Matthew

Rodney Reeves, Tremper Longman III, Scot McKnight

• Publisher: Zondervan Academic
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780310327141
• eBook ISBN: 9780310537793
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

A new commentary for today's world, The Story of God Bible Commentary explains and illuminates each passage of Scripture in light of the Bible's grand story.

The first commentary series to do so, SGBC offers a clear and compelling exposition of biblical texts, guiding everyday readers in how to creatively and faithfully live out the Bible in their own contexts. Its story-centric approach is ideal for pastors, students, Sunday school teachers, and laypeople alike.

Each volume employs three main, easy-to-use sections designed to help readers live out God's story:

• LISTEN to the Story: Includes complete NIV text with references to other texts at work in each passage, encouraging the reader to hear it within the Bible's grand story.
• EXPLAIN the Story: Explores and illuminates each text as embedded in its canonical and historical setting.
• LIVE the Story: Reflects on how each text can be lived today and includes contemporary stories and illustrations to aid preachers, teachers, and students.

 

—Matthew—

Matthew's ability to draw his readers into the narrative world, helping us not only to see the kingdom of heaven coming to earth in the ministry of Jesus but also to experience it, moves us from being visitors to the gospel story to becoming participants in it. Who Jesus is was the driving force behind Matthew's Gospel.

Edited by Scot McKnight and Tremper Longman III, and written by a number of top-notch theologians, The Story of God Bible Commentary series will bring relevant, balanced, and clear-minded theological insight to any biblical education or ministry.

CHAPTER 1

Matthew 1:1–17

LISTEN to the Story

¹This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:

²Abraham was the father of Isaac,

Isaac the father of Jacob,

Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,

³Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar,

Perez the father of Hezron,

Hezron the father of Ram,

⁴Ram the father of Amminadab,

Amminadab the father of Nahshon,

Nahshon the father of Salmon,

⁵Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,

Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth,

Obed the father of Jesse,

⁶and Jesse the father of King David.

David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife,

⁷Solomon the father of Rehoboam,

Rehoboam the father of Abijah,

Abijah the father of Asa,

⁸Asa the father of Jehoshaphat,

Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram,

Jehoram the father of Uzziah,

⁹Uzziah the father of Jotham,

Jotham the father of Ahaz,

Ahaz the father of Hezekiah,

¹⁰Hezekiah the father of Manasseh,

Manasseh the father of Amon,

Amon the father of Josiah,

¹¹and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.

¹²After the exile to Babylon:

Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel,

Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,

¹³Zerubbabel the father of Abihud,

Abihud the father of Eliakim,

Eliakim the father of Azor,

¹⁴Azor the father of Zadok,

Zadok the father of Akim,

Akim the father of Elihud,

¹⁵Elihud the father of Eleazar,

Eleazar the father of Matthan,

Matthan the father of Jacob,

¹⁶and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.

¹⁷Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah.

Listening to the Text in the Story: Genesis 1:1–5:2; 12:1–3; 15:1–6; 17:1–19; 38:6–26; 49:9–12; Joshua 2:1–21; 6:22–25; Ruth 1:22–4:22; 1 Samuel 16:1–13; 2 Samuel 2:1–4; 5:1–5; 7:1–16; 11:2–12:25; 23:1–7; 2 Kings 24:10–25:26; 1 Chronicles 1:34; 2:1–15; 3:1–19.

The story of Jesus the Messiah didn’t begin with his birth—as fantastic as it was. Rather, Matthew believed the only way his readers would be able to make sense of the life of Jesus, from his birth to his resurrection, was to go back to the beginning of Israel’s story. Of course, to tell a condensed version of the entire story of Israel in prose—no matter how brief—would take several pages of precious papyri. Besides, it wouldn’t be necessary; Matthew assumes his readers know the macrostory embedded in the genealogy of Jesus. Reciting a revised version of Jesus’s ancestry from Abraham to Joseph would sound like a roll call that echoed the promises of God.¹ That’s because God made promises to certain individuals for the sake of all his people. The covenant between God and Israel was always mediated through one man. God promised Abraham that he would be the father of many descendants who would inherit the earth. God promised one of Jacob’s sons, Judah, that a king would come from his tribe. God promised King David that one of his great-great-great-(how many great?)-grandsons would bring justice to Israel forever. Israel’s hope started with one man (“the father of a multitude”) and would end with another (the Messiah, “the anointed one”). Indeed, what Matthew claims from the beginning is that one man—that one hope—the Messiah of Israel, has come in the person of Jesus. In him all the promises of God come true.

That would be quite a lofty claim for several reasons, but especially because over the centuries God made many promises to Israel that had not come true. In fact, that is what made the God of Israel rather unique: he is the kind of God that makes promises and then leaves, expecting his people to trust him in the meantime. God promised the seventy-five-year-old Abraham that he would be the father of millions of descendants, as many as the stars of the heavens and the grains of sand on the earth, and that they would inherit a land of their own. The problem, of course, was that Abraham was a nomad, had no children, and time was running out; he was already an old man and his wife was persistently barren (considered at that time as the curse of God). I can imagine “father” Abraham staring into the night sky and muttering to himself, “Really? That many descendants? To dream of such things is all well and good, but it would be nice to have one.” Nearly twenty-five years later, God finally shows up and delivers the good news to the more-than-patient couple. The old man and his elderly wife will finally get a start on seeing the lofty vision come true: they will have a son, Isaac, and God will get the last laugh. Israel eventually multiplies like rabbits in the fertile land of Egypt. Yet the question remained: Would they ever inherit the earth?

The same thing happened to David. God promised David that his kingdom would be so stable that it would last forever. And yet, even though David managed to unite the divided tribal confederacy under his reign, he didn’t seem capable of ruling his own divided house. A rebel son who forced his father to abdicate the throne temporarily, another son’s incestuous rape of his sister, the murder of one son by another, the death of the infant son born of David’s adulterous relationship with Bathsheba, the rebel son assassinated by the king’s captain—how could anyone claim (especially David) that God’s promise was coming true? If anything, David’s kingdom appeared destined for self-destruction, for everyone knows that a house divided against itself cannot stand. And even though Solomon’s reign brought unrivaled peace and prosperity, after David’s son died a civil war broke out between the north and the south—a civil war that was never resolved—and eventually ripped apart the indivisible kingdom. It was just a matter of time before a foreign power, a stronger king, would show up and finish off the crippled kingdom. Babylonian captivity seemed to dispel any notion that David’s house would stand forever. So, even though Israel didn’t find the strength to “sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land” (Ps 137:4), they still wanted to know: When will God make good on the promises he made to David, to Abraham, to all Israel? Where is the son of David who will bring the reign of God’s justice? How will the children of Abraham—scattered like nomads—ever inherit the promised land? When will their captivity end?

Matthew thinks he has the answer.

EXPLAIN the Story

The first line of Matthew’s Gospel reads like a title; literally, “A book [biblos] of genesis [geneseōs] of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham.” Is Matthew 1:1 the title of the entire Gospel? It could be because Mark did the same thing, stringing together several nouns without a verb, “The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1). Moreover, the books of the Law took their titles from the first word or phrase of each; for example, Genesis is designated as bere’shith (“in the beginning”), and Exodus is known by the title we’elleh shemoth (“and these are the names”). English titles of the Old Testament books, however, derive from the Septuagint (LXX), the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures; for example, Genesis (genesis) comes from 2:4; literally, “This is the book [biblos] of genesis [geneseōs] of heaven and earth.” Therefore, some suggest that Matthew intended his readers to hear an echo of the first book of the Bible in the title of his Gospel, as if he were writing the story of a new Genesis, a new beginning through Jesus Christ.² As appealing as that may sound to our ears, the problem is that the word genesis appears several places in Genesis (2:4; 5:1; 6:9; 10:1, 32; 11:10, 27; 25:12, 19; 36:1; 37:2) as the heading of a series of stories (often including a genealogy) that trace the lineage or “generations” of a particular patriarch. Furthermore, Matthew uses genesis to introduce the story of the birth of Jesus; literally, “the genesis [genesis] of Jesus Christ was like this” (1:18). So it is more likely that Matthew 1:1 is not a title for the entire Gospel but a heading for both the genealogy of Jesus, “This is the genealogy [geneseōs] of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham,” and the birth narrative, “This is how the birth [genesis] of Jesus the Messiah came about” (1:18).

Jesus’s Family Tree

We may be drawn to the names Matthew singles out in verse one: Abraham, David, Jesus. Indeed, the genealogical table—by its very structure—highlights these three as the MVPs of Israel’s story. It starts with Abraham, peaks with David, and ends with Jesus—the trinity of salvation history. Curiosity might draw our eyes to the four women listed, three by name and one by association, leading us to infer that the point of the genealogy is to give voice to the marginalized, to include outsiders, to privilege the scandalous. Others might delight in the threefold schema built around a rhythmic pattern of fourteen names that signal the turning points of Israel’s story embedded in Abraham’s family tree. Time marches to the beat of an unalterable destiny. Finally, the type A bean counters among us might trip over the mathematical problem of adding up fourteen generations when only thirteen names are listed in the third group. Crunching the numbers while comparing Matthew’s genealogy with other lists forces us to tease out the implications of why certain names appear and why others are completely ignored. Certainly Matthew could count (he was a tax collector, after all), so why the gaps? Are we supposed to read between the lines and discover a subliminal message—certain names have been “blotted out” from the sacred record—intended for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear? To be sure, Matthew’s unique genealogical list invites intrigue. Yet we shouldn’t miss the main point of the genealogy, the “silent” partner who is easily overlooked because his assumed presence goes without saying. The major figure of Jesus’s family tree is God.³

It is easy to get lost in the genealogy, assuming a biological momentum to the perpetual force of life. Of course we know that “Abraham was the father of Isaac,” and that “Isaac was the father of Jacob,” and so on. But that’s not the whole story, as if becoming a father is naturally to be expected. Rather, Matthew assumes we know the story behind the “begats,” the theological presumption within the story of Israel. Israel didn’t come into existence by “natural processes.” Abraham didn’t wake up one day and say to himself, “I think I’ll start a nation today.” Rather, God created Israel. God chose a Chaldean and brought life to his dead loins. God chose a dead womb to bring laughter to the world. If it weren’t for God, Israel wouldn’t exist at all. Therefore, like all of creation—every living thing!—Israel belongs to God. That’s why he kept making promises to Israel. They are his children; he is their father. And like any good father would intend, his children were meant to be blessed. So every name that appears in the genealogy represents both blessing and promise; every son of the covenant embodies both the fulfillment and hope of God’s promise.

And yet, the way Matthew sees it, the story of God’s covenant with Israel can’t be reduced to a list of names revealing a direct line of descent, tracing the proper lineage of kingship. For if that were the case, one would simply show how Jesus has the proper messianic pedigree, listing his lineage from David to Joseph. Rather, Matthew believes Israel’s story and Jesus’s family history turn on two significant events, two pivotal persons: the kingdom finally arriving with David, and the Babylonian exile beginning with Jeconiah. Indeed, the ordering of the generations into three groups of fourteen leads the reader to mark the turning point of God’s dealings with Israel during these two decisive transitions. David bridges the first two groups, Jeconiah the last two. David represents the high-water mark of God’s blessing (the kingdom has come!), while Jeconiah’s reign marks the beginning of the end (the kingdom is gone?). In other words, Jesus’s genealogy not only reveals Israel’s ascent to kingship but also Israel’s descent into exile. But to simplify the graph of God’s blessing as a straight line peaking with David only to drop off precipitously like a downward vector marking the stock-market crash is misleading. There have been bumps and bruises, ups and downs along the way of God’s covenant blessing. Names like Tamar and Judah, David and Uriah, Hezekiah and Manasseh remind the reader that the high points and low points of Israel’s story are mingled together. Even during the exile, one should not infer that Israel was abandoned by God, as if there were no bright spots shining in the darkness. God was still blessing Israel by begetting sons of David in Babylon. It was one of those born in exile who le...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• The Story of God Bible Commentary Series
• Abbreviations
• Introduction to Matthew
• Resources for Teaching and Preaching
• 1. Matthew 1:1–17
• 2. Matthew 1:18–2:23
• 3. Matthew 3:1–17
• 4. Matthew 4:1–22
• 5. Matthew 4:23–5:16
• 6. Matthew 5:17–48
• 7. Matthew 6:1–18
• 8. Matthew 6:19–7:12
• 9. Matthew 7:13–8:1
• 10. Matthew 8:2–17
• 11. Matthew 8:18–34
• 12. Matthew 9:1–17
• 13. Matthew 9:18–34
• 14. Matthew 9:35–11:1
• 15. Matthew 11:2–30
• 16. Matthew 12:1–21
• 17. Matthew 12:22–50
• 18. Matthew 13:1–52
• 19. Matthew 13:53–14:21
• 20. Matthew 14:22–36
• 21. Matthew 15:1–20
• 22. Matthew 15:21–39
• 23. Matthew 16:1–20
• 24. Matthew 16:21–17:13
• 25. Matthew 17:14–27
• 26. Matthew 18:1–35
• 27. Matthew 19:1–12
• 28. Matthew 19:13–20:16
• 29. Matthew 20:17–34
• 30. Matthew 21:1–22
• 31. Matthew 21:23–22:14
• 32. Matthew 22:15–46
• 33. Matthew 23:1–39
• 34. Matthew 24:1–25:46
• 35. Matthew 26:1–30
• 36. Matthew 26:31–56
• 37. Matthew 26:57–75
• 38. Matthew 27:1–26
• 39. Matthew 27:27–66
• 40. Matthew 28:1–20
• Scripture Index
• Subject Index
• Author Index