Matthew 1:7-11 Family Tree (Part 2)
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: January 3-5, 2019, Matthew 1:7-11
Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, and Asaph 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, and Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.
(Understanding the Text) Matthew traces the history of Israel in the first fourteen ancestors who were part of the journey to the promised land and the judges. The next fourteen are the kings of Israel period. Thus, the next ancestors of Jesus were well-known royalty. The final fourteen are the ancestors who return from exile. Thus, the history of Israel is divided into three sections: before kings, kings to exile, after exile to Messiah. Matthew starts out with the general ancestry that Jesus shares with all Jews and narrows it down to the ancestry of royalty and Gentiles that not all Jews had. We make a big deal about the four women mentioned and that three of them were Gentiles, but among the royalty, there were also Gentile ancestors who were not faithful to the LORD. Finally, the genealogy narrows down to a specific family that is not connected by blood (past the initial tribes) to other Jews.
Rehoboam (1 Kings 11:43-15:6, 1 Chronicles 3:10, 2 Chronicles 9:31-12:16, 13:7) Rehoboam was a selfish fool of a king, full of himself and his own right to reign over others. He had none of his father’s wisdom or fear of the Lord. He thought his father’s power came from his position as the son of David the king. Rehoboam never realized that Solomon’s only right to kingship came from Yahweh Himself. As a result, Rehoboam caused the divided kingdom of Israel and Judah because he treated his potential subjects like slaves instead of as God had instructed in the scriptures. He went to old men and young men for advice thinking that he was then free to choose the advice that fit him best when instead, he should have been going to God for advice and searching the scriptures for instruction. I always thought he was simply foolish because of his youth, but he was actually 41 years old when he began to reign and reigned for only 17 years. Thus, he did not have the excuse of inexperience to explain away his mistakes. He was the son of Naamah the Amonite, so he might have the excuse that his mother was not a follower of Yahweh. David’s and Solomon’s habit of compromising their leadership, which should have been totally from God, with worldly ways of obtaining power led Rehoboam to only see that their success came from might and politics rather than from the Lord. However, he did gain wisdom enough to obey the Lord when God told Rehoboam not to make war against Israel when it rebelled. Rehoboam redeemed himself somewhat by providing refuge for the Levites who were driven out of Israel. He stupidly continued his father and grandfather’s habit of taking multiple wives with many children, but he wisely chose only women who were of Israel (I think) and did not serve strange gods. Also, he wisely distributed power among his sons in a way that kept peace in the family. This continued for three years. Then, he relapsed into stupidity and abandoned God again so that he lost a lot of valuable treasure to Shishak, but then he returned to the Lord and was able to reign securely. The overall verdict of his life is “And he did evil, for he did not set his heart to seek the LORD” (2Chronicles 12:14).
Abijah (1 Chronicles 3:10, 2 Chronicles 11:20-22 & 13:1-14:1, 1 Kings 15:1-8 ) Chronicles says that Maacah was Rehoboam’s favorite wife and Abijah’s mother. It’s a little confusing according to one verse “After her he took Maacah the daughter of Absalom, who bore him Abijah, Attai, Ziza, and Shelomith” (2 Chronicles 11:20), Abijah was the son of Maacah who was the daughter of Absalom. However, Samuel says that Maacah was Absalom’s mother and that his daughter was Tamar. To make it more confusing, according to another verse, “He reigned for three years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Micaiah the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. Now there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam” (2 Chronicles 13:2), which spells his mother’s name differently and says that she was the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. Is Uriel a woman’s name, i.e. Uriel was Micaiah/Maacah’s mother? I’m not sure. I guess she is mentioned here because she was publicly removed from power as the queen mother by her son because of idolatry. Abijah had many brothers, but his father made him the chief prince of them all. There are a lot of Abijah’s in the Old Testament. It’s difficult for me to keep from getting them mixed up. It is both a woman’s and man’s name. In 1 Kings 15, Abijah is called Abijam.
The SDA commentary says that variations in names is common in the Bible and that “Most of the variations in the genealogical list are due to the fact that the names in Matthew’s Greek text appear in the main as they do in the LXX.” (Note: LXX is the Septuagint, which was the Greek translation of the Old Testament that was in common use in Jesus’ time.)
Asaph (2 Chronicles 14:1-16:13, 1 Kings 15:9-24) In 2 Chronicles 14:1 and 1 Kings 15, it calls the next king Asa, not Asaph. King Asa was a good king who followed the Lord’s ways for most of his life. He did have too many wives. However, he did not let the women in his life take him away from Yahweh. His own mother was not exempt from being taken out of power when her idolatry reached too far. “He also removed Maacah his mother from being queen mother because she had made an abominable image for Asherah. And Asa cut down her image and burned it at the brook Kidron” (1Kings 15:13). However, when he had reigned for many years, he grew too confident in himself, and began to depend on politics rather than Yahweh. When his feet became diseased, he again depended on physicians instead of God. Will he be in heaven? I don’t know. In one place it says how good he was in following God, but in another place it says that he came to rely on himself and other people rather than God. The verdict is out on him.
Jehoshaphat (1 Kings 15:24, 22:2-50, 1 Chronicles 3:10, 1 Chronicles 17-21:1) He became king when he was 35 years old. His mother was Azubah the daughter of Shilhi. He was king for 25 years. The verdict on him is “He walked in all the way of Asa his father. He did not turn aside from it, doing what was right in the sight of the LORD.” He did a lot of good, but did not get rid of the idolatry on the high places according to the account in Kings. However, Chronicles is different. “Therefore the LORD established the kingdom in his hand. And all Judah brought tribute to Jehoshaphat, and he had great riches and honor. His heart was courageous in the ways of the LORD. And furthermore, he took the high places and the Asherim out of Judah” (2 Chronicles 17:5-6). I guess he got rid of some, but not all of the high places. I like how it says that his heart was courageous in the ways of the Lord. 2 Chronicles 20:33 agrees with Kings. There is a story of how Jehoshaphat was faced with a vast army and knew that there was no way for him to win, so he and the people of Judah prayed. When they went out the next morning to fight, they had singers in front of them praising God. When they reached the enemy, everyone was dead. They looted the dead men and brought back lots of valuables. Anyway, there is a verse I like here where after they confess their helplessness to God, He answers them. “You will not need to fight in this battle. Stand firm, hold your position, and see the salvation of the LORD on your behalf, O Judah and Jerusalem.’ Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them, and the LORD will be with you” (2 Chronicles 20:17). This was the time of the prophets Elijah and Elisha.
Joram (1 Kings 22:50, 2 Kings 8:16-24) In 1 Kings, it calls him Jehoram, but there was another Jehoram at the time who was the son of the king of Israel and later became king during Jehoshaphat’s time. There was also a Joram who was king of Israel around this time, I’m not sure if they were the same person or not. I didn’t check into it. King Jehoram of Judah was 32 years old when he started to reign and was king for eight years. He was married to the daughter of King Ahab of Israel and Jezebel and under her influence, he became an idolater. In some ways this was his father’s fault because King Jehoshaphat had arranged the marriage for political reasons. This was a case where depending on politics rather than the Lord caused untold damage later. In 2 Kings 8:21, it switches over to calling him Joram, which is confusing because there was also King Joram the son of Ahab at the same time. Evidently, they were brother-in-laws with the same name. How confusing is that!
Uzziah- The SDA commentary says that “Matthew omits the names of three successive kings of Judah between Joram (Jehoram) and Ozias (Uzziah or Azariah; see 1 Chron. 3:11,12), namely, Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah.” The commentary gives two possible reasons for this omission. First, Matthew wanted to reduce the 19 kings down to 14 to correspond with the generations from Abraham to David. Secondly, Matthew considered these kings to be unworthy to be in the list.
Jotham
This is confusing. There are a bunch of kings in the middle and I am not sure which ones are Uzziah and Jotham. Guzik says “a. Fourteen generations . . . fourteen generations . . . fourteen generations: Matthew points out that this genealogy is not complete. There were not actually 14 generations between the landmarks he indicates, but Matthew edited the list down to make it easy to remember and memorize. b. The practice of skipping generations at times was common in the listing of ancient genealogies. Matthew did nothing unusual by leaving some generations out.”
Ahaz (2 Kings 16:1-20)
Hezekiah (2 Kings 16:20, chapters 18-20)
Manassah (2 Kings 20:21, 21:1-18)
Amos (2 Kings 21:18-26) Called Amon in Kings.
Josiah (2 Kings 21:26, 22-23:30)
Jechoniah (2 Kings 23:30-24:9) There were several kings with J names and I am not sure which one this was. Darby’s commentary says “It is the legal genealogy which is given here, that is to say, the genealogy of Joseph, of whom Christ was the rightful heir according to Jewish law. The evangelist has omitted three kings of the parentage of Ahab, in order to have the fourteen generations in each period. Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim are also omitted. The object of the genealogy is not at all affected by this circumstance. The point was to give it as recognised by the Jews, and all the kings were well known to all.” The SDA commentary says that Jehoiachin (2 kings 24:6) was also known as Jeconiah (1 Chronicles 3:16). The SDA commentary also says that Matthew omitted a king here. Jechoniah was actually Josiah’s grandson. Jechoniah’s father was Jehoiakim
(Application / Revelation of God) My application for myself is that God takes us as we are with all of our imperfections and works with us. If we depend on ourselves, our solutions may seem successful, but in the end, there will be nothing but trouble that results. If we depend on God for solutions, the miraculous happens. However, depending on God means believing the impossible can happen. I’m still not sure how miraculous answers to prayer fit into the scheme of things. Yesterday, I prayed for my battery to start my car when it was being jumped, and it did not happen, but I also prayed that the problem was only a battery and not something else, and it did happen. However, then it turned out that it was a different problem and the mechanic had to come get it and fix it. The jury is still out on whether it is fixed or not. An objective observer would say that my prayers were irrelevant to the situation and had no effect on either outcome. Should I have prayed for what I wanted in that situation? Or should I have simply prayed that God’s will be done? I hear stories of people praying and receiving miracles for themselves because of their prayers, but that just doesn’t happen for me; On the other hand, I have lived a charmed life where events turn out well for me in seemingly non-miraculous ways, yet many people would call me lucky or say that I have good fortune. I view that God takes care of me but not in spectacular ways. Is that because I feel more secure in not needing miracles to keep me going? In the end, I think my mechanical problems were to ensure that my car was in good condition when I had to unexpectedly take it to Topeka, and that God was taking care of me by not answering yes to my prayers. However, that brings me back to “should I have even prayed for what I wanted or not since God did not answer yes?” I see the life of King Asa and his miraculous victory over one army and his scolding by a prophet for depending on politics for victory in another situation, and it confuses me about answers to prayers. I know that I need to trust God to see me through and that it doesn’t matter what method He uses, but it still confuses me when people claim spectacular miracles because God just doesn’t work like that not only in my own life, but in the lives of the majority of people that I know and observe.
My second application to myself is to trust God to fight the battles that I am helpless against. I need to say with Jehoshaphat, “O our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you” (2 Chronicles 20:12). I need to acknowledge my need and powerlessness and confidence in You. I need to go forth singing God’s praises before me. “And when he had taken counsel with the people, he appointed those who were to sing to the LORD and praise him in holy attire, as they went before the army, and say, “Give thanks to the LORD, for his steadfast love endures forever” (2 Chronicles 20:21).
(Note: The following prayer was a very heartfelt plea to God for help during a situation that I was involved in at the time. I debated about taking it out of this devotion because of its personal nature, but I decided that it was important to remain authentic. By the way, God answered this prayer and everything was resolved well eventually.)
(Prayer) I claim the promise of the prophet to Jehoshaphat, “You will not need to fight in this battle. Stand firm, hold your position, and see the salvation of the LORD on your behalf, O Judah and Jerusalem.’ Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them, and the LORD will be with you” (2 Chronicles 20:17). God, you have put me in the middle of a war that I am powerless to fight. Your name is in jeopardy of being slimed. Your people who wished only to find a way to serve you have been abused, and their reputation is going to be ruined as a result. Satan will use this to destroy any trust and goodwill that has been gained in the community. Only You can resolve this and overcome the overwhelming odds against us obtaining any success after this. Give us the victory, I pray. We are doomed unless you go before us to fight for us. I ask for you to lead us to victory over Satan. I do not know how or what or where to do anything. I need You to fight for me. I am powerless to change any of this or to alter the future of doom that I fear. Only You can do that. I claim the promise that you gave Jehoshaphat.
(Application) My third lesson is that compromising God’s values because of worldly concerns may seem like a necessity for survival in the present time, but time and time again it has been demonstrated that in the long run greater evil results than maintaining God’s principles at present while trusting God to take care of the future.