Commentari biblici

CHAPTER 1

Matthew 1:1-17. In the writing of the names there are manifold variations in MSS., verss., and Fathers. Lachm. and Tisch. have in Matthew 1:1; Matthew 1:6; Matthew 1:17 Δαυείδ, which is attested throughout as the manner of writing the word by the oldest and best MSS.; Matthew 1:5. Ἰωβήδ, after B C Δ א, verss. Fathers; Matthew 1:8 f. Ὀζείαν, Ὀζείας, after B Δ א; Matthew 1:10. Ἀμώς, after B C M Δ א, verss. Epiph.; Matthew 1:10 f. Ἰωσείαν, Ἰωσείας, after B Δ א, Sahid.; Matthew 1:15. Μαθθάν, after B*. Lachmann has, besides, in Matthew 1:5, Βοός, after C, and Tischendorf (8th ed.) Βοές, after B א; Lachm. and Tisch. (8th ed.) in Matthew 1:7 f. Ἀσάφ, after B C א, verss.

Matthew 1:6. ὁ βασιλεύς, which B Γ א, 1, 71, Syr. Copt. Sahid. Arm. al. omit (deleted by Lachm. and Tisch.), has the preponderance of voices in its favour; its emphasis being overlooked on account of what precedes, it was regarded as superfluous, and was easily passed over.

Matthew 1:11. After ἐγέννησε, M U Curss. have τὸν Ἰωακείμ· Ἰωακείμ δὲ ἐγέννησε. A later interpolation (yet already before Irenaeus), but put in circulation after Porphyry had already reproached the church with a defective genealogy.

Matthew 1:18. B C P S Z Δ א, Curss. Eus. Ath. Max. have γένεσις. So also Lachm. and Tisch. Others: γέννησις, which has been adopted by Elz. Scholz, and Rinck. The former is to be preferred, because the latter might very easily arise from the frequently preceding ἐγέννησε and ἐγεννήθη, and might also appear more appropriate to the connection (partus modus). Comp. Matthew 2:1, Luke 1:14.

Matthew 1:19. παραδειγματίσαι] Lachm. and Tisch. have δειγματίσαι, only, indeed, after B Z א** I, Schol. on Orig., and Euseb., but correctly, as δειγματίζω is preserved only in Colossians 2:15, while παραδειγματίζω (Hebrews 6:6) is common in the LXX. and elsewhere, and suggested itself, therefore, as the better known and stronger expression (comp. Scholion in Tisch.).

Matthew 1:24. διεγερθείς] Lachm. and Tisch. (8th ed.) have ἐγερθείς, after B C * Z א, Curss. Epiph. The less current compound verb gave place to the very common (comp. Matthew 2:14) simple form.

Matthew 1:25. τὸν υἱὸν αὐτῆς τὸν πρωτότοκον] Lachm. and Tisch. have simply υἱόν, after B Z א, 1, 33, Copt. Sahid. Syrcu. Codd. It. Ambr. al. Certainly (comp. especially Bengel) the Received reading has the appearance of having originated from Luke 2:7 (where there is no various reading). The witnesses, however, in favour of the Recepta greatly preponderate; the virginity of Mary, also (against which, according to the testimony of Jerome, doubts were raised in consequence of the πρωτότοκον), certainly more probably suggested the removal of the πρωτότοκον than its insertion. Comp. Mill and Wetstein. Finally, had υἱόν merely been the original reading in the present passage, the πρωτότοκον in Luke 2:7 could scarcely have remained unassailed.

Matthew 1:1. Βίβλος γενέσεως] Book of origin; מֵפֶר תּוֹלְדוֹת, Genesis 2:4; Genesis 5:1, LXX.; comp. Genesis 6:9; Genesis 11:10. The first verse contains the title of the genealogy which follows in Matthew 1:2-16, which contains the origin of Christ from the Messianic line that runs on from the time of Abraham (genitive of contents). So Beza, Calvin, Grotius, Bengel, Wetstein, Paulus, Kuinoel, Gratz, de Wette, Baumgarten-Crusius, and others. The evangelist adopted the genealogical piece of writing (βίβλος), and which “velut extra corpus historiae prominet” (Grotius), without alteration, as he found it, and with its title also. Others (Bede, Maldonatus, Schleussner) take γένεσις as meaning life, and regard the words as a superscription to the entire Gospel: commentarius de vita Jesu. Contrary to the usage of the language; for in Jdt 12:18, and Wis 7:5, γένεσις denotes the origin, the commencing point of life; in Plato, Phaedr. p. 252 D, it means existence; in Hierocles, p. 298, the creation, or that which is created; and in Jam 3:6, τροχὸς τῆς γενέσεως is the τροχός which begins with birth. And if we were to suppose, with Olearius (comp. Hammond and Vitringa, also Euthym. Zigabenus), that the superscription liber de originibus Jesu Christi was selected first with reference to the commencement of the history, to which the further history was then appended with a distinctive designation (comp. Catonis Censorii Origines), as תּוֹלְדוֹת also confessedly does not always announce a mere genealogy (Genesis 5:1 ff; Genesis 11:27 ff.), nay, may even stand without any genealogical list following it (Genesis 2:4; Genesis 37:2 ff.),—so the immediate connection in which βίβλος … Χριστοῦ stands with υἱοῦ Δαυ., υἱοῦ Ἀβρ., here necessitates us to think from the very beginning, in harmony with the context, of the genealogy merely; and the commencement of Matthew 1:18, where the γένεσις in the narrower sense, the actual origination, is now related, separates the section Matthew 1:18-25 distinctly from the preceding genealogical list, so that the first words of chap. 2, τοῦ δὲ Ἰησοῦ γεννηθέντος, connect themselves, as carrying on the narrative, with Matthew 1:18-25, where the origin of Jesus, down to His actual birth, is related. This is, at the same time, in answer to Fritzsche, who translates it as volumen de J. Christi originibus, and, appealing to the words in the beginning of ch. 2, regards βίβλος γενέσεως, κ.τ.λ., as the superscription of the first chapter (so also Delitzsch), as well as to Olshausen (see also Ewald and Bleek), who takes it as the superscription of the two first chapters.

If the Israelite set a high value, in his own individual instance, upon a series of ancestors of unexceptionable pedigree (Romans 11:1; Php 3:5; Josephus,c. Ap. ii. 7; Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. p. 178), how much more must such be found to be the case on the side of the Messiah!

Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ] The name יְהוֹשׁוּעַ (Exodus 24:13; Numbers 13:16), or, after the exile, יֵשׁוּעַ (Nehemiah 7:7), ܢܶܫܘܶܓ was very common,[350] and denotes Jehovah is helper. This meaning, contained in the name Jesus (comp. Sir 46:1), came to full personal manifestation in Christ, see Matthew 1:21. Χριστός corresponds to the Hebrew מָשִׁיחַ, anointed, which was used partly of priests, Leviticus 4:3; Leviticus 5:16; Leviticus 6:15, Psalm 105:15; partly of kings, 1 Samuel 24:7; 1 Samuel 24:11, Psalm 2:2, Isaiah 45:1, comp. Daniel 9:25-26; as a prophet also, according to 1 Kings 19:16, might be an anointed person. From the time of the Book of Daniel—for throughout the whole later period also, down to the time of Christ, the Messianic idea was a living one amongst the people[351]—this theocratic name, and that as a king’s name, was applied, according to the Messianic explanation of the second Psalm, to the king of David’s race, whose coming, according to the predictions of the prophets, was ever more ardently looked for, but with hopes that became ever purer, who was to raise the nation to its theocratic consummation, to restore the kingdom to its highest power and glory, and extend his blessings to the heathen as well, while, as a necessary condition to all this, He was, in a religious and moral respect, to work out the true spiritual government of God, and bring it to a victorious termination. See on the development of the idea and hope of the Messiah, especially Ewald, Gesch. Christ. p. 133 ff., ed. 3 [E. T. by Glover, p. 140 ff.]; Bertheau in d. Jahrb. f. D. Th. IV. p. 595 ff., V. p. 486 ff.; Riehm in d. Stud. u. Kritik. 1865, I. and III. [E. T., Clark, Edinburgh, 1876]. According to B. Bauer (comp. Volkmar, Rel. Jesu, p. 113), Jesus is said to have first developed the Messianic idea out of His own consciousness, the community to have clothed it in figures, and then to have found these figures also in the Old Testament, while the Jews first received the idea from the Christians! In answer to this view, which frivolously inverts the historical relation, see Ebrard, Kritik. d. evang. Gesch., ed. 3, § 120 ff. [E. T. 2d ed., Clark, Edinburgh, p. 485 f.]; and on the Messianic ideas of the Jews at the time of Christ, especially Hilgenfeld, Messias Judaeorum libris eorum paulo ante et paulo post Christum natum conscriptis illustratus, 1869; also Holtzmann in d. Jahrb. f. D. Theol. 1867, p. 389 ff., according to whom, however, the original self-consciousness of the Lord had been matured at an earlier date, before He found[352] for it, in His confession of Himself as the Messiah, a name that might be uttered before His contemporaries, and an objective representation that was conceivable for Himself.

The official name Χριστός, for Jesus, soon passed over in the language of the Christians into a nomen proprium, in which shape it appears almost universally in the Epistles and in the Acts of the Apostles, with or without the article, after the nature of proper names in general. In the Gospels, Χριστός stands as a proper name only in Matthew 1:1; Matthew 1:16-18; Mark 1:1; John 1:17; and appropriately, because not congruous to the development of the history and its connection, but spoken from the standpoint of the much later period of its composition, in which ἸΗΣΟῦς ΧΡΙΣΤΌς had been already long established as a customary name in the language of Christians; as here also (comp. Mark 1:1) in the superscription, the whole of the great name Ἰησοῦς Χριστός is highly appropriate, nay, necessary.

Further, Jesus could be the bearer of the idea of Messiah, for the realization of which He knew from the beginning that He was sent, in no other way than in its national definiteness, therefore also without the exclusion of its political element, the thought of which, however,—and this appears most fully in John,—was transfigured by Him into the idea of the highest and universal spiritual government of God, so that the religious and moral task of the Messiah was His clear aim from the very outset, in striving after and attaining which He had to prepare the way for the Messiah’s kingdom, and finally had to lay its indestructible, necessary foundation (founding of the new covenant) by His atoning death, while He pointed to the future, which, according to all the evangelists, was viewed by Himself as near at hand, for the final establishment, glory, and power of the kingdom, when He will solemnly appear (Parousia) as the Messiah who is Judge and Ruler.

υἱοῦ Δαυείδ] for, according to prophetic promise, He must be a descendant of David, otherwise He would not have been the Messiah, John 7:42; Romans 1:3; Acts 13:22 f.; the Messiah is called pre-eminently בֶּן דָּוִד, Matthew 12:23; Matthew 21:9; Matthew 22:42; Luke 18:38. Comp. Wetstein, and Babylon. Sanhedr. fol. 97. David is designated as Abraham’s descendant, because the genealogical table must begin nationally with Abraham, who, according to the promise, is the original ancestor of the series of generations (Galatians 3:16), so that consequently the venerable chiefs of this genealogy immediately appear in the superscription. Luke’s point of view (Matthew 8:23) goes beyond the sphere of the nation, while Mark (l.c.) sets out from the theocratico-dogmatic conception of the Messiah.

[350] See the different persons who bear this name in Keim, Gescht. J. I. p. 384 ff.

[351] Comp. Langen, d. Judenthum in Palaestina zur Zeit Christi, 1866. Weissenbach, Jesu in regno coel. dignitas, 1868, p. 47 ff.

[352] In connection with this view, we would be obliged to acquiesce in the belief of a very radical misunderstanding, which would permeate the gospel history from the baptism and the witness of John, namely, that the evangelists “apprehended as a beginning what was rather a result.” On exegetical grounds this cannot be justified.

Matthew 1:2-3. Κ. τ. ἀδελφοὺς αὐτ.] “Promissiones fuere in familia Israelis,” Bengel.

Matthew 1:3. These twin sons of Judah were illegitimate, Genesis 38:16-30. The Jews were inclined to find a good side to the transgressions of their ancestors, and alleged here, e.g., that Thamar entertained the idea of becoming an ancestress of kings and prophets. See Wetstein and Fritzsche. The reason why Thamar is here brought forward, as well as Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba in Matthew 1:5-6 (for οὐκ ἦν ἔθος γενεαλογεῖσθαι γυναῖκας, Euth. Zigabenus), is not “ut tacitae Judaeorum objectioni occurreretur,” Wetstein; for the reproach of illegitimate birth was not raised against Jesus in the apostolic age, nor probably before the second century (see Thilo, ad Cod. Apocr. I. p. 526 f.), and would be very indelicately referred to by the naming of these women; nor the point of view of exactness (Fritzsche), which would not explain why these women and no others were mentioned; least of all the tendency to cast into the shade the Jewish genealogical tree (Hilgenfeld). In keeping with the whole design of the genealogical register, which must terminate in the wonderful one who is born of woman, that reason cannot, without arbitrariness, be found save in this, that the women named entered in an extraordinary manner into the mission of continuing the genealogy onwards to the future Messiah, and might thereby appear to the genealogist and the evangelist as typi Mariae (Paulus, de Wette, Ebrard; comp. Grotius on Matthew 1:3), and in so doing the historical stains which cleaved to them (to Ruth also, in so far as she was a Moabitess) were not merely fully compensated by the glorious approval which they found precisely in the light in which their history was regarded by the nation (Hebrews 11:31; Jam 2:25), but far outweighed and even exalted to extraordinary honours. See the numerous Rabbinical passages, relating especially to Thamar, Rahab, and Ruth, in Wetstein in loc., and on Hebrews 11:31. Olshausen is too indefinite: “in order to point to the marvellous gracious leading of God in the ordering of the line of the Messiah.” Luther and some of the Fathers drag in here what lies very remote: because Christ interested Himself in sinners; Lange, more remote still, “in order to point to the righteousness which comes, not from external holiness, but from faith;” and Delitzsch (in Rudelbach and Guericke’s Zeitschrift, 1850, p. 575 f.), “because the sinless birth of Mary was prepared throughout by sin.”

Matthew 1:5. Boaz is also called, in Ruth 4:21 and 1 Chronicles 2:11, son of Salma; but his mother Rahab is not mentioned. The author without doubt drew from a tradition which was then current, and presupposed as known (according to Ewald it was apocryphal), which gave Salma as a wife to her who had risen to honour by her conduct in. Jericho (Hebrews 11:31; Jam 2:25). The difficulties which, according to Rosenmüller, Kuinoel, and Gratz, arise from the chronology,—namely, that Rahab must have become a mother at seventy or eighty years of age,—are, considering the uncertainty of the genealogical tradition, which already appeals in Ruth 4:20, as well as the freedom of Orientals in general with regard to genealogies, not sufficient to justify here the assumption of some other Rahab. According to Megill. f. 14, 2, and Koheleth R. 8, 10, Joshua married Rahab,—a tradition which is not followed by our genealogy.

Matthew 1:6. Τὸν Δαυεὶδ τὸν βασιλέα] Although an apposition with the article follows the proper name, yet Δαυείδ also takes the article, not for the sake of uniformity with the preceding name (de Wette), but in order to designate David demonstratively, as already marked out in Matthew 1:1. In Matthew 1:16, also, the article before Ἰωσήφ, which is accompanied by an apposition, has, in keeping with the deep significance of his paternal relation to Jesus, demonstrative power (Kühner, II. p. 520).

The τὸν βασιλέα also, and the subsequent emphatic repetition of ὁ βασιλεύς, are a distinction for David, with whom the Messiah’s genealogy entered upon the kingly dignity.

τῆς τοῦ Οὐρίου] Such methods of expression by the simple genitive suppose the nature of the relationship in question to be known, as here it is that of wife. Comp. Hectoris Andromache, Luther’s Katharina, and the like. See Kühner, II. p. 285 f. Winer, p. 178 [E. T. p. 237].

Matthew 1:8. Ἰορὰμ … Ὀζίαν] Three kings, Ahaziah, Joaz, and Amazia, are wanting between these (2 Kings 8:24; 1 Chronicles 3:11; 2 Chronicles 22:1; 2 Chronicles 22:11; 2 Chronicles 24:27). The common opinion is that of Jerome, that the omission was made for the sake of obtaining an equal division of the names, in order not to go beyond the three Tesseradecades. Such omissions were nothing unusual: 1 Chronicles 8:1; Genesis 46:21. See Surenhusius, βιβλ. καταλλ. p. 97. Lightfoot, Hor. p. 181. On the same phenomenon in the Book of Enoch, see Ewald in the Kieler Monatschrift, 1852, p. 520 f. The evangelist accepted the genealogical list without alteration, just as he found it; and the cause of that omission cannot be pointed out, but probably was only, and that without special design, the similarity of those names, in which way the omission also which occurs in Matthew 1:11 is to be explained. Ebrard and Riggenbach, erroneously introducing the point of view of theocratic illegality (comp. Lange), are of opinion that Matthew omitted the three kings for this reason, that Joram, on account of his marriage with the daughter of Jezebel, and of his conduct, had deserved that his posterity should be exterminated down to the fourth generation (so already some of the Fathers, Maldonatus, Spanheim, Lightfoot); that Matthew accordingly declared the descendants of the heathen Jezebel, down to the fourth generation, unworthy of succeeding to the theocratic throne. This breaks down at once before the simple ἐγέννησε. The omissions are generally not to be regarded as consciously made, otherwise they would conflict with Matthew 1:17 (πᾶσαι), and would amount to a falsification.

Matthew 1:11. The son of Josiah was Joakim, and his son was Jechoniah. Here, consequently, a link is wanting, and accordingly several uncials, curss., and a few versions[353] contain the supplement: ἸΩΣΊΑς ΔῈ ἘΓΈΝΝΗΣΕ ΤῸΝ ἸΩΑΚΕΊΜ· ἸΩΑΚΕῚΜ ΔῈ ἘΓΈΝΝΗΣΕ ΤῸΝ ἸΕΧΟΝΊΑΝ (1 Chronicles 3:15-16). The omission is not, with Ebrard, to be explained from the circumstance that under Joakim the land passed under the sway of a foreign power (2 Kings 24:4), and that consequently the theocratic regal right became extinct (against this arbitrary view, see on Matthew 1:8); but merely from a confusion between the two similar names, which, at the same time, contributed to the omission of one of them. This clearly appears from the circumstance that, indeed, several brothers of Joakim are mentioned (three, see 1 Chronicles 3:15), but not of Jechoniah. Zedekiah is, indeed, designated in 2 Chronicles 36:10 as the brother of the latter (and in 1 Chronicles 3:16 as his son), but was his uncle (2 Kings 24:17; Jeremiah 37:1). That our genealogy, however, followed the (erroneous, see Bertheau, p. 430) statement in 2 Chronicles 36:10, is not to be assumed on account of the plural τοὺς ἀδελφούς, which rather points to 1 Chronicles 3:15 and the interchange with Joiakim. It is quite in an arbitrary manner, finally, that Kuinoel has assigned to the words ΚΑῚ … ΑὐΤΟῦ their place only after ΣΑΛΑΘΊΗΛ, and Fritzsche has even entirely deleted them as spurious.

ἘΠῚ Τῆς ΜΕΤΟΙΚ. ΒΑΒΥΛῶΝΟς] during (not about the time, Luther and others) the migration. See Bernhardy, p. 246; Kühner, II. p. 430. The statement, however, is inexact, as Jechoniah was carried away along with others (2 Kings 24:15). The genitive Βαβυλ. is used in the sense of ΕἸς ΒΑΒΥΛῶΝΑ. Comp. Eurip. Iph. T. 1073: γῆς πατρῷας νόστος. Matthew 10:5 : ὉΔῸς ἘΘΝῶΝ; Matthew 4:15, al. Winer, p. 176 [E. T. p. 234].

[353] Amongst the editions this interpolation has been received into the text by Colinaeus, H. Stephens, and Er. Schmidt, also by Beza (1James , 2 d); by Castalio in his translation. It has been defended by Rinck, Lucub. crit. p. 245 f.; Ewald assumes that ver. 11 originally ran: Ἰωσίας δὲ ἐγένν. τ. Ἰωακὶμ καὶ τοῦς ἀδελφοὺς αὐτοῦ· Ἰωακὶμ δὲ ἐγένν. τὸν Ἰεχονίαν ἐπὶ τῆς μετοικ. Βαβ. The present form of the text may be an old error of the copyists, occasioned by the similarity of the two names.

Matthew 1:12. Μετὰ … μετοικ.] After the migration had taken place. 1 Chronicles 3:16; 2 Kings 14:8; Joseph. Antt. x. 9. Not to be translated “during the exile” (Krebs, Kypke), which is quite opposed to the language.

μετοικεσία] change of abode, migration; consequently here, “the being carried away to Babylon,” not the sojourn in the exile itself, which would lead to an erroneous view of the μετά. The above meaning is yielded by the Hebrew נּוֹלָה, 1 Chronicles 5:22; Ezekiel 12:11; 2 Kings 24:16; Nahum 3:10. Comp. the LXX. Anthol. 7. 731 (Leon. Tar. 79). The usual word in the classics is μετοικήσις (Plato, Legg. 8, p. 850 A), also μετοικισμός (Plutarch. Popl. 22).

Σαλαθίηλ] he is called in Luke 3:27 a son of Neri and a grandson of Melchi; a variation which, like many others in both genealogies, is to be acknowledged, and not put aside by the assumption of several individuals of the same name, by the presupposing of levirate relationships (Hug, Ebrard), or arbitrary attempts of any other kind. 1 Chronicles 3:17. When, however, in Jeremiah 22:30 the father of Sealthiel is prophetically designated as עֲרִירִי, the prophet himself explains this in the sense that none of his descendants will sit upon the throne of David. Comp. Paulus in loc., Hitzig on Jerem. l.c. The Talmudists are more subtle, see Lightfoot in loc. Moreover, according to 1 Chronicles 3:19, Pedaiah is wanting here between Salathiel and Zerubbabel. Yet Zerubbabel is elsewhere also called the son of Salathiel (Ezra 3:2; Ezra 5:2; Haggai 1:1; Luke 3:27), where, however, 1 Chronicles 3:19 is to be regarded as a more exact statement. See Bertheau. Observe, moreover, that also according to 1 Chronicles 3. both men belong to the Solomonic line.