Amazing Stories Found in a Genealogy

Can a genealogy have an Advent Lesson?

If I were to advise a young Christian or even an older Christian on what to read in the Bible, I would not suggest they start at a genealogy. I would probably advise skipping the first one found in Matthew and start with Matthew 1:18.

However, there is a great Advent story found in Matthew’s genealogy, which comprises the first 17 verses of the whole book and the whole New Testament! A new Christian wouldn’t recognize the stories and many others might not realize their interesting significance, but there are a few scandalous and eye raising stories represented here, providing an inspiring lesson for us all.

The first story deals with Judah, known for being a great ancestor of David. Judah, however, got himself into a soap opera type situation, if there ever was one! First, you must understand the Hebrew custom that if a married man died while young without children, a younger brother who was single was expected to marry the widow and give his deceased brother a legal heir. That heir would then be raised as the son of the deceased man. Judah had two sons who died young because they were both evil (that’s mostly all we know about their deaths), but the third son was too young to marry. Judah promised the widow, named Tamar, that if she would return to her father, when the third son was old enough, he would give that son to the widow to marry.

 Well, Judah did not follow through, so Tamar got the best of him. She posed as a prostitute with her face covered and when Judah saw her he propositioned her, not recognizing her. She asked for a goat as payment, which of course he didn’t have on hand. So as guarantee for getting her goat payment she asked for a few personal items. She got from him his seal with its cord and his staff. Through that encounter she got pregnant and a few months later, word got back to Judah that his daughter in law had prostituted herself and got pregnant. He ordered her brought to him to be given the death penalty, but she brought his belongings with her and said “The father of the baby is the owner of these items.” He recognized them and realized she had got revenge on him for not keeping his promise to give his youngest son to her in marriage. He then declared, “She is more righteous than I.” So, she gave birth to twins, Perez and Zerah and, evidently, she and the twins were accepted back into the family since her older son, is named as an ancestor of Jesus. The whole situation is actually referred to in Matthew as “Judah, father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar,” etc. It’s fascinating that Tamar (who conceived her sons in a very unconventional manner, to put it mildly) gets noticed in the genealogy and is part of Jesus’ ancestry! You can read this shocking story in Genesis 38:1-30.

Then, there is another prostitute in Jesus’ genealogy! Rahab was a known prostitute of Jericho who saved the day for two Israelite spies who needed hiding while they were spying out Jericho. This was before the Israelites ever got to the land of Canaan. She agreed to protect them if they would remember her when the Israelites came to take over the city. The Biblical story (Joshua 2:8-13) indicates she recognized that their God was more powerful than her gods. She was told to leave a long red cord from her window which was on the wall of Jericho to let them know she was in there, and they would spare her when they conquered the city. The Israelites kept their word, and Rahab married one of them, a descendent of Judah, and thus Rahab became an ancestor of Jesus! What is the world coming to?!!

The third questionable person is a woman whom few today would think of as questionable, and that is Ruth. Why would that piece of Jesus’ ancestry be unexpected? It’s because it’s easy to forget she was not a Hebrew. She was from Moab. The Law of Moses strictly forbade Israelites from marrying a non-Israelite. In fact, Naomi’s sons had already violated the law by marrying women from Moab, one of whom was Ruth, so certainly, it was also against the law for Boaz, the wealthy land owner of the tribe of Judah to marry Ruth too, even if it does make a wonderful love story! Ruth, then became the great grandmother of David.

Then the genealogy itself reminds us of David’s sins. It states “David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife.” A friend complained to me once about David being considered so great, when he had committed adultery and had even had the husband of his love interest killed in battle. So right there is murder, added to adultery! Thankfully, Nathan the prophet, was bold enough and clever enough to confront David with his guilt in a way that hit David quite hard, and he repented. In this story, we see one of the reasons for the Gospel being good news: that with true repentance and faith, we can all be restored to fellowship with God. David wept bitterly with the knowledge of his great guilt. We see evidence in the Psalms (Psalm 51) that he repented deeply from the heart, not for being caught, but for sinning against Almighty God!

The lessons from these stories provide initial evidence of the good news of the Gospel that Jesus came to proclaim, that God loves the sinner and the down-and-out person. Jesus was a son of Abraham and King David, which on the surface is quite an honor (even though these two men were not perfect themselves). However, he was also a son of Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth, a couple of whom could have been considered outcasts, while none of the three were Hebrew people. When Jesus came into the world, he identified with the sinners and outcasts of the world. He came for all people, of all nations. No one is too much of a sinner to be accepted into the House and Family of God!