And Salmon begat Booz of Rachab; and Booz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed begat Jesse;
Matthew 1:5 names Salmon as the father of Boaz by Rahab, Boaz as the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed as the father of Jesse, one link in the line from Abraham through David to Joseph and Jesus. Matthew traces that line as Jesus' legal and royal descent through Joseph, while Luke traces His human blood descent through Mary back to Adam, with Joseph named in Mary's place because descent was reckoned through men. The genealogy so proves Jesus is the promised Messiah, the Son of David and Seed of Abraham and heir of the covenant made with Abraham and renewed to David. Rahab the former harlot and Ruth the Moabitess stand in that ancestry as Gentiles grafted into Israel, showing His kinship with sinners and aliens and that God is no respecter of persons. In that line He took real human flesh with its weakened inheritance after four thousand years of sin, that He might be made like His brethren and succor the tempted, and through faith believers share Abraham's blessing and inheritance with Him.
Verse Wording and Setting
The verse names Salmon as father of Booz by Rachab, Booz as father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed as father of Jesse, forming part of Matthew's genealogy of Jesus presented as Joseph's genealogy of royal descent. The word rendered begat is the Greek word for begetting, used of men fathering children and also capable of describing women giving birth. It is one father-to-son link in the genealogy from Abraham through David to Joseph and Jesus, naming the generations from Salmon through Boaz and Obed to Jesse and continuing to David and back to Abraham, not to Adam, and helping establish descent in the line of the promised Seed with claim to the inheritance promised to Abraham and renewed to David.
The genealogy places Jesus' parents as Jews belonging to David's family and the tribe of Judah, with Bethlehem identified as the town of Ruth and Boaz from which David's family sprang. The genealogy of Judah, the ruler tribe, was carefully preserved together with Levi while the other tribes were scattered and their genealogies lost, so that the lineage of Jesus could be traced on both His mother's side and His father's side as coming through Judah, the tribe through which Christ came, making Him from His coming the center of the gathering of God's people. The names are real people in a continuous historical line from Abraham's family, depending on Genesis for its record, not characters in allegory, and the record is historical fact whose value lies in what it actually states rather than in a fanciful spiritual meaning added to it.
The genealogy is a selected, not complete, list: it may omit generations to divide into three groups of fourteen, call a grandfather father or descendants children, and record succession and royal inheritance rather than an unbroken father-to-son link at every step. Matthew groups the ancestors into three sets of fourteen to mark the patriarchal, royal, and exilic phases of Hebrew history, deliberately omitting three known generations, and such omissions do not imply ignorance or unreliability. It is spread before readers in raw, contemporary form without editorial explanation, weighing, alteration, or correction to harmonize it with differing accounts; its abruptness, fragmentariness, rawness, incompleteness, and redundancy, assuming and suggesting much that is not said, prove it to be primitive facts and original documents for history rather than secondary conclusions or mythical imaginings. The genealogy from Abraham to Christ is counted as forty-two generations in a direct line from Abraham according to Hebrew law, counted through father-to-son descent.
Those forty-two generations have been figured at about forty or more years to a generation, but no definite time is allotted to a generation and the average cannot fix chronology; lengths vary, the generation before the Flood was much longer than at present, there is no numbering of generations in chronology, and generation sometimes means race, people, nation, or the people living on earth at one time. Counted father-to-son by the Bible rule given with Genesis 11 and Luke 3:23-38, six thousand years from creation do not give two hundred generations, so a thousand generations requires twenty-four thousand years yet beyond 1868 and more, proving keeping God's commandments is perpetuated from generation to generation without end.
Royal Legal Lineage
Matthew gives the legal and royal descent of Jesus through Joseph, his legal father, following the paternal line from David through Solomon to Joseph, since heirship and kingship pass through the father in the male line. Through Joseph as his legal father Jesus legally received the kingship and inherited the kingdom as Son of David, being in law the child of Joseph and therefore entitled to the throne of Israel. The list presents him as son of David and son of Abraham, tracing the reigning house from Abraham through David to Joseph because the promises came through Abraham, and it gives his legal pedigree in the male line identifying him with the seed of David. Biblical genealogies of this kind may omit generations and divide into three groups of fourteen, with a grandfather called father and descendants called children across intervening generations.
The royal line is traced from David through Solomon, Rehoboam and the rest to Joseph, supporting the presentation of Jesus as king and heir to the rulership associated with David. It is Joseph's royal genealogy, following the male line through which inheritance was reckoned, naming an ancestral link from Salmon through Boaz and Obed to Jesse within that ancestry. This is different from Luke's genealogy, which traces Jesus not as heir to David's throne but as son of man and son of Adam back to Adam the son of God, naming Joseph only as the male member of the house counted as son of Heli.
Luke gives a different line from David through Nathan on Mary's side, tracing the literal blood and human descent through Mary according to the flesh, while the two lines meet in the course of time. Genealogies were not customarily traced through women because descent was reckoned through the male line, so Joseph is named in Mary's place and the genealogy is presented through Joseph rather than through Mary. Heli was Mary's father, reckoned as Joseph's father because Joseph was Mary's husband and as Jesus' grandfather, and Heli may also have been another name for Joseph. Under Jewish law Joseph was Jesus' legal father while his fleshly descent came through Mary, with Joseph treated as son of Mary's father because he was her husband.
Luke's genealogy is Mary's genealogy, containing more names and therefore a different number of generations than Joseph's line, and traced back to the beginning promise of the seed of the woman. Those who hold that Matthew's list traces Mary's line teach that it leads from Abraham to the birth of Christ and omits some generations to form three sections of fourteen generations each. Another proposed account treats Matthew's list as the royal genealogy and Luke's as the private genealogy of Joseph, heir to David's throne, naming Salmon as father of Booz, Booz as father of Obed, and Obed as father of Jesse. The genealogy is to be harmonized with Luke 3, though one statement of that harmony gives no explanation of how they agree. Objections raised by critics against the Gospel genealogies were not new but had already been discussed by early Christian apologists.
Messiah Proved and Promised
Matthew's list runs from Abraham down through David to Joseph, the reputed father of Christ, tracing His ancestry on the fleshly side to establish His identity as the Messiah, the Son of David foretold in prophecy and the promised Seed of Abraham. It presents Jesus as king in His royal descent and proves He is the true Messiah who was to come, who died and rose again and ascended according to the Scriptures. His birth set within that line marks the fulfillment of the Old Testament gospel promises and establishes His Messiahship.
Jesus stood in such family relation to Joseph as to have claim to all that belonged to him as lineal descendant of Abraham. By that relation He is proved heir of the everlasting covenant made with Abraham and renewed to David. The preserved succession through Salmon, Booz, Obed, and Jesse supports His claim to inherit the material promise made to Abraham, a promise that included the whole world.
The royal genealogy from Abraham through David and Solomon to His birth bears witness to His divinely promised ancestry and to the reliability of Scripture. Through the preserved lineage of Rahab, Ruth, Boaz, Obed, and Jesse the world could be assured that God's promises and prophecies were fulfilled in the Messiah.
The verse places Jesus in the lineage of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Jesse, and David, naming Salmon, Booz, Obed, Ruth, and Jesse in the ancestry leading to David. That descent from Jesse and David is the qualification of the Messiah, presenting Him as belonging to David's royal line and fulfilling the hope of the promised Seed of Abraham and Branch from Jesse. The grouping into three sets of fourteen to mark the patriarchal, royal, and exilic phases deliberately omits three known generations, and such omission does not imply ignorance or unreliability.
The recorded pedigree preserves the line connecting Abraham's seed to Christ so the promised Seed could be born in the land promised to Abraham and the claim to the inheritance fulfilled. God preserved this line of promise through David's family despite Satan's efforts to destroy it, so that the earthly line of the promised Deliverer could be traced through David's family and back through the line of promise.
Israel was set apart as Abraham's descendants so that the Messiah through whom all nations would be blessed could be identified as coming from Abraham's line. The genealogy tracing Christ's lineage from Abraham to Joseph therefore presents Him as the perfect Jew and as the promised Seed before the account of His earthly life.
David is a type of Christ, the heavenly Prince of Peace, and Christ's lineage reaches David through kings on one side and priests on the maternal side. Ruth, a Moabitess from a despised nation, was included in the family line through which the Lord came according to His human descent, illustrating God's care for the promised Seed. The redemption of Naomi's inheritance points forward to the Lord as Redeemer, who had the right to redeem and did so through the sacrifice of His life.
Gentile Women Grafted In
Matthew 1:5 places Rahab and Ruth in Jesus' literal ancestry, stating that Salmon fathered Boaz by Rahab and Boaz fathered Obed by Ruth before Obed fathered Jesse, in the line through which Christ's genealogy is traced. These named ancestors are real people in a continuous historical line linking Jesus' later family history to Abraham and, in Luke's genealogy, to Adam, not characters in allegory. Rahab, once a heathen woman living in sin and a harlot who received the Israelite spies in faith, became part of Israel's royal family and an ancestress of the Lord. She entered the family of Judah as mother of Boaz and through Boaz and Ruth became an ancestor of David and the Messiah, a link in the line of the chosen seed.
Her acceptance of God's word developed her faith, and the Messiah's power transformed her character. Ruth, a poor Moabite woman from a despised nation, was chosen by God's providence, showing He is no respecter of persons. Her loving loyalty led her to leave her homeland, remain with Naomi, follow Israel's God, and live with God's people, and her selfless goodness received great recompense. Her faithful choice to remain with Naomi and to follow Israel's God led to her place in the lineage of Christ.
Ruth became an ancestor of Jesus and was honored among Israel's chief family, entering the Messianic genealogy as mother of Obed, grandfather of David. Her history was preserved in the Bible as a precious legacy to God's people. She was the daughter-in-law of Naomi of Bethlehem-judah, also called Ephrath, who came to Bethlehem in the days of the judges after famine drove Elimelech's family to Moab and her Moabite marriage ended with her husband's death, and there she married a kinsman of Naomi and bore Obed, proving Jesus of Nazareth a direct lineal descendant of Abraham.
Her presence as a Moabite woman in the ancestry of David and in Christ's genealogy shows Christ's kinship not only with sinners, as the other women named in the genealogy suggest, but also with aliens and Gentiles, for the royal house itself had Moabite ancestry. Rahab and Ruth, both Gentile women and not Israelites by birth, were added from among the Gentiles to Israel to build up His people. Their exceptional inclusion did not corrupt the holy line. God's record does not hide the troubled histories of Jesus' ancestors: Rahab was a harlot, and Ruth was a Moabitess descended from Lot's incestuous union with his daughter, which offers hope to the fallen, even to those who inherit strong sinful tendencies. The verse thus includes women and people of another race among Christ's ancestors, showing Jesus did not refuse to be born into a human lineage that included sinners, consistent with His taking human nature and being tempted as people are while living a perfect life that shows people can live holy lives in this world.
Human Nature Shared
Matthew 1 traces a real human pedigree, showing that Christ was born into the human family, unlike Melchizedek who had no such birth into that family. It places Jesus in David's human family line, whose ancestors shared the iniquities common to humanity, and the verse belongs to the genealogy that shows He was born into human flesh. He had real human ancestors and became a member of the human family, truly taking part in human life. His descent through Rahab and Ruth and through a family line containing both wicked and righteous people shows that He took the same human flesh and blood, with its liability to sin.
He accepted this weakened human inheritance after four thousand years of sin, like every child of Adam. The line from Jacob through David and the kings of Judah, including an unenlightened heathen such as Rahab, tended to concentrate in Christ all the weaknesses of humanity. He therefore came from a sinful ancestry and took flesh with its weaknesses and sinful tendencies, His human nature being more subject to the infirmities of the flesh than if He had been born before the race had so greatly deteriorated physically and morally. His human inheritance shaped the temptations He faced throughout His life.
He shared humanity's sorrows and temptations without sin, knew people's needs through experience, sympathized with their weakness, and as one of the same race shared humanity's inheritance of death. This sharing of human sorrow and temptation was so that He could give the example of a sinless life. This was not accidental but a necessary part of the great plan of human redemption, so that in taking the seed of Abraham He might in all things be made like His brethren, suffer being tempted, and be a merciful and faithful high priest able to succor those who are tempted. His taking human nature and being tempted as people are, while living a perfect life, shows that people can live holy lives in this world, and His descent into a human lineage that included sinners and people of another race shows He did not refuse such a birth.
Believers Inherit Through Faith
Christ's genealogy including Salmon to Jesse supports the promise that believers share in Abraham's blessing through faith in Christ. It assures believers in Christ that Abraham's promises belong to his spiritual offspring. Natural descent was a valuable privilege and opportunity, but it did not by itself guarantee heirship. Those who received the promises by natural birth could share in them through faith. Through faith in Christ, believers share Abraham's inheritance of the world and are joint heirs with Christ to David's throne.
The genealogy of Judah the ruler tribe was preserved together with Levi while the other tribes were scattered and their genealogies were lost. It was kept so that the lineage of Jesus could be traced on both His mother's side and His father's side in Matthew 1 and Luke 3. This proves He came through the tribe of Judah. From His coming He became the center of the gathering of God's people.
Matthew 1:5 names Salmon as the father of Boaz by Rahab, Boaz as the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed as the father of Jesse, one link in the line from Abraham through David to Joseph and Jesus. Matthew traces that line as Jesus' legal and royal descent through Joseph, while Luke traces His human blood descent through Mary back to Adam, with Joseph named in Mary's place because descent was reckoned through men. The genealogy so proves Jesus is the promised Messiah, the Son of David and Seed of Abraham and heir of the covenant made with Abraham and renewed to David. Rahab the former harlot and Ruth the Moabitess stand in that ancestry as Gentiles grafted into Israel, showing His kinship with sinners and aliens and that God is no respecter of persons. In that line He took real human flesh with its weakened inheritance after four thousand years of sin, that He might be made like His brethren and succor the tempted, and through faith believers share Abraham's blessing and inheritance with Him.
Verse Wording and Setting
The verse names Salmon as father of Booz by Rachab, Booz as father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed as father of Jesse, forming part of Matthew's genealogy of Jesus presented as Joseph's genealogy of royal descent. The word rendered begat is the Greek word for begetting, used of men fathering children and also capable of describing women giving birth. It is one father-to-son link in the genealogy from Abraham through David to Joseph and Jesus, naming the generations from Salmon through Boaz and Obed to Jesse and continuing to David and back to Abraham, not to Adam, and helping establish descent in the line of the promised Seed with claim to the inheritance promised to Abraham and renewed to David.
The genealogy places Jesus' parents as Jews belonging to David's family and the tribe of Judah, with Bethlehem identified as the town of Ruth and Boaz from which David's family sprang. The genealogy of Judah, the ruler tribe, was carefully preserved together with Levi while the other tribes were scattered and their genealogies lost, so that the lineage of Jesus could be traced on both His mother's side and His father's side as coming through Judah, the tribe through which Christ came, making Him from His coming the center of the gathering of God's people. The names are real people in a continuous historical line from Abraham's family, depending on Genesis for its record, not characters in allegory, and the record is historical fact whose value lies in what it actually states rather than in a fanciful spiritual meaning added to it.
The genealogy is a selected, not complete, list: it may omit generations to divide into three groups of fourteen, call a grandfather father or descendants children, and record succession and royal inheritance rather than an unbroken father-to-son link at every step. Matthew groups the ancestors into three sets of fourteen to mark the patriarchal, royal, and exilic phases of Hebrew history, deliberately omitting three known generations, and such omissions do not imply ignorance or unreliability. It is spread before readers in raw, contemporary form without editorial explanation, weighing, alteration, or correction to harmonize it with differing accounts; its abruptness, fragmentariness, rawness, incompleteness, and redundancy, assuming and suggesting much that is not said, prove it to be primitive facts and original documents for history rather than secondary conclusions or mythical imaginings. The genealogy from Abraham to Christ is counted as forty-two generations in a direct line from Abraham according to Hebrew law, counted through father-to-son descent.
Those forty-two generations have been figured at about forty or more years to a generation, but no definite time is allotted to a generation and the average cannot fix chronology; lengths vary, the generation before the Flood was much longer than at present, there is no numbering of generations in chronology, and generation sometimes means race, people, nation, or the people living on earth at one time. Counted father-to-son by the Bible rule given with Genesis 11 and Luke 3:23-38, six thousand years from creation do not give two hundred generations, so a thousand generations requires twenty-four thousand years yet beyond 1868 and more, proving keeping God's commandments is perpetuated from generation to generation without end.
Royal Legal Lineage
Matthew gives the legal and royal descent of Jesus through Joseph, his legal father, following the paternal line from David through Solomon to Joseph, since heirship and kingship pass through the father in the male line. Through Joseph as his legal father Jesus legally received the kingship and inherited the kingdom as Son of David, being in law the child of Joseph and therefore entitled to the throne of Israel. The list presents him as son of David and son of Abraham, tracing the reigning house from Abraham through David to Joseph because the promises came through Abraham, and it gives his legal pedigree in the male line identifying him with the seed of David. Biblical genealogies of this kind may omit generations and divide into three groups of fourteen, with a grandfather called father and descendants called children across intervening generations.
The royal line is traced from David through Solomon, Rehoboam and the rest to Joseph, supporting the presentation of Jesus as king and heir to the rulership associated with David. It is Joseph's royal genealogy, following the male line through which inheritance was reckoned, naming an ancestral link from Salmon through Boaz and Obed to Jesse within that ancestry. This is different from Luke's genealogy, which traces Jesus not as heir to David's throne but as son of man and son of Adam back to Adam the son of God, naming Joseph only as the male member of the house counted as son of Heli.
Luke gives a different line from David through Nathan on Mary's side, tracing the literal blood and human descent through Mary according to the flesh, while the two lines meet in the course of time. Genealogies were not customarily traced through women because descent was reckoned through the male line, so Joseph is named in Mary's place and the genealogy is presented through Joseph rather than through Mary. Heli was Mary's father, reckoned as Joseph's father because Joseph was Mary's husband and as Jesus' grandfather, and Heli may also have been another name for Joseph. Under Jewish law Joseph was Jesus' legal father while his fleshly descent came through Mary, with Joseph treated as son of Mary's father because he was her husband.
Luke's genealogy is Mary's genealogy, containing more names and therefore a different number of generations than Joseph's line, and traced back to the beginning promise of the seed of the woman. Those who hold that Matthew's list traces Mary's line teach that it leads from Abraham to the birth of Christ and omits some generations to form three sections of fourteen generations each. Another proposed account treats Matthew's list as the royal genealogy and Luke's as the private genealogy of Joseph, heir to David's throne, naming Salmon as father of Booz, Booz as father of Obed, and Obed as father of Jesse. The genealogy is to be harmonized with Luke 3, though one statement of that harmony gives no explanation of how they agree. Objections raised by critics against the Gospel genealogies were not new but had already been discussed by early Christian apologists.
Messiah Proved and Promised
Matthew's list runs from Abraham down through David to Joseph, the reputed father of Christ, tracing His ancestry on the fleshly side to establish His identity as the Messiah, the Son of David foretold in prophecy and the promised Seed of Abraham. It presents Jesus as king in His royal descent and proves He is the true Messiah who was to come, who died and rose again and ascended according to the Scriptures. His birth set within that line marks the fulfillment of the Old Testament gospel promises and establishes His Messiahship.
Jesus stood in such family relation to Joseph as to have claim to all that belonged to him as lineal descendant of Abraham. By that relation He is proved heir of the everlasting covenant made with Abraham and renewed to David. The preserved succession through Salmon, Booz, Obed, and Jesse supports His claim to inherit the material promise made to Abraham, a promise that included the whole world.
The royal genealogy from Abraham through David and Solomon to His birth bears witness to His divinely promised ancestry and to the reliability of Scripture. Through the preserved lineage of Rahab, Ruth, Boaz, Obed, and Jesse the world could be assured that God's promises and prophecies were fulfilled in the Messiah.
The verse places Jesus in the lineage of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Jesse, and David, naming Salmon, Booz, Obed, Ruth, and Jesse in the ancestry leading to David. That descent from Jesse and David is the qualification of the Messiah, presenting Him as belonging to David's royal line and fulfilling the hope of the promised Seed of Abraham and Branch from Jesse. The grouping into three sets of fourteen to mark the patriarchal, royal, and exilic phases deliberately omits three known generations, and such omission does not imply ignorance or unreliability.
The recorded pedigree preserves the line connecting Abraham's seed to Christ so the promised Seed could be born in the land promised to Abraham and the claim to the inheritance fulfilled. God preserved this line of promise through David's family despite Satan's efforts to destroy it, so that the earthly line of the promised Deliverer could be traced through David's family and back through the line of promise.
Israel was set apart as Abraham's descendants so that the Messiah through whom all nations would be blessed could be identified as coming from Abraham's line. The genealogy tracing Christ's lineage from Abraham to Joseph therefore presents Him as the perfect Jew and as the promised Seed before the account of His earthly life.
David is a type of Christ, the heavenly Prince of Peace, and Christ's lineage reaches David through kings on one side and priests on the maternal side. Ruth, a Moabitess from a despised nation, was included in the family line through which the Lord came according to His human descent, illustrating God's care for the promised Seed. The redemption of Naomi's inheritance points forward to the Lord as Redeemer, who had the right to redeem and did so through the sacrifice of His life.
Gentile Women Grafted In
Matthew 1:5 places Rahab and Ruth in Jesus' literal ancestry, stating that Salmon fathered Boaz by Rahab and Boaz fathered Obed by Ruth before Obed fathered Jesse, in the line through which Christ's genealogy is traced. These named ancestors are real people in a continuous historical line linking Jesus' later family history to Abraham and, in Luke's genealogy, to Adam, not characters in allegory. Rahab, once a heathen woman living in sin and a harlot who received the Israelite spies in faith, became part of Israel's royal family and an ancestress of the Lord. She entered the family of Judah as mother of Boaz and through Boaz and Ruth became an ancestor of David and the Messiah, a link in the line of the chosen seed.
Her acceptance of God's word developed her faith, and the Messiah's power transformed her character. Ruth, a poor Moabite woman from a despised nation, was chosen by God's providence, showing He is no respecter of persons. Her loving loyalty led her to leave her homeland, remain with Naomi, follow Israel's God, and live with God's people, and her selfless goodness received great recompense. Her faithful choice to remain with Naomi and to follow Israel's God led to her place in the lineage of Christ.
Ruth became an ancestor of Jesus and was honored among Israel's chief family, entering the Messianic genealogy as mother of Obed, grandfather of David. Her history was preserved in the Bible as a precious legacy to God's people. She was the daughter-in-law of Naomi of Bethlehem-judah, also called Ephrath, who came to Bethlehem in the days of the judges after famine drove Elimelech's family to Moab and her Moabite marriage ended with her husband's death, and there she married a kinsman of Naomi and bore Obed, proving Jesus of Nazareth a direct lineal descendant of Abraham.
Her presence as a Moabite woman in the ancestry of David and in Christ's genealogy shows Christ's kinship not only with sinners, as the other women named in the genealogy suggest, but also with aliens and Gentiles, for the royal house itself had Moabite ancestry. Rahab and Ruth, both Gentile women and not Israelites by birth, were added from among the Gentiles to Israel to build up His people. Their exceptional inclusion did not corrupt the holy line. God's record does not hide the troubled histories of Jesus' ancestors: Rahab was a harlot, and Ruth was a Moabitess descended from Lot's incestuous union with his daughter, which offers hope to the fallen, even to those who inherit strong sinful tendencies. The verse thus includes women and people of another race among Christ's ancestors, showing Jesus did not refuse to be born into a human lineage that included sinners, consistent with His taking human nature and being tempted as people are while living a perfect life that shows people can live holy lives in this world.
Human Nature Shared
Matthew 1 traces a real human pedigree, showing that Christ was born into the human family, unlike Melchizedek who had no such birth into that family. It places Jesus in David's human family line, whose ancestors shared the iniquities common to humanity, and the verse belongs to the genealogy that shows He was born into human flesh. He had real human ancestors and became a member of the human family, truly taking part in human life. His descent through Rahab and Ruth and through a family line containing both wicked and righteous people shows that He took the same human flesh and blood, with its liability to sin.
He accepted this weakened human inheritance after four thousand years of sin, like every child of Adam. The line from Jacob through David and the kings of Judah, including an unenlightened heathen such as Rahab, tended to concentrate in Christ all the weaknesses of humanity. He therefore came from a sinful ancestry and took flesh with its weaknesses and sinful tendencies, His human nature being more subject to the infirmities of the flesh than if He had been born before the race had so greatly deteriorated physically and morally. His human inheritance shaped the temptations He faced throughout His life.
He shared humanity's sorrows and temptations without sin, knew people's needs through experience, sympathized with their weakness, and as one of the same race shared humanity's inheritance of death. This sharing of human sorrow and temptation was so that He could give the example of a sinless life. This was not accidental but a necessary part of the great plan of human redemption, so that in taking the seed of Abraham He might in all things be made like His brethren, suffer being tempted, and be a merciful and faithful high priest able to succor those who are tempted. His taking human nature and being tempted as people are, while living a perfect life, shows that people can live holy lives in this world, and His descent into a human lineage that included sinners and people of another race shows He did not refuse such a birth.
Believers Inherit Through Faith
Christ's genealogy including Salmon to Jesse supports the promise that believers share in Abraham's blessing through faith in Christ. It assures believers in Christ that Abraham's promises belong to his spiritual offspring. Natural descent was a valuable privilege and opportunity, but it did not by itself guarantee heirship. Those who received the promises by natural birth could share in them through faith. Through faith in Christ, believers share Abraham's inheritance of the world and are joint heirs with Christ to David's throne.
The genealogy of Judah the ruler tribe was preserved together with Levi while the other tribes were scattered and their genealogies were lost. It was kept so that the lineage of Jesus could be traced on both His mother's side and His father's side in Matthew 1 and Luke 3. This proves He came through the tribe of Judah. From His coming He became the center of the gathering of God's people.