Matthew Chapter 1 verse 1 Holy Bible

Matthew 1 : 1 Bible Verse Songs

• It Came Upon The Midnight Clear by Christafari

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 1. - The book of the generation. As St. Matthew was writing only for Jews, and they, by reason of their Old Testament prophecies, looked for the Messiah to be born of a certain family, he begins his Gospel with a pedigree of Jesus. In this he mentions, by way of introduction, the two points to which his countrymen would have special regard - the descent of Jesus from David, the founder of the royal line, him in whose descendants the Ruler of Israel must necessarily (2 Samuel 7:13-16) be looked for; and also from Abraham, who was the head of the covenant nation, and to whom the promise had been given that in his seed all the nations of the earth should bless themselves (Genesis 22:18; Genesis 12:3). After this he proceeds to fill up the intervening steps in the genealogy. The spelling of the names in the Authorized Version accords with the Greek, and so varies from the Old Testament orthography; but for the sake of the English reader it is certainly advisable to do what has been done in the Revised Version, viz. to conform the spelling to that of the Old Testament, and, where the Greek varies much, to put that form in the margin. It is better to write Rahab than Raehab, and Shealtiel than Salathiel. Those who read the Greek Gospels when these were first written read also the Old Testament in Greek, and so were in no confusion. The first verse of the Gospel is doubtless intended as a preface to what is contained in vers. 2-17. It is, indeed, true that the phrase, "the book of the generation" (βίβλος γενέσεως, equivalent to sepher toledoth, Genesis 5.1), might in itself point rather to events and works connected with the active life of him whose name it precedes (cf. the use of toledoth in Genesis 5:1; Genesis 6:9; Genesis 10:1; even Genesis 2:4, et al.) , and thus might refer to the whole of ch. 1. (Kubel), or even the whole of the First Gospel (Keil); yet the addition of the Son of David, the Son of Abraham, by summarizing the genealogy, limits the reference of ver. 1 to this alone. Observe (1) that the same word (γένεσις) recurs in ver. 18; but being without βίβλος, has a slightly different meaning; (2) that the word translated" generation" in ver. 17 is γενέα, and means a single stratum of human life. The evangelist uses the name Jesus Christ here as a proper name, customary in later Christian circles (cf. John 1:17, and especially the traces of development from 1 Corinthians 12:3 and Romans 10:9 to Philippians 2:11). "Christ" is not used in its signification of "Messiah," or "Anointed," till ver. 17, where it would be better rendered "the Christ."

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(1) The book of the generation.--The opening words of the Gospel show that it is written by a Jew for Jewish readers. They are an essentially Hebrew formula (as in Genesis 5:1), and were applied chiefly though not exclusively (Genesis 37:2) to genealogies such as that which follows here.Jesus Christ.--The collocation of names was not so much a thing of course when St. Matthew wrote as it now seems to us. There were many who bore the name of Jesus--e.g., Jesus the son or Sirach, Jesus surnamed Justus (Colossians 4:11), possibly even Jesus Bar-abbas (Matthew 27:17). It was necessary to state that the genealogy that followed was that of Jesus the Messiah, the true "anointed" of the Lord.The son of David.--This, of course, was added as the most popular of all the names of the expected Christ, owned alike by scribes and Rabbis (Matthew 22:42), by children (Matthew 21:9), and by the poor (Matthew 15:22; Matthew 20:30). . . .