Scandalous Women of the Bible – Studies in Matthew 1

Matthew begins his gospel with a genealogy, a list of about forty-plus names of Jesus’ ancestors. 

If he were writing his gospel today, his publisher would tell him to begin with a story to get the reader’s attention, maybe a healing story, and then he can revert back to Jesus’ birth and show how this all began.

Matthew presents Jesus as the Hebrew Messiah, and this Messiah was to come from the family of David, so it would be necessary to show that Jesus indeed was a descendant of David. 

But to begin with that?

When you read the genealogy, you soon realize that this is not an ordinary genealogy, and he did need to do this first.  Matthew includes the names of people who wouldn’t ordinarily appear in a genealogy, so you know something is up.

Genealogies, or at least ancient Hebrew ones, trace a person’s lineage through their fathers, and this became especially important in ancient Hebrew society, because family origins were important for a number of reasons especially for inheritances which always involved the land they lived on. 

I know some people today will object to genealogies focusing on fathers, that this is evidence of a patriarchal system that repressed women.  Frankly, society needs a patriarchy, if you want to call it that, to survive.

Why?

Because men won’t become fathers to their children unless they know that the children are theirs.  Sure, men adopt children all the time, but if you’re with a woman and you doubt that her child is yours, you are not going to be the father that child needs. 

If the inheritances were passed through the men, you will have men committed to their wives and children and both parents involved in the raising of their children.  When society, and in this case God, gives men this responsibility, it ensures that fathers made it a point to know who their children were and took care of them. 

Men at that time often had more than one wife.  Throughout history, there were always more women than men in society.  Why?  Generally because of wars.  The men went out to fight, and many did not come back.  So, having more than one wife not only ensured the survival of the nation, but it also ensured that women would not have to grow old alone and without children, and that existing children would also have a father in the home.

But this wouldn’t work in reverse, where women would have more than one husband, because then men would not know who the father of the child was, and in most cases that child would not have the father that he needed in his life.

So Matthew begins his account of the life of Jesus with Jesus’ genealogy.

In Matthew 1:1, Jesus is said to be the son of David, son of Abraham.  But wait.  If Jesus was the son of David, He would have to be the son of Abraham.  There’s no need to mention that.

But he did.  So why did he?

Because Matthew wants to trace Jesus’ lineage back to Abraham and not just to David.

And why?

Because he wants to take note of three more people in Jesus’ line that would have been omitted.  In all, he notes 4 of the mothers of His ancestors.

But why?

To answer that question, we have to see who these 4 women are.

The first is Tamar.  Her story is told in Genesis 38.  She was the daughter-in-law of Judah.  She had married Judah’s oldest son.  He died, and as was the custom then, the next oldest brother took her as his wife.  But he also died.  Judah had another son, but he was reluctant to have his third son marry her, so since the son was still young, he put it off.  Time goes by, and Tamar is still without a husband.  And children. 

So when Judah went on a business trip, she followed surreptitiously and pretended to be a prostitute.  They often covered their faces for obvious reasons, and Judah took the bait.  She became pregnant.  With twins, no less.  You can read the details in Genesis, but Tamar’s firstborn became part of Jesus’ ancestral line.  They wanted to stone her to death for I guess adultery or something, but she proved that Judah was the father, so they let it go.

So Tamar had children through her father-in-law.  She seduced her father-in-law by pretending to be a prostitute.

The second woman noted in Jesus’ ancestry actually was a prostitute.  It wasn’t one instance of impropriety; this was her life.  But Rahab was maybe the only person in her city who believed in the true God when the Israelites came into their land, and her faith saved her life.  And this is noted in Hebrews 11, and she was written about along with Moses and Abraham and Enoch and other great examples of faith.

The next woman was Ruth, a Moabite.  The Moabites were perpetual enemies of the ancient Hebrews and forbidden to enter the assembly of the Lord to the tenth generation.  (Deuteronomy 23:3)  But she married into a Jewish family and after the death of her husband returned to Israel with her mother-in-law, embraced the God of Israel, and married a man who became the grandfather of David the king.

The fourth woman isn’t even mentioned by her name.  She was married to a soldier of Israel who is named, but David himself took her for himself, and she became pregnant.  That first child died soon after being born, but she then gave birth to Solomon who followed David as king, and he was a very notable king.

So we saw the lives of these four women who Matthew had to note were in Jesus’ ancestry.  But why did he include them?

Well, because the next person in Jesus’ ancestry included a woman with, shall we say, unusual circumstances.

She is engaged to be married to Jesus’ father, but she is found to be pregnant.  Joseph knew he wasn’t the father.  And many of Matthew’s readers will have heard the story of Mary and Joseph from Nazareth and their firstborn child.

Matthew fills in the details of that first child.  An angel appears to Joseph in a dream and assures him that everything is alright.  He can marry the girl.  The child she was going to have was from the Holy Spirit, and the child will grow up to be Somebody great.

So you think Joseph told everybody about this?  Anybody? 

“Oh, everything is alright.  This child is the Son of God.” 

No, this child grew up in Nazareth with everybody thinking that he was illegitimate.  And that had a lot more stigma to it than it does today.

And Matthew is saying, wait a minute.  You want to judge the life of Jesus by what people have been saying about Him for the last 30 years?  No, you need to put that aside, and see what God has done here.  Don’t be so sure about what God can or can’t do, or what He will or won’t do.

 

I am teaching a Bible class on the book of Matthew.  This was from the lesson on chapter 1.  We covered a lot more than what we did here.  I plan to go through Matthew in these videos and articles, but they won’t be as thorough as the classes.

We meet on Thursday nights at 7:00, and the case is open to anyone. 

I’m not saying this to advertise the class.  If you find this and other lessons like it on Matthew helpful, you might want to be a part of the group.  Just let me know.