SCRIPTURE
Matthew 1 New Testament
This is more educational than devotional. The purpose of this piece is to introduce you to four women who God chose to fulfil His plan for sending Jesus to the world. It is to help you to interpret scripture, too. This may be a little complicated, but hang in there. I hope you like math!
Matthew 1 lists Jesus's genealogy as a decendant of Abraham documenting his Jewish ancestry. There's another and different genealogy account in Luke, but this piece discusses Matthew's.
Matthew's account listed four women in Jesus's ancestry: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth , and Mother Mary This is important on many fronts. First, genealogy was very important to the Jews to show ancestry and Jewish tradition carried on through the Torah and covenant of God throughout generations. It showed Jesusis in that Abrahamic line then continued on to David . PROPHESY IN OLD TESTAMENT SAID THE MESSIAH WOULD BE IN THAT LINE! Matthew's purpose for writing his book was to show that Jesus fulfilled prophesies.
But to have women listed is hugely important! It was definitely a man's world and ancestry was almost always showed through the male in the family.
Only one of the four women was Jewish, Mary, but the other three were vital. I will write on each of these women separately.
Also important is the number symbolism. Fourteen generations, a numeric pattern, designed to divide the groupings. Fourteen between Abraham to David; fourteen from David to the exile; and fourteen from the exile to Jesus. Numberology, the study of numbers, is very interesting to me. The Bible uses numbers as symbols of certain ideas. Seven means" completeness." For example creation was on first six days and the seventh day God rested. Fourteen is 7 x 2, double complete. Now this is repeated three times. Three is "God's number." The Trinity means three in one; Jesus resurrected on third day being most important.
LESSON
Matthew's account was very organized and I guess it should be as he was a former accountant/tax collector, but God was in control here, not Matthew. It showed the prophesies of OT that Jesus was in David's ancestry as the prophesied King of the Jews, Messiah, proof of His divine royalty. God uses all people, all races, all genders, all ethnic groups, all religions to carry out His plan. Thank you Matthew, for clarity on this.
💕