Matthew’s Genealogy Isn’t Missing a Name—It’s Making a Claim

Matthew opens his Gospel with a genealogy whose arithmetic has long been regarded as problematic. After tracing the line of promise from Abraham to Jesus (Matt. 1:2–16), Matthew divides the genealogy’s history into three sets of fourteen generations, totaling forty-two (Matt. 1:17). Yet the genealogy itself contains only forty-one names. This apparent discrepancy has prompted centuries of interpretive ingenuity. This article argues that the supposed missing generation disappears once Matthew’s genealogy is read on its own terms—and that reading it rightly reveals a larger theological claim.

The Dead End of Common Proposals

Most proposals supply a missing name, count Mary as a generational link, or double-count one figure. Some count Jesus twice—once at his first advent and again at his second, or once before and once after his resurrection.

A common option counts Jechoniah twice—once as the deposed king of Judah and again as the honored dignitary in Babylon.^[1] D. A. Carson questions this reading, noting that “Matthew does not mention these themes, which do not clearly fit into the main concerns of this chapter,” and concludes, “No solution so far proposed seems entirely convincing.”^[2]

W. D. Davies and Dale Allison consider double-counting David the best option, though still unsatisfying, since “David alone would then be counted twice, certainly an odd circumstance.” Their conclusion is sobering: “Perhaps it is best, therefore, simply to ascribe a mathematical blunder to Matthew.”^[3]

Such proposals all founder for the same reason. They attempt to resolve the discrepancy by focusing on the list of names, but they never ask the prior question: what, precisely, is Matthew counting?

Matthew 1:2–16: The “Begettings”

The answer lies in Matthew’s wording itself—specifically, in the repeated verb by which the genealogy advances:

1:2 Abraham begot Isaac

Isaac begot Jacob

Jacob begot Judah and his brothers

1:3 Judah begot Perez and Zerah by Tamar

Perez begot Hezron

Hezron begot Ram

1:4 Ram begot Amminadab

Amminadab begot Nahshon

Nahshon begot Salmon

1:5 Salmon begot Boaz by Rahab

Boaz begot Obed by Ruth

Obed begot Jesse

1:6 Jesse begot David the king

David begot Solomon by the wife of Uriah

1:7 Solomon begot Rehoboam

Rehoboam begot Abijah

Abijah begot Asaph

1:8 Asaph begot Jehoshaphat

Jehoshaphat begot Joram

Joram begot Uzziah

1:9 Uzziah begot Jotham

Jotham begot Ahaz

Ahaz begot Hezekiah

1:10 Hezekiah begot Manasseh

Manasseh begot Amos

Amos begot Josiah

1:11 Josiah begot Jechoniah and his brothers at the time of the deportation to Babylon

1:12 After the deportation to Babylon,

Jechoniah begot Shealtiel

Shealtiel begot Zerubbabel

1:13 Zerubbabel begot Abiud

Abiud begot Eliakim

Eliakim begot Azor

1:14 Azor begot Zadok

Zadok begot Achim

Achim begot Eliud

1:15 Eliud begot Eleazar

Eleazar begot Matthan

Matthan begot Jacob

1:16 Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary, by whom

Jesus was begotten, who is called Christ

The error in every proposal is the assumption that the problem resides with the names. It does not. Matthew is not tallying individuals; he is counting generations by “begettings.” Count the begettings, and Matthew’s full design comes into view.

Counting Begettings, Not Names

Matthew defines each generation by a form of the verb gennaō (“to beget”). English versions soften the force of this repeated verb by paraphrasing it as something like “was the father of” and by changing its meaning in Matthew 1:16b to “was born.” Matthew 1:17 subtly reinforces the pattern through its fourfold use of the noun geneai (“generations”), a word that echoes gennaō in both sound and sense:

1:17 So all the generations [geneai] 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.

In this genealogy, a generation is a begetting—a father-descendant relationship denoted by the verb gennaō. That begetting event is the basic structural unit of the genealogy. Unlike Luke’s lineage, which proceeds name by name (Luke 3:23–38), Matthew’s advances by begettings. The numbering below reflects Matthew’s logic: each generative act counts as one generation.

1. Abraham begot [egennēsen] Isaac

2. Isaac begot Jacob

3. Jacob begot Judah and his brothers

4. Judah begot Perez and Zerah by Tamar

…

37. Eleazar begot Matthan

38. Matthan begot Jacob

39. Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary, by whom

40. Jesus was begotten [egennēthē], who is called Christ

Each generation consists of a father and his descendant(s) bound together by the verb gennaō. The first thirty-nine instances of the verb are active (egennēsen, “begot”), each denoting a father’s act of begetting. The final instance shifts to the passive (egennēthē, “was begotten”)—a divine passive that signals God’s act of begetting, not Joseph’s.^[4] The movement is deliberate and climactic: thirty-nine human begettings (vv. 2–16a) and one divine begetting (v. 16b).

4. For the grammatical significance of this divine passive, see Charles Lee Irons, A Syntax Guide for Readers of the Greek New Testament (Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2016), 21.

We will see shortly how these forty generations become three sets of fourteen. First, though, we must observe that Matthew’s method of numbering generations is not idiosyncratic but is grounded in Scripture’s earliest genealogical pattern.

Matthew and Genesis: Resuming the Line of Promise

Matthew uses the same begetting verb that forms the backbone of the oldest biblical genealogies. In the Greek Bible, the primeval genealogies in Genesis 5:3–32 and 11:10–26 are each organized around gennaō, and their generational count is determined by the number of begettings, not the number of names. Each of these two genealogies names eleven figures but contains only ten generations, because only ten begettings occur.^[5]

5. Thus, both Wenham and Hamilton note the “ten generations” in Genesis 5:3–32. Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1–15, WBC 1 (Dallas: Word, 1987), 124; Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1–17, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 246.

Here are the ten begettings in Genesis 5:3–32:

1. Adam begot [egennēsen] Seth

2. Seth begot Enosh

3. Enosh begot Kenan

4. Kenan begot Mahalalel

5. Mahalalel begot Jared

6. Jared begot Enoch

7. Enoch begot Methuselah

8. Methuselah begot Lamech

9. Lamech begot Noah

10. Noah begot Shem

Noah’s son Shem is the eleventh name in the line of descent, but he does not beget in this genealogy and therefore adds no generation.

Genesis 11:10–26 likewise comprises ten father-descendant generations, each bound together by the verb gennaō:

1. Shem begot [egennēsen] Arphaxad

2. Arphaxad begot Cainan

3. Cainan^[6] begot Shelah

4. Shelah begot Eber

5. Eber begot Peleg

6. Peleg begot Reu

7. Reu begot Serug

8. Serug begot Nahor

9. Nahor begot Terah

10. Terah begot Abram

6. The Hebrew text of Genesis 11 omits Cainan’s generation, but Luke 3:36 includes it, matching the Greek Old Testament.

Terah’s son Abram is the eleventh name in the sequence, but he does not beget in this genealogy and therefore adds no generation.

In both Genesis genealogies and in Matthew’s genealogy, the number of begettings—not the number of names—determines the generational total.

Matthew anchors his genealogy in Genesis not only by reusing the same begetting verb as the Genesis genealogies but also by adopting, at the head of his Gospel, the same “book of the genesis” formula found in Genesis 2:4 and 5:1. His first words—“the book of the genesis [biblos geneseōs] of Jesus Christ” (Matt. 1:1)—echo the only two other uses of this expression in the Greek Bible: “the book of the genesis of the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 2:4) and “the book of the genesis of mankind” (Gen. 5:1). These headings frame the primeval history. Within the broader narrative, the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 trace the line of promise from Adam to Abram, where the primeval begetting sequence pauses.

Matthew picks up precisely where the Genesis genealogies leave off: “Abraham begot [egennēsen] Isaac” (Matt. 1:2). His genealogy continues the line of promise and shows its fulfillment in the advent of Jesus the Messiah, whose genesis—like the creation of the world and mankind (Gen. 2:4; 5:1)—comes by God’s direct agency.

The Hinge Generations: Counting Twice What Matthew Counts Twice

We can now return to the central question: How does Matthew turn the forty generations that complete the line of promise into three sets of fourteen?

Matthew’s three fourteens work because two generations—David’s generation and the deportation generation—are double-counted. Matthew 1:17 makes this explicit: “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.” The two repeated points—David and the deportation to Babylon—function as hinges: each closes one group of fourteen and opens the next.

1. David’s generation as the first hinge

David’s generation ends the first group (Abraham → David) and begins the second (David → the deportation). It is therefore counted twice.

2. The deportation generation as the second hinge

The second hinge is likewise a generation, one signified not by a person’s name but by an event: “the deportation to Babylon.” The deportation generation ends the second group (David → the deportation) and begins the third (the deportation → the Christ). It is therefore counted twice.

Which generation coincides with the deportation? Josiah’s generation does. Some interpreters place the pivot at Jechoniah, but in verse 11 Matthew locates Josiah’s generation “at the time of the deportation to Babylon,” and in verse 12 he locates the next generation (Jechoniah’s) “after the deportation to Babylon.” This shift—from “at” to “after”—shows exactly where the hinge falls: Josiah’s generation, not Jechoniah’s.

David’s and Josiah’s generations are each counted twice. This is how Matthew turns forty generations into three sets of fourteen.

If Matthew were tallying names, the math would break here, because the line from Josiah to Jesus includes fifteen figures, not fourteen. But Matthew is not counting individuals; he is numbering geneai (“generations”) by the verb gennaō (“to beget”).

Since Joseph is never the subject of gennaō, he contributes no generation to the count. He belongs to his father Jacob’s generation as its descendant, but the begetting line does not continue through him. The Father adds the final generation.

When the genealogy is read on its own terms, the count resolves cleanly: forty begettings yield forty generations, the hinges at David and the deportation are each double-counted, and the fourteens stand.

The two hinges represent the rise and fall of Israel’s monarchy. David—whom Matthew pointedly calls “the king” (1:6)—inaugurates the kingdom; the deportation ends it. The first hinge opens the Davidic line; the second witnesses its collapse.^[7] These two turning points propel the genealogy toward its goal: the arrival of the Son of David.

7. Even the first hinge foreshadows the decline of the monarchy: the mention of “the wife of Uriah” (Matt. 1:6) recalls David’s sin and anticipates the unraveling made manifest in the deportation.

Christward Collapse: Josiah and the Deportation

Matthew compresses the royal line when he writes, “Josiah begot Jechoniah and his brothers at the time of the deportation to Babylon” (1:11). Josiah was Jechoniah’s grandfather (1 Chr. 3:15–16), and Matthew is not suggesting otherwise. This kind of telescoping appears elsewhere in biblical genealogies (Ezra 7:1–5; cf. 1 Chr. 6:3–15).

“Jechoniah and his brothers” refers to Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jechoniah, and Zedekiah (2 Kgs. 23:30–25:7), the kings who reigned after Josiah’s death from 609 to 586 BC, culminating in Jerusalem’s fall and the nation’s exile.^[8] Matthew ties Josiah’s begetting to the deportation not because Jechoniah and his brothers were born then—they were not—but because the deportation is the point at which the royal line collapses. By linking Josiah to that moment, Matthew sets his righteous reign in contrast to the unfaithful kings who followed and failed.

8. Jehoahaz (Shallum), Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah were sons of Josiah; Jechoniah (Jehoiachin) was his grandson (1 Chr. 3:15–16). Chronicles calls Jechoniah “the captive” (1 Chr. 3:17), underscoring his association with the deportation—the collapse that Matthew highlights. Chronicles also refers to Zedekiah as Jechoniah’s “brother” (2 Chr. 36:10), a familial usage Matthew extends to Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim.

Matthew 1:11 draws the last faithful Davidic king, the fall of the monarchy, and the nation’s exile into a single moment—the hinge at which human kingship failed and the expectation of a greater David became Israel’s only hope (Jer. 30:9; Ezek. 37:24–25; cf. Hos. 3:5; Amos 9:11). That hope finds its fulfillment in the Son of David, who was “begotten by the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 1:20) and “born king of the Jews” (Matt. 2:2).

Matthew and Nicaea: The Begetting of the Incarnate Son

English versions translate the passive of gennaō in Matthew 1:16 as “was born.” The ESV renders the clause “Mary, of whom Jesus was born.” Up to that point in the genealogy, however, gennaō has referred every time to a father’s begetting of a child, never to a mother’s giving birth. In Matthew 1:16, then, the phrase should read “was begotten.”^[9] Matthew presents Mary not as giving birth but as the human means by which the Father begets Jesus, so the clause is best rendered “Mary, by [ek] whom Jesus was begotten.”

9. Ulrich Luz, Matthew 1–7: A Continental Commentary, trans. Wilhelm C. Linss (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 106 n. 19.

The context confirms this reading. Matthew uses the same preposition (ek, “by”) with every woman in the genealogy: “by Tamar … by Rahab … by Ruth … by the wife of Uriah … by whom” (Matt 1:3, 5, 6, 16). In each case, ek marks the woman as the maternal means of a paternal begetting.^[10] In short, ek throughout the genealogy indicates the mother’s role generally, not birth specifically. And nothing changes in Mary’s case in Matthew 1:16: gennaō still denotes a paternal begetting and ek still marks the maternal means of a paternal begetting.^[11]

Matthew 1:20 repeats the “passive of gennaō + ek” construction. This time, however, ek marks not the maternal means but the divine means of the Father’s begetting. The angel tells Joseph that “the one begotten in her is by [ek] the Holy Spirit.”^[12] This verse makes the meaning of gennaō unmistakable. The passive cannot mean “born” here; a child is not born “in” a mother. It means “begotten,” referring to the Father’s generative act. Traditional English versions translate gennaō in verse 20 as “conceived.” This customary rendering describes the phenomenon but masks the verbal tie to verse 16 and blunts Matthew’s theological point: the Father is the source of this Son. In both verses, the passive form of gennaō should be translated “begotten,” with ek rendered “by.”

In sum, Matthew uses the “passive of gennaō + ek” construction the same way in verses 16 and 20: gennaō refers to the Father’s begetting of Jesus, and ek denotes the means—whether human or divine—by which that begetting occurs. Matthew thus distinguishes the two means of the one begetting: the Father begot Jesus through Mary as the human means and through the Spirit as the divine means. Matthew 1:18 combines them in a single declaration: “she was found to be with child by [ek] the Holy Spirit.”

By contrast, whenever Matthew refers to Mary’s act of giving birth, he switches verbs, consistently using tiktō (Matt. 1:21, 23, 25). In the genealogy and through verse 20, he uses gennaō exclusively for paternal begetting, never for birth. In those verses, human fathers beget sons, and the Father begets the Son in the incarnation.

The Nicene Creed mirrors Matthew’s Christological grammar. It confesses that the Son was made flesh “by [ek] the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary,”^[13] using a single ek to govern both persons while preserving their distinct roles. The Son is begotten of the Father from eternity; in the incarnation, the Father begot the Son in time and in flesh through the Spirit and through Mary. In this way, the eternal Son of God took to himself our human nature.

13. The Creed reads ek pneumatos hagiou kai Marias tēs parthenou (“by the Holy Spirit and [by] the virgin Mary”). A single ek governs both nouns. The common English rendering “by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary” reflects the later Latin form (de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria virgine) rather than the Greek text. See Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, vol. 2, The Greek and Latin Creeds (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1890), 57.

The Genealogy as Gospel

The New Testament opens not with a gaffe but with the gospel. Matthew made no miscalculation; he made a theological declaration. The long line of human fathers does not culminate in a miscount but in a miracle: the advent of the God-man.

The incarnation is the point. The genealogy calls us to behold what generations could not supply and what only the Father could give. Joseph is not the exception in the begetting sequence; he is its emblem. No one in this genealogy begets the Christ—not Abraham, not David, not Joseph. The lineage confers messianic legitimacy and then steps aside for God to beget the Messiah. In so doing, the genealogy bears witness to the fulfillment of the primeval promise of a seed who would come through a woman but not through a man (Gen. 3:15; Isa. 7:14).

In Matthew’s understated irony, a genealogy of men becomes the herald of the Son no man could beget. The gospel does not hide in this genealogy; it shines through it. The Son of Abraham and Son of David is, at last, the only begotten Son—the one who “will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21) and bring many sons to glory.