox belief. You may be I would however like to put my first foot forward in coming to my understanding and would like to invite informed understanding from others. So in your opinion what is the relevance of the fourteen generations? and why are the records of Matthew and Luke so very different?

The two gospel accounts deal with the genealogy of Joseph and the other of Mary.

As for your other comment about the 14 generations may have to do with the Jewish practice of gemantia where the consonants spell of David’s name in numeric language; hence, D+V+D = 4+6+4=14 and David being the 14th name on the list in Matthews listed genealogy.
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Do you mean that Luke 3:23 is Mary's genealogy? How do you know this? Is she then a descendant to Adam? Like Jesus I presume. Matt 3:23 When Jesus began his work he was about thirty years old, the son,as people thought, of Joseph, son of Heli,..
How is Joseph the son of Heli related to Mary? other than as Luke states; The father of Mary's son Jesus according to what the people believed. Which is in conflict to Matthews record Joseph being the son of Jacob being the father of Jesus.

D+v+d = 4+^+$=14 is interesting but could this not be coincidence? And what is the relevance to the other sets of 14 generations? and that also there are only 13 sets of generations from the deportation to the Messiah. Also the number of generations from Abraham to King David is only 13. I cannot see relevance of the numeric value of David to the number of generations.

[B. W.]

Matthew 1:17

There were thus fourteen generations in all from Abraham t David, fourteen from David until the deportation to Babylon, and fourteen from the deportation until the Messiah.

Long ago when I first read the New Testament the importance of this writing of Matthew escaped me until much later whilst seeking deeper meaning within the scriptures. I believe not a single word in all the scripture is without meaning or relevance.

So I ask myself why? what is the relevance of the fourteen sets of generations for the three time periods? A noted scholar informed me that this was contrived by Matthew to create a symmetry of numbers! For what reason I cannot fathom. Also interesting is the complete difference between Matthew's Table of descent of Jesus Christ Matt 1:1-17, compared to Luke's Birth records according to "as the people thought" Luke 3:23-38

I came to the answer long ago but hesitate to post here as my understanding is way off base with orthodox belief. You may be I would however like to put my first foot forward in coming to my understanding and would like to invite informed understanding from others. So in your opinion what is the relevance of the fourteen generations? and why are the records of Matthew and Luke so very different?

The two gospel accounts deal with the genealogy of Joseph and the other of Mary.

As for your other comment about the 14 generations may have to do with the Jewish practice of gemantia where the consonants spell of David’s name in numeric language; hence, D+V+D = 4+6+4=14 and David being the 14th name on the list in Matthews listed genealogy.

Do you mean that Luke 3:23 is Mary's genealogy? How do you know this? Is she then a descendant to Adam? Like Jesus I presume. Matt 3:23 When Jesus began his work he was about thirty years old, the son,as people thought, of Joseph, son of Heli,..
How is Joseph the son of Heli related to Mary? other than as Luke states; The father of Mary's son Jesus according to what the people believed. Which is in conflict to Matthews record Joseph being the son of Jacob being the father of Jesus.

D+v+d = 4+^+$=14 is interesting but could this not be coincidence? And what is the relevance to the other sets of 14 generations? and that also there are only 13 sets of generations from the deportation to the Messiah. Also the number of generations from Abraham to King David is only 13. I cannot see relevance of the numeric value of David to the number of generations.

What is your opinion on these same matters?
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[A Y323]

Hello. I was reading this article on the main site and remembered this thread. I thought maybe you would find it interesting. I was reading this part in particular:

Typically when a genealogy is telescoped, the number of names is reduced to an aesthetically pleasing number (usually 10 or a multiple of 7); less important names are omitted until that number is reached. For example, the genealogy of Genesis 4:17–18 contains 7 names. The genealogies in Genesis 5:3–32; 11:10–26; and Ruth 4:18–22 all have 10 names each. The genealogy of the nations (Genesis 10:2–29; 1 Chronicles 1:5–23) contains 70 names. Matthew arranged his genealogy (Matthew 1:2–17) into 3 groups of 14 names each. There are 14 names from Abraham to David, 14 from David to the exile, and 14 from the exile to Jesus Christ. To get the groups of 14, Matthew omitted at least 4 names (see below) and counted Jeconiah’s name twice. (See Table 1, Matthew’s Genealogy.) Matthew clearly indicates in his gospel that that arrangement was intentional (Matthew 1:17). Whereas Matthew’s genealogy is broken into sections, Luke’s genealogy (Luke 3:23–38) is given as a single list. Luke has 14 names from Abraham to David, 21 from David to the exile, and 21 from the exile to Jesus Christ (in contrast to Matthew’s 14 names each). Luke also has an additional 21 names from Abraham back to Adam. (See Table 2, Luke’s Genealogy.)

While modern genealogies are generally intended to be complete, most biblical genealogies are telescoped. Although biblical genealogies are generally not complete, they are still historically accurate.

As already mentioned, Matthew was written specifically for Jews, and also already mentioned, numbers and gematria were very significant to Jews. You also may know that 7 in the Bible represents completeness or perfection. So Matthew intentionally broke down his genealogy of Jesus into 3 sections of 14 (7*2), [3*14 = 42, which is also a multiple of 7, (7*6)] because he knew it would be significant to Jews.

[ManFromHeaven]

Matthew 1:17

There were thus fourteen generations in all from Abraham t David, fourteen from David until the deportation to Babylon, and fourteen from the deportation until the Messiah.

Long ago when I first read the New Testament the importance of this writing of Matthew escaped me until much later whilst seeking deeper meaning within the scriptures. I believe not a single word in all the scripture is without meaning or relevance.

So I ask myself why? what is the relevance of the fourteen sets of generations for the three time periods? A noted scholar informed me that this was contrived by Matthew to create a symmetry of numbers! For what reason I cannot fathom. Also interesting is the complete difference between Matthew's Table of descent of Jesus Christ Matt 1:1-17, compared to Luke's Birth records according to "as the people thought" Luke 3:23-38

I came to the answer long ago but hesitate to post here as my understanding is way off base with orthodox belief. You may be I would however like to put my first foot forward in coming to my understanding and would like to invite informed understanding from others. So in your opinion what is the relevance of the fourteen generations? and why are the records of Matthew and Luke so very different?

The two gospel accounts deal with the genealogy of Joseph and the other of Mary.

As for your other comment about the 14 generations may have to do with the Jewish practice of gemantia where the consonants spell of David’s name in numeric language; hence, D+V+D = 4+6+4=14 and David being the 14th name on the list in Matthews listed genealogy.

Do you mean that Luke 3:23 is Mary's genealogy? How do you know this? Is she then a descendant to Adam? Like Jesus I presume. Matt 3:23 When Jesus began his work he was about thirty years old, the son,as people thought, of Joseph, son of Heli,..
How is Joseph the son of Heli related to Mary? other than as Luke states; The father of Mary's son Jesus according to what the people believed. Which is in conflict to Matthews record Joseph being the son of Jacob being the father of Jesus.

D+v+d = 4+^+$=14 is interesting but could this not be coincidence? And what is the relevance to the other sets of 14 generations? and that also there are only 13 sets of generations from the deportation to the Messiah. Also the number of generations from Abraham to King David is only 13. I cannot see relevance of the numeric value of David to the number of generations.

What is your opinion on these same matters?
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My apologies for neglecting this thread. As I posted earlier: There were thus fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David until the deportation to Babylon, and fourteen from the deportation until the Messiah.
There is however only thirteen sets of father and sons from the time of Abraham to King David and also from the time after the deportation unto the birth of the Messiah. One must include the foster father of Amminadab [Admin] and the paternal father of Jesus [Joseph the son of Heli] as listed and according to what people believed in Luke 3:23-38, to arrive at the correct number of generations.

I have now researched a little of Judaic number meanings also:


The Number Fourteen

The number seven is of completion or perfection as in the seven days of creation, the seven rivers, the seven colours of the rainbow, the seven churches, the seven stars representing the seven angels etc..

Fourteen being a multiple of two times seven is double the significance of complete or being perfect.

Matthew 1. Genealogy which is divided into three sets of fourteen.

Three is the first of four perfect numbers.
Three denotes divine perfection;
Seven denotes spiritual perfection;
Ten denotes ordinal perfection; and
Twelve denotes governmental perfection.

The number of generations being three sets of fourteen are therefore perfect and this places great significance on there being two sets of missing generations which must be accounted for!

The correct number can only be accounted for by including the foster father of Ram of Amminadab and the paternal father of Jesus son of Joseph the son of Heli as was supposed by the people. Luke 3:23
These extra fathers make up the extra sets of fathers and sons, completing the fourteen sets of perfection.