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The Gospel of Matthew: The House of Yosef

Last updated on: September 10, 2026 at 9:27 am   by Gabriel Blanchard

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The Gospel of Matthew: The House of Yosef 2026-09-10T09:27:29-04:00 Gabriel Blanchard

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Housekeeping

As I’ve done in the past, for each post for the Gospel of Matthew*, I’ll offer a little bit of intro material up front, followed by two renderings of the passage in question: the Catholic Edition of the Revised Standard Version or RSV-CE (the “default” translation used by the Ordinariate of the Chair of Peter), and my own. Following that will be textual notes, giving further information about particular words, phrases, etc. I may include a postcript following the textual notes to exploring related ideas that did not fit neatly elsewhere. Footnotes will be at the very bottom of the page.*

Lest I be misunderstood as having or as claiming an authority I do not possess:
…I am not a licensed professor of theology.
…What I offer my readers has not been examined for, nor received, declarations of Nihil Obstat or Imprimatur*.*
…I have no advanced academic degrees—just a bachelor’s in Classics from College Park.
…I am not invested with Holy Orders.
I am a layman, and rely on the work of many scholars who are both my predecessors and my betters—especially the Society of Biblical Literature, whose verdict on the original Greek text I generally follow.

PROTESTATION OF ORTHODOXY AND FILIAL SUBMISSION TO THE CHURCH

Since my conversion to the Catholic faith in 2008, to the best of my knowledge, I have never deviated theologically at any time from any part of the holy Catholic faith. If I have done so, anywhere or on any occasion, it has been unwitting and unintentional. Moreover, I submit all that I write, have written, and shall write to the judgment of the Catholic Church in communion with our Holy Father the Apostle Peter, his successor Pope Leo XIV, and their successors, the Bishops of Rome.

The House of Yosef

The Gospel of Matthew is one of those Biblical books that opens with a genealogy. Like many people, I assumed, when I started working on this, that I wouldn’t have a lot to say about it.

And I was wrong.

Matthew 1:1-17, RSV-CE

U illuminated with Christ enthroned (c. 1220)
from the Codex Bruchsal.

The book of the genealogya of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

b, cAbraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar,d and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram,e and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab,d and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth,d and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king.

b, cAnd David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah,d and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asa,e and Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos,e and Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.

b, cAnd after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,f and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary,d of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.

So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations.

Matthew 1:1-17, my translation

A book of [the] birtha of Yeshua Anointed, son of Dawid, son of Avraham.

b, cAvraham begot Yitzhak; Yitzhak begot Yakov; Yakov begot Yudah and his brothers; Yudah begot Peretz and Zerach on Tamar;d Peretz begot Chetzron; Chetzron begot Aram;e Aram begot Ammynadav; Ammynadav begot Nachshon; Nachshon begot Šalmon; Šalmon begot Bohaz on Rachav;d Bohaz begot Hoved on Ruth;d Hoved begot Yishai; Yishai begot Dawid, the king.

b, cDawid begot Shlomoh on the [wife] of Uriyah;d Shlomoh begot Rechavuam; Rechavuam begot Aviyah; Aviyah begot Asaf;e Asaf begot Yehoshafat; Yehoshafat begot Yoram; Yoram begot Huzziyah; Huzziyah begot Yotham; Yotham begot Achaz; Achaz begot Chizkiyah; Chizkiyah begot Menassheh; Menassheh begot Amotz;e Amotz begot Yoshiyah; Yoshiyah begot Ykanyah and his brothers, upon the migration to Bavel.

Tree of Jesse (1674), ikon written
by Victor of Crete.

b, cAfter the migration to Bavel, Ykanyah begot Shaltiel; Shaltiel begot Zerubavel;f Zerubavel begot Avihud; Avihud begot Elyakim; Elyakim begot Hazzur; Hazzur begot Tzadok; Tzadok begot Yokim; Yokim begot Elihud; Elihud begot Elhazar; Elhazar begot Matan; Matan begot Yakov; Yakov begot Yosef the husband of Miriam,d from whom was begotten that Yeshua called “Anointed.”

All the generations, then, from Avraham until Dawid—fourteen generations, and from Dawid until the migration to Bavel—fourteen generations, and from the migration to Bavel until the Anointed—fourteen generations.

Textual Notes

a. The book of the genealogy/A book of [the] birth | Βίβλος γενέσεως [biblos geneseōs]: In a move both like and unlike the opening of John, Matthew begins with γένεσις [genesis]—i.e., the birth or beginning of Christ. However, where John‘s prologue is cosmic in scale, a reader of the First Gospel would most likely be put in mind of the book of שְׁמוֹת [Sh’mouth], or “Names”: an apt moniker, since that book also begins with a genealogy. We refer to this book by its Greek name, Exodus. So right from the beginning, the author is priming us to compare what we’re about to read with the story of Moshe and the escape of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, well over a thousand years before.

Nevertheless, that event is one the evangelist doesn’t allude to directly here. He makes two other events—the foundation of the House of David, the ruling dynasty of the old Judahites, and that dynasty’s ruin in the Babylonian Captivity—the cardinal points of this little triptych. We’re therefore also seeing this book themed from the first in terms of the heirs of the ancient royal line.

b. [passim]: The names of the genealogy are listed below, in the following format:

{Common English form}—{my preferred form}. Gr{eek form} [{transcribed}], from Heb{rew original} [{also transcribed}]: “{meaning of name}.”

Judah (1645), by Francisco de Zurbarán.

A few entries are lightly irregular, or have a little extra information tacked on the end. A couple of times, my preferred form is the common English form, and hey, if it ain’t broke. In three cases, Matthew seems to be giving us what is straightforwardly the wrong name for the only person he can be talking about (his genealogy appears to be a deliberate synopsis of the Davidic parts of the genealogies found in I and II Chronicles and the early chapters of Ezra). The entries for those three names, plus another five (for rather different reasons), refer the reader further to textual notes d, e, or f.

They are alphabetized by their common English forms (the ones the RSV uses). Because the Anglo-Saxons were evangelized primarily by missionaries from Rome, these English forms are influenced by Greek and Latin, both of which had fairly restrictive systems of pronunciation that usually altered Hebrew names quite a bit in borrowing them. English has a far wider variety of “permissible” sounds than the classical tongues;1 hence, the common Anglicized forms of the names in this genealogy are much further from their Hebrew originals than the pronunciation of English really requires. I’ve tried to drag them a little closer to the Hebrew with my preferred forms.

Fragment from the “Rule of the Blessing,”
one of the documents uncovered
among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Tree of Jesse from the Lambeth Bible (c. 1140-
1150), by an unknown English illuminator.

c. [passim]: Also on the subject of this genealogy, this is one of two which we’re given in the canonical Gospels. The other appears in Luke. That one lines up … really quite poorly with Matthew‘s, both in how many names it includes and in which ones. (You’ll occasionally hear the claim that Matthew contains St. Joseph’s ancestry and Luke has that of the Mother of God. However, both genealogies explicitly conclude with St. Joseph, and even the name traditionally given to the Virgin’s father, Joachim, only appears in the Matthean genealogy—it’s the same as the RSV’s Achim, my Yokim—so I feel safe calling that interpretation a reach.) For comparison, here is a side-by-side list, in which:

MATTHEW—LUKE…..MATTHEW—LUKE
…..Abraham……………Hezekiah—Joshua
…..Isaac…………………Manasseh—Er
…..Jacob………………..____—Elmadam
…..Judah I………………Amos—Cosam
…..Perez…………………Josiah—Addi
…..Hezron………,……..Jeconiah—Melchi I
Aram—Arni………………____—Neri
____—Admin………………Shealtiel
…..Amminadab…………..Zerubbabel
…..Nahshon…………….____—Rhesa
Salmon—Sala…………..Abiud—Joanan
…..B****oaz………………….____—Joda
…..Obed…………………Eliakim—Josech
…..Jesse…………………____—Semein
…..David…………………Azor—Mattathias I
Solomon—Nathan……..____—Maath
____—Mattatha………..Zadok—Naggai
Rehoboam—Menna……____—Esli
Abijah—Melea…………..Achim—Nahum
____—Eliakim…………..____—Amos
Asaf—Jonam…………….Eliud—Mattathias II
Jehoshaphat—Joseph I.____—Jannai
Joram—Judah II………..Eleazar—Melchi II
____—Simeon…………..____—Levi II
Uzziah—Levi I…………..Matthan—Matthat II
Jotham—Matthat I……..____—Levi III
Ahaz—Jorim…………….Jacob—Heli
____—Eliezer……………….Joseph II2

There are a few possible explanations of these discrepancies. The difference in number is the easiest to explain: Matthew is obviously abbreviating, or we’d have a longer list of Judahite monarchs: there were nineteen of these, twenty if we count the usurping queen-regnant, Athaliah. This would have been perfectly obvious to any reader familiar with the Hebrew Bible. Furthermore, the central focus being placed on this abbreviated list of Judahite kings suggests Matthew is following the order of succession to the throne, or, after we reach Ykanyah (Jeconiah), one possible order of succession. St. Luke may be following biological lineage more strictly. Both follow lines of the Davidic dynasty; Nathan was the name of a younger brother of Solomon, and Amotz, although a clear, deliberate mistake—see note e for more on that—is still a name from within the House of Dawid. See textual note f for a bit more about this.

It definitely seems true that Matthew is inviting a partly-allegorized interpretation of this genealogy, with its precisely balanced three sets of fourteen, before, during, and after the independent Judahite monarchy. Luke may have the same purpose in mind: his list goes back to Adam, giving a total of seventy-seven names rather than forty-two, but both are divisible by seven. The latter number is associated with complete forgiveness of sins; the former, being seven (the number of perfection) times six (the number of man), would presumably indicate human perfection, though I’m not confident that St. Matthew was interested in numerology like St. John was.

Bathesheba at the Bath (c. 1799),
by William Blake.

d. Tamar … Rahab … Ruth … the wife of Uriah … Mary/Tamar … Rachav … Ruth … the [wife] of Uriah … Miriam | Θαμάρ … Ῥαχάβ … Ῥούθ … τῆς τοῦ Οὐρίου … Μαρίας [Thamar … Rhachab … Rhouth … tēs tou Ouriou … Marias]: Five women appear in this genealogy. Tamar was a partner of Yudah the Patriarch; Rachav was the wife of Šalmon, a Judahite from the time of the conquest of Canaan; Ruth was the wife of Bohaz during the age of the Judges (around the beginning of the Late Bronze Age, perhaps); the wife of Uriyah, Bat-Sheva (Bathsheba), infamously became the wife of Dawid; and finally, we find that Yosef was “the husband of Miriam, from whom was begotten that Yeshua called “Anointed.” Why St. Miriam is, to say the least, clear! But why the first four?

One explanation is that each of them represents some kind of irregularity with respect to marriage and sexuality, reaching its apex in the virginal conception of Christ. At least, each of them—okay, look:

Boas und Ruth [Boaz and Ruth] (c. 1637),
by Rembrandt van Rijn.

The thing is, Ruth really stands out like a sore thumb here. You definitely can’t accuse her of any irregularity; you could perhaps argue that there is irregularity present, sort of “around” her, but if anyone’s conduct isn’t quite right, it’s that of the kinsman who wouldn’t marry her (and the narrative of the book in question doesn’t even really invite us to dislike the man: by that point we’re already rooting for Ruth to marry Bohaz, because he’s just a mensch.)

This in itself points us to another possibility. Tamar’s ethnicity is not certainly known, but she probably wasn’t an Israelite. Yudah was one of the literal first-generation Israelites; for her to be an Israelite would mean that Yudah chose a bride for his eldest son from among the boy’s first cousins—not unheard-of, historically, but not usually preferred, and in that case we’d also expect some description of her ancestry, since Genesis is all about the patriarchs and their families. Rachav and Ruth are both clearly Gentiles, the one a Canaanite of Yericho, the other a Moabite. No genealogical information that I know of is given for Bat-Sheva, but she too has Gentile associations: Uriyah was “Uriyah the Hittite” (which is why I noted the possibility that his name, though given a Hebrew meaning, might be Luwian rather than Hebrew—Luwian was an important Anatolian language, spoken in what’s now central Turkey and the extreme north of Syria until the end of the seventh century BCE). The theme of embracing Gentiles is also going to come up from time to time in Matthew; it’ll be explicitly evoked three more times before we even get to the Sermon on the Mount.

e. Ram … Asa … Amos/Aram … Asaf … Amotz | Ἀράμ … Ἀσάφ … Ἀμώς [Aram … Asaf … Amōs]: Aram; Asaf; Amotz. These three people all appear in the Tanakh; but in this context they are, as people don’t say, the wrong mans. Accordingly, the genealogy given in Matthew—being presumed to be mistaken—is often corrected.

Royal seal imprints of King Hezekiah of Judah
(7th c. BCE). Photo by Rubén Betanzo S.,
used via a CC BY-SA 3.0 license (source).

The thing is, this isn’t just slightly odd. These are factual errors in a genealogy that was a matter of public record, one that would have been familiar not only to any literate Jew but even to illiterate ones, if they went to synagogue and listened to the readings. This is like reading a mostly-correct list of US Presidents, except James Madison’s entry says James Madman, Zachary Taylor’s says Zephaniah Taylor, and Abraham Lincoln’s says Bram Stoker Lincoln.

So: what gives? I’m still not sure of their purpose, but I don’t believe these errors of fact were accidental on author’s part. The Jewish people were an exceptionally literate culture, and Jewish scribes were not incompetents; deliberate errors in a text could serve a literary purpose. Moreover, as we touched on from time to time while going through John, Judaic interpretive techniques often direct the student of the Bible to ask themselves not only what a text says, but what it doesn’t say, and to discern whether there is perhaps some significant reason why it doesn’t. I think these alterations in the names are deliberate replacements, meant to tell us something.

An observable common thread among Aram, Asaf, and Amotz is that all three are connected with then-contemporary Jewish worship. Asaph’s psalms and the writings of the son of Amoz certainly serve as emblems of psalmody and prophecy in general. As for Aram, if he can’t represent the Aramaic language, I don’t know what could. Then as now, what language was used in religious ceremony, and exactly how it was used, could be highly sensitive questions:6 Aramaic was the Jewish vernacular, and may have been standard in private prayer, but the formal ceremonial tongue remained Hebrew. What to make of this—especially if Matthew was first written in Greek after all—I’m not clear, but I feel the explanation probably lies in this direction.

f. Zerubbabel/Zerubavel | Ζοροβαβέλ [Zorobabel]: The House of Dawid was not exterminated by the Babylonians; still less, the benevolent Persians. Various branches of it remained extant for many centuries thereafter. At least one branch actually took on the role of the רֵישׁ גָּלוּתָא [rêysh gâlúthâ’] or “head of the diaspora,” an office usually referred to in English as the exilarch. At first this was an informal—but, importantly, hereditary—position recognized only within the Jewish community, but, allegedly, it was officialized at some point under the Arsacid dynasty, better known as the Parthians; the exilarch had some latitude to deal with internal Jewish affairs, like governing rabbinical courts and, eventually, yeshivas. The exilarchate was apparently still going strong as late as the opening of the thirteenth century, and, according to tradition, was still held by a direct descendant of Dawid. The first several exilarchs are even named in the Bible, in I Chronicles 3 (albeit in a rather jumbled, vague fashion).

Such a position was necessary because when Cyrus permitted the Jewish exiles to return, most of them didn’t take him up on it; the number that went back was only something like 4% of the total number of Jewish populace in Babylonia. After all, why not stay? It was the only home almost any of them had ever really known. Palestine was hundreds of miles away. Besides, even the Babylonians had permitted the Jews to observe their own religion, let alone the Persians, who actively courted the good will of their subjects.

Zerubbabel and Cyrus (c. 1650-1660), by Jacob
van Loo: Zerubbabel presents Shah Cyrus
the Great with plans for the restoration
of the Temple in Jerusalem.

But the exilarchs were just one branch of descent from Zerubavel. He was a figure of the late sixth century BCE—the great-grandson of Ykanyah, one of the last Judahite kings. He proves a minor but striking figure in the later documents of the Hebrew Bible, mentioned in the last three minor prophets (Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi) and in the book of Ezra-Nehemiah7 (split by Christian Bibles into two books).

The remarkable thing about Zerubavel, frankly, is that he left Mesopotamia, leading many of the exiles back to the Holy Land. He was, in fact, one of two pillars of Jewish society to do so. The other one also makes it into these same books: Yeshua, a Jew from the Zadokite family and thus one eligible to serve as the high priest. If Yeshua the Zadokite had not come, the Second Temple probably could not have been built—there would have been no one to operate it, so to speak. But if Zerubavel had not come, bringing a Davidic aura with him (even receiving the office of governor over the Persian satrapy called Yehud Medinta), it may well be that the Second Temple would not have been built; the people’s spirits may not have been revived enough for it.

The LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel … and the spirit of Joshua … and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and did work in the house of the LORD of hosts, their God, in the four and twentieth day of the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king. In the seventh month … came the word of the LORD by the prophet Haggai, saying, “Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and to the residue of the people, saying, ‘Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing? Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel,’ saith the LORD; ‘and be strong, O Joshua, son of Josedech, the high priest; and be strong, all ye people of the land,’ saith the Lord, ‘and work: for I am with you,’ saith the Lord of hosts: ‘According to the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, so my spirit remaineth among you: fear ye not.’ For thus saith the LORD of hosts; ‘Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory,’ saith the LORD of hosts. … ‘The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former,’ saith the LORD of hosts: ‘and in this place will I give peace …'”
—Haggai 1:14-2:9

Footnotes

1Ignoring regional variations, Koiné Greek had a sound system with about seven distinct vowels and sixteen or seventeen consonants; the pronunciation of Latin around the same time was even more restrictive, with six(-ish) vowels and as few as fifteen consonants. Moreover, Greek and Latin both have limiting rules of phonotactics, or what sounds are allowed to appear where and under what circumstances. (For example, it’s a rule of English phonotactics that the ng sound, like in “sing,” can only occur immediately after a vowel.) Hebrew at this time had nine or ten differentiable vowels, and more than two dozen consonants. Hence, to represent Hebrew in the Greek or Latin alphabets always required approximations and simplifications. As for English—going with the version known to linguists as General American in the early twenty-first century—it has twenty-eight or twenty-nine consonantal sounds, and around nineteen vowels. Moreover, both Hebrew and English allow surprisingly long strings of consonants, more than Latin tends to favor and certainly more than Greek. All this makes it easier to “transpose” Hebrew pronunciation into an Anglicized form. (One trait English does share with Greek and Latin, which limits the ability of any of the three to adequately convey Hebrew, is their limited use of gutturals, or sounds pronounced far back in the throat. English has a slight edge here, in that we share the glottal stop with Hebrew—this is the sound represented by the hyphen in uh-oh, which the Hebrew letter א normally denotes; however, this is about the only guttural sound commonly used by English speakers.)
2The orange “maybe” correspondences are these. Matthean Salmon and Lukan Sala are probably the same name; Matthan may correspond to any or all of Lukan Mattatha, Matthat I or II, or Mattathias I or II (curiously, the name Maath seems to be unrelated); Matthean Eliud may correspond with Lukan Heli; Matthean Eleazar may align with Lukan Eliezer; and Lukan Joda may be a variant of Judah, which would make him Judah III.
3At the time, there was no generalized “social safety net”: if you didn’t have children to care for you in your old age, you were very likely destitute. This is part of the reason that infertility, and especially female infertility, was regarded as such a ghastly misfortune.
4Specifically, Genesis 12 relates that Lot, whom it identifies as the forefather of both Moab and Ammon, was the son of Abraham’s brother. This would make both the Israelites and the Moabites “Terahites” (Abraham was the son of Terah, who lived in the famous Sumerian city-state of Ur). Putting it in terms of more familiar societies: if we make the relationship between Israel and Edom like that between Tuscans and Sicilians (regional Italian sub-ethnicities, from north-central Italy and Sicily respectively), then the more-distantly-kindred Ishmaelites would be a bit like Catalonians (native to the east of Spain with some historic ties to southern Italy), while Moab would be a further step outwards, like the French. Thus, “Terahites” would all be Romance nations, but “Abrahamites” would be the more specifically “Latin” nations (without the northerly influences found in France), and “Isaachites” more specifically Italian.
5Or “Judaism’s Late Bronze/Early Iron Age predecessor,” if we must be sticklers. There is an accepted name in Academe for this; I don’t like using it, because I don’t think it’s great that we’ve not only reconstructed the probable form of the Tetragrammaton, but also go around just casually using It. But if you want to know, it’s the first four letters of that reconstruction, with “-ism” stuck on the end.
6A useful example of this comes from the use of Targumim, Aramaic paraphrases of the Hebrew Bible, which were employed in synagogues. While it was permissible to render the Hebrew into the local vernacular, and that usually did mean Aramaic, translations like that were supposed to be circumstantial: writing them down was frowned upon. Of course, people still did it, but this, combined with the deliberately situational purpose of  a Targum, resulted in some fairly confused and conflicting textual variations.
7As well as being mentioned under the name Zerubavel in Ezra, he is also traditionally identified with the “Sheshbazzar” of its first chapter (like Daniel being alternatively known by the Babylonian name Belteshazzar).

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