Matthew 1
LenskiCHAPTER I
I
Christ Born as David’s and Abraham’s Son, Chapter 1
The Genealogy 1:1–17
Matthew writes for Jewish Christians in order to establish them in their faith that Jesus is the Christ promised in the Old Testament. Unconverted Jews who may read his book will be drawn to this faith when they see the full evidence here presented that Jesus is, indeed, the Christ. Although written with these readers especially in mind, Gentile Christians and unconverted Gentiles will be equally benefited, for they, too, are to hold or to be brought to this faith. It is a mistake to think that Matthew disregarded the latter two classes of people. To this day we must be sure that Jesus Christ properly bears the latter name, which designates his Messianic office. It is absolutely vital, then, that we should know that Jesus Christ is the direct and true descendant of Abraham through David. For if he were not, he could not possibly be the Messiah.
For this reason Matthew begins his Gospel with the genealogy of Jesus. The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham. This is evidently a caption, and this raises the question whether this caption is intended for the first seventeen verses alone or for the entire Gospel. The alternative lies between these two and not, as some have supposed, between the entire first chapter and the Gospel as such. We gain nothing decisive from the word βίβλος, which means only a scroll of papyrus; nor from the combination βίβλοςγενέσεως, for everything depends on what γένεσις includes. We regard this genitive as the LXX translation of misheppachah in Exod. 6:24, etc., Num. 1:18, and thus might translate “family roll.” See C.-K. 233.
The point to be noted is that this meaning makes the term as here used face backward, as is plain also from the use of the Hebrew equivalent in the Pentateuch. The person named is described and identified by a reference to his ancestors. So also here the title used by Matthew already states the family line of Jesus Christ: “son of David, son of Abraham.” Verses 2–17 furnish only the detailed family line, the generations reaching back to David and from him back to Abraham. These two are the essential ancestors that Jesus Christ had to have, for the Messiah was to be of the seed of David and of the seed of Abraham. We thus regard verse 1 as the comprehensive heading or summary of the next sixteen verses.
Others refer γένεσις to the Hebrew toledoth, the singular being used in Gen. 2:4; 5:1, elsewhere the plural: “this is the generation,” “these are the generations.” Accordingly γένεσις is taken to mean “the history”: “The book of the history of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham.” This caption is then regarded as a title for the entire Gospel. But this view is open to serious objection. In no case in Genesis does toledoth usher in the history of an individual but always the history of the individual and his descendants. Kautzsch, therefore, properly translates toledoth “family history.” But Jesus has no family. When, nevertheless, γένεσις is regarded as “the history” of Jesus Christ, it is strange that a genealogy at once follows. We should have a statement to the effect that this history is to begin with a tracing of the ancestry of Jesus, and then the line should be carried back from Jesus to Abraham.
It will not do to reply that the two appositions in the title of this Gospel: “son of David, son of Abraham,” are appended as an intimation that a genealogy is now to follow. These appositions are not appended for such a purpose. For then part of the title of the entire Gospel (the appositions) would refer only to the next sixteen verses. Finally, in Genesis toledoth never includes a list of ancestors in the family history; naturally, because it never faces backward. Matthew’s γένεσις does this very thing. So also the name he appends: “Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham”; for these appositions are integral parts of the name.
This βίβλος or scroll shows this ancestry. The γένεσις of v. 1 has the same force as the γένεσις in v. 18; both mean “origin.”
Words used in a title need not have the article, R. 793, hence βίβλοςγενέσεως. “Jesus” is the Savior’s personal name (1:21), Yehoshu‘a, or Yeshu‘a, “Yahweh is help or salvation,” meaning “the one through whom Jehovah brings salvation.” The addition Χριστός, a verbal from χρίω‚ the Hebrew “Messiah,” “the Anointed,” is here not an appellative, “the Christ,” but a second personal name denoting office, “Christ.” He became Jesus at the time of his birth (1:25) and Christ at the time of his anointing with the Spirit (3:16). Both of the following appositions belong to “Jesus Christ.”
Matthew 1:2
2 The designation in v. 1: “Jesus Christ, David’s son, Abraham’s son,” marks Jesus as the one in whom the Messianic promises made to David and to Abraham were fulfilled. Hence the line of descent begins with Abraham. This line is traced in the Hebrew manner, as in Gen. 5:6, etc.; 11:10, etc., naming the father who “begot” the son. In the case of the first two fathers, however, the line is single and exclusive: Isaac, not Ishmael; Jacob, not Esau. In the case of the third father, Jacob, the line broadens to “Judah and his brothers”; for, although Judah represents the actual line of descent of Jesus, all the twelve patriarchs were the direct heirs of the Messianic promise. The twelve together produced the chosen nation from which the Messiah sprang.
Matthew 1:3
3 As the mention of the brothers of Judah in v. 2. already indicates, Matthew furnishes more than a mere list of names; in the names he epitomizes the history of the chosen nation. This explains the next link in the line: Judah begat Perez and Zerah of Tamar. In this case the mother is named, Judah’s own daughter-in-law, to recall Gen. 38 with all its shame. In the bloodline of the Messiah there appear such grave blemishes. Matthew draws the attention of his readers to several of them. We must not generalize and speak of sin and wickedness without restriction, for then Matthew would have marked the evil character and the deeds of some of the kings of the Messianic line.
These blemishes deal with women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and her of Uriah. They all reflect on the bloodline as such. From a line so stained the Messiah finally was born. God condescended to use such ancestors for his Son. Matthew, however, has more in mind than merely again to reveal the stains of this ancestral line. Some have thought that his purpose was to humble Jewish pride, but his aim is more specific.
When he recounts how the Messiah was born he brings out a feature that Luke does not mention, namely that before Joseph took Mary to himself she was found to be withchild, which fact at first in Joseph’s eyes and in afteryears in the eyes of Jewish slanderers laid her open to the gravest accusation of unfaithfulness to Joseph. These Jews claimed that the father of Jesus was Pandira or Pantheras, and for this reason rejected him. These base slanderers are reminded by Matthew of what they might well call real blemishes in the Messiah’s Abrahamitic and Davidic bloodline. Let them occupy themselves with these real stains, attested in the Old Testament history itself, and not slander the pure maiden whom God chose to be the mother of his Son. Of the twins born to Tamar God allowed Perez to continue to live.
Matthew 1:4
4 From Perez to David the descent is traced according to Ruth 4:18–22. Whether any links are omitted we cannot say, nor does Matthew intimate anything on this point.
Matthew 1:5
5 Of Rahab (Hebrew “Rachab”) draws attention to this woman, a Canaanite (Jos. 6:25) and a harlot at that, and yet an ancestress of the Messiah! One tradition makes Rahab the wife of Joshua who married her after the destruction of Jericho. While Matthew’s source for making her the wife of Salmon has not been discovered, no reason exists for doubting the evangelist’s record. The addition, of Ruth, introduces another woman proselyte, a Moabitess, whose story is well known although we should not forget to add that she was descended from an ancestor conceived in incest, Gen. 19:30, etc.
Matthew 1:6
6 Thus we reach David, the king. The apposition marks the first break: the ancestral line had reached royalty. Although it had risen to this great height, the very first king introduces another grave blemjsh into the line as the phrase shows: of her of Uriah, namely Bathsheba, to whom Solomon was born. The simple way in which Matthew connects Israel’s two greatest kings is telling to the highest degree. Behind the little phrase lies adultery and murder and the death of the first child. And this woman, though unnamed, was a queen; rightfully she belonged to Uriah.
Matthew 1:7
7 With Solomon begins the second group of fourteen, all of whom are kings, the list being drawn from 1 Chron. 3:10–14.
Matthew 1:8
8 As regards Ὀζίας, transliterated “Ozias” in the A. V., really “Uzziah” as in the R. V., this name has the same meaning as “Azariah,” which is given to him in 1 Chron. 3:12. Matthew uses Uzziah, because the readers of the Old Testament were more familiar with this name of the king from their reading of the prophets (Isa. 1:1; 6:1; 7:1; Hos. 1:1; Amos 1:1; Zech. 14:5).
Matthew 1:9
9 When Matthew proceeds from Uzziah to Jotham he omits three kings: Ahaziah who reigned one year (2 Kings 8:26); Joash, forty years (12:2); and Amaziah, twenty-one years (14:2). Their length of reign cannot be the reason for their excision from Matthew’s list. Nor can Matthew be charged with an oversight in transcribing the names from Chronicles. The wickedness of these kings is not the reason why they are here dropped, because other kings that were more wicked are retained in the list: Manasseh and Amon. Matthew’s aim by no means is to present a line resplendent in holiness. The old explanation, that Ahaziah was a grandson of Jezebel on his mother’s side, and that the curse of Ahab and Jezebel extended to the third generation, is inadequate, for women of actual heathen origin became direct ancestors of the Messiah.
These three successive kings are purposely dropped by Matthew for the simple reason that he intends to make the three groups of ancestors comprise the same number of names, namely fourteen. He very likely shortened also the third group, v. 12–16, in order to have it contain only fourteen names. See v. 17.
Matthew 1:10
10 No comment is needed on this verse.
Matthew 1:11
11 A great deal has been said on Josiah and his grandson Jechoniah. While the latter would make up the number 14 in the second group, the third group, if it is counted so that each name is used but once, would show only 13 links. Yet in v. 17 Matthew himself invites us to make the count and to note that each group contains exactly 14 names. Few will think that he counted Jechoniah, the unhappy man who reigned only three months and was then carried into exile, twice, once as number 14 in the second group, and again as number 1 in the third group, when no other name in the entire genealogy is counted twice. Few also will count Mary as a separate link in addition to Joseph in order thus to obtain 14 links for the third group. A simple answer to the problem is to assume a translator from a Hebrew Matthew and then to say that this translator wrote “Jechoniah” in v. 11, where Matthew’s Hebrew had “Jehoiakim,” the father of Jechoniah.
This would, indeed, furnish us the additional name, so that we could count 42 different names in three groups of 14, never using one twice. Yet this error in translation would have us assume that in this one case, between the father Jehoiakim and the son Jechoniah, Matthew omitted the verb “begot.” Since elsewhere “begot” is invariably inserted, it could not have been omitted here. Both in v. 11 and in v. 12, Matthew wrote “Jechoniah” and he wrote in Greek—the “unknown translator” did not exist.
The matter becomes plain when one reads 2 Kings 23:30–25:7. When Josiah perished at Megiddo, his oldest son came to the throne but was carried to Egypt where he died. In his place Pharaoh appointed Jehoiakim king in Jerusalem. In this way this second son of Josiah came to the throne. After a reign of eleven years he perished at the hand of the king of Babylon, and his oldest son Jehoiachin, Matthew’s Jechoniah, came to the throne. After three months’ reign he was carried to Babylon, where he spent long years in exile.
Then his uncle, Josiah’s third son Zedekiah (Zidkiyahu, to be distinguished from Jechoniah’s brother Zedekiah, Zidkiyah, 1 Chron. 3:15, 16) became king and soon was blinded and also carried into exile. Matthew is not writing a mere list of names; all the names are bound up with Israel’s history. The royal line of David perished with Josiah’s grandson Jechoniah. That is why the grandson is named in v. 11 and not Jechoniah’s father Jehoiakim. The historical complications involved are pointed out by Matthew when he writes: “Josiah begot Jechoniah καὶτοὺςἀδελφούς at the deportation to Babylon.” Here ἀδελφοί cannot mean “brothers,” for Jechoniah had only one brother of whom we hear nothing more. These are Jechoniah’s relatives, including the uncle who occupied the throne after him.
Instead of following Josiah with the mere name Jehoiakim in v. 11, and then in v. 12 going on with another mere name Jechoniah, Matthew brings in the entire tangled and tragic history. All Jewish readers would at once understand that καὶτοὺςἀδελφούς referred to a generation between Josiah and Jechoniah, two sons of Josiah who reigned before Jechoniah and one who reigned after him. Any one of these three brothers might have continued the line; it was the second who did although he was deported with the first group of exiles. Though the third of the three brothers, Zedekiah, came to the throne and might have continued the line, it did not pass through him.
The word μετοικεσία refers to the deportation which was carried out in two great acts; it does not include the entire period of the seventy years of exile. The genitive Βαβυλῶνος is objective: “to Babylon,” R. 501, really “the Babylon-removal,” R. 494; so also in v. 12.
Matthew 1:12
12 After the Babylon-removal mentions the deportation a second time and thus emphasizes this tragic historical fact and its weighty significance, the loss of the throne on the part of the house of David. The reign of Zedekiah after the deportation of Jechoniah proved abortive. Shealtiel was born in exile as the μετά phrase states. Hence we need not figure his father’s age at the time of deportation as though anything depended on that. As regards the line Jechoniah —Shealtiel—Zerubbabel note Ezra 3:2; Neh. 12:1; Hag. 1:1, 12, 14; 2:2, 23. Yet in 1 Chron. 3:19 Zerubbabel is the son of Pedaiah: and in Luke 3:27 Shealtiel is the son of Neri, a descendant of David through David’s son Nathan and not through Solomon.
These are not contradictions and have not been considered as such. Jechoniah’s son Assir (1 Chron. 3:17) left only a daughter, who, according to the law relative to heiresses (Num. 27:8; 36:8, 9), married a man of her paternal tribe, viz., Neri of David’s line through Nathan. Thus we have the step from Jechoniah to Shealtiel. Matthew gives us the legal line on which all Jewish descendants lay stress as we shall see in the case of Joseph, the legal father of Jesus; Luke gives the natural line of descent, not that of Joseph, but of Mary; her descent from David, etc., being vital for Gentile descendants. So in the case of Zerubbabel: he is the legal son and heir of Shealtiel, the natural son of Pedaiah. When Shealtiel died without leaving children, his brother Pedaiah married the widow in accordance with the Levirate law (Deut. 25:5–10; Matt. 22:24–28), raising up seed to his brother.
13–15) Abiud is not named in 1 Chron. 3; nor are any of the following names found in the Scriptures. The line was traced in the priests’ records, which were cherished with great care because of the promise that the Messiah would come from the house of David. But the scepter had departed from Judah—all the names are those of unknown descendants.
Matthew 1:16
16 And Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, the one called Christ. Through the entire line runs the verb “begot—begot—begot.” Significantly it makes a halt when it reaches Joseph. He, the husband of Mary, did not beget Jesus, the Messiah. In marked contrast with this regular begetting of one ancestor by another we are told by Matthew that the last thus begotten was Joseph, “the husband (ἀνήρ) of Mary, and that Jesus “was born,” ἐγενήθη (γεννάω, used also regarding the mother alone, as here) of her. How this happened follows at once. Since “Jesus” was a name frequently found among the Jews, the participial statement is added: ὁλεγόμενοςΧριστός, which means that Jesus rightfully bore this second official name “Christ”; on which see v. 1.
Thus Matthew’s genealogy presents Joseph as the legal father of Jesus, which makes Jesus legally the heir of David and of Abraham. If Jesus had been born without a legal father, of Mary without a legal husband, his legal right to the inheritance from Abraham and David by virtue of the divine promise would have been void. In addition to the legal standing of Jesus as the rightful, legal son of Joseph we may note the protection this standing secured for his mother and for himself. The two records of Matthew (v. 18, etc.) and Luke (2:4, etc.) vividly bring out this point.
The record of Matthew is questioned in two ways. First, by an appeal to an old Syriac version, and secondly, by the claim that Matthew’s whole genealogy is “meaningless if it does not contemplate Joseph as the actual father of Jesus.” Here we meet a typical example of “critical” methods. Of all the ancient texts in existence, including all the ancient versions, one (usually identified by the symbol Ss) is singled out as containing a reading which the “critics” use to rid themselves of the virgin birth. All Greek texts and all other versions are set aside, for this one Syriac translation, the codex Ss and its reading, is made “the original reading,” and all other texts are regarded as “an accommodation to the doctrine of the Virgin Birth.” For the critically assured text of v. 16 Moffatt substitutes his translation of this one Syrian translation: “and Joseph (to whom the virgin Mary was betrothed), the father of Jesus, who is called ‘Christ.’” In the Moffat Commentary Th. R. Robinson lends this his unqualified support.
And this is done in the face of all the information long available in Zahn, Introduction to the New Testament, II, 565, etc. We quote the following: “The zeal with which many have seized upon the reading of Ss as a bit of the primitive Gospel, without looking to right or left, is explained by the old prejudice that the genealogy of Jesus, leading as it does to Joseph, could have been prepared only by one who took him to be the actual father of Jesus. But the alleged contradiction between the genealogy and the following narrative is found equally in Luke—and so in both of the only old Christian writings extant which trace the Davidic descent of Jesus in a genealogy. That his Davidic descent was ever understood in the Christian community in any other sense is a hypothesis without support in existing literature.… The hope of finding indications in old MSS. and versions that the authors of lost gospels or brief writings which may have been worked over in our Matthew and Luke regarded Joseph as the physical father of Jesus, should at last be dismissed. An author who knew how to make even the dry material of a genealogy down to its last detail contribute to the purpose of his thought regarding the slandered miracle of the Messiah’s birth, cannot at the same time have taken over statements from a genealogy of Joseph or Jesus used by him which directly contradicted his conception of this fact. Any text of Matthew which contained such statements would be condemned in advance as one altered against the author’s intent.”
A study of this one text (Ss), by which the modernist would replace all others, even in popular English translation, reveals that this highly inferior text does not say or intend to say what the critics would have it say. Like some Greek texts which reveal alteration, Ss also introduces “the virgin” and “was betrothed,” both terms intended, as in all the texts that have them, fully to safeguard the virgin birth—the very thing the critics would remove. This Ss changes the verb ἐγεννήθη to ἐγέννησεν, the verb used throughout the genealogy. But this was done by Ss, not to make Joseph the physical father of Jesus, but to make the final verb read like all the verbs that precede. Its subject would be Mary, and we should translate: “to whom the virgin Mary, betrothed to him, bore Jesus,” etc. But even if, as the critics claim, the subject of this last ἐγέννησεν is Joseph, this verb, as Zahn states, “in no sense expresses physical fatherhood” but intends to “designate Jesus as Joseph’s son only in the same way as in 1:1 he was called David’s son.” “His (the Syrian translator’s) intention cannot have been to represent Joseph as the physical father of Jesus, for it is impossible that one who had this purpose should at the same time and in the same sentence speak even more clearly than the A text (i.e., the assured Greek text) of Mary’s virginity; exclude the existence of marital relations between her and Joseph; and in 1:18–25 emphasize as strongly as the catholic text that Jesus was begotten through the agency of the Holy Spirit.” Thus even Ss answers the contention of these critics that the virgin birth is not in “the original text” of Matthew.
Matthew 1:17
17 All the generations, therefore, from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations. We have seen that Matthew himself made the second group of ancestors number fourteen by dropping three kings of Israel. He very likely secured the number fourteen in the third group in the same way. But why did he want the three groups to be equal? The answer is that he wanted us to understand that all three groups had equal weight and importance as far as the Messiah is concerned. The second contained the names of kings, but it was no more important than the third.
The first began with Abraham, and the second with David, but neither exceeded the third, which began with a wretched exile—Jechoniah wore prison clothes for 36 years. For, after all, “the house of David did not produce the Christ but received him as a gift; he did not come from the natural soil of David’s house but was planted into David’s house,” Delitzsch. Since 14=7×2, some would find symbolism in these three fourteens. Yet what the symbolism would symbolize, no one has yet made plain. It seems most likely that Matthew found 14 names in the first group and then arranged the rest in two more groups of 14. Twice already we have had mention of the deportation (v. 11, 12); now it is again mentioned twice.
This shows intent on the part of the author. The lower the house of David sank, the nearer the day of the Messiah came. Back of the course of this history in its three great stages is God himself who sent his Son in the fulness of time and not until then.
The word πᾶσαι cannot mean “all” the generations that actually lived from Abraham to Jesus; this “all” refers to those enumerated by Matthew. Where did Matthew find these lists of names? We see that Luke found his much longer list without trouble. In the case of Matthew, however, we see that he did not merely copy the list as he found it; he adapted it in a highly intelligent and purposeful way, dividing the names into groups, omitting some, adding the names of each of four women in a significant manner, and marking the groups by historical references. The effort is made to show from the forms of the names, their spelling, and the supposed errors in transcription, that the Greek list as we have it today shows that it is a translation from the original Hebrew of Matthew. But the names were all recorded in Hebrew when Matthew first found them.
He himself transliterated them into Greek. When later scribes multiplied the copies of his Gospel, these may easily have tried to “improve” on the original. We need no Hebrew Matthew with a late tranlator into Greek to explain the peculiarities now found in this genealogical list.
The Virgin Birth, 1:18–25
Matthew 1:18
18 What the genealogy leads us to expect, and what its conclusion in v. 16 all but states outright, is now fully presented, namely the actual historical facts of just how Jesus Christ was conceived and born. Luke presents the same facts but from the angle of Mary; Matthew, after giving us Joseph’s ancestry, presents the virgin birth from the angle of Joseph. He thus brings in Joseph’s situation when Mary was discovered to be pregnant, squarely meeting the hostile Jewish slander about the illegitimate birth of Jesus. The value of Matthew’s record of the miraculous facts connected with the birth of Jesus is thus inestimable. Matthew 1:18, etc., like Luke 2 and John 1:13 (correctly interpreted), constitutes one of the great sedes doctrinae for the virgin birth, voiced in all ecumenical confessions of the church, beginning with the Apostles’ Creed: “Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary.” The facts presented in full detail by these evangelists are denied by modernism. But all these denials are mere echoes of the same denials made in the age of rationalism.
They are subjective dogmatical opinions without historical facts on which to stand. The facts and their inspired record remain unaltered and unalterable as they have been from the moment when they occurred. Their denial places those who make it outside the pale of Christianity. The Christ who was not conceived and born as the evangelists record is no Christ in any true sense, is nothing but a figment of men’s brains. Any religion based upon this sort of Christ is as vacuous as the Christ upon which it is based.
Now the generation of the Christ was as follows. His mother Mary having been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found withchild of the Holy Ghost. The continuative δέ links the new account with the preceding genealogy, R. 1184; it merely ushers in the new section and is not adversative. The name τοῦΧριστοῦ heads the paragraph; the addition “Jesus” is not textually assured. This official name links the new section with both v. 16 and v. 17. The genitive, placed forward as it is, has the emphasis: Christ’s genesis is here recorded.
Already this emphasis prepares for the miraculous manner of his entry into the world. He who would be the Christ, the culmination of the entire history of divine promise, would in his very genesis exceed all his human ancestors. The assured reading is γένεσις, “generation” in the sense of “origin”; not γέννησις, “engendering,” a narrower term with but minor textual authority. It is the same word as that used in 1:1, where it is found as a genitive with βίβλος and is thus applied to the human ancestry of Jesus, while here it is the main noun and designates the conception and the birth of Christ.
This is evident from the predicate οὕτωςἦν, “was thus” as is now to be described. It is the manner of the origin which Matthew sets out to describe. No other person had an origin “on this wise.” The origin of Adam was wonderful, indeed, that of the second Adam is still more so. When Matthew sets out to describe the manner of Christ’s genesis, the fact as such is already taken for granted. We see from the way in which Matthew begins that he is not writing for readers to whom the matters he here relates are altogether new. He mentions neither time nor place.
The latter is indicated only incidentally in 2:1, in a different connection. The persons, too, are not formally introduced to the readers; their mention in v. 16 is quite sufficient for Matthew’s purpose. All we need is to be placed at the moment when the miracle involved in the human generation of the Messiah became apparent to human eyes.
The genitive absolute, “his mother Mary having been betrothed to Joseph,” is made to stand out prominently by the very fact that this participial clause is placed forward and even refers to the subject of the main sentence, R. 514, 1132. The aorist passive participle designates the historical fact of the betrothal which had occurred at a previous time. The Jewish betrothal was a solemn promise before witnesses (Ezra. 16:8; Mal. 2:14), embodying the essentials of the marriage vow. No further promises followed. In later times it was ratified in writing. By virtue of the betrothal the bridegroom and the bride became husband and wife as is also shown in the next verse where Joseph is called Mary’s husband, and in v. 20 where she is called his wife (Deut. 22:24).
It is a mistake to regard “husband” and “wife” as proleptic terms denoting the husband and his wife to be. This is reading into the Jewish procedure our modern conception of an engagement. The Jewish betrothal was the marriage itself. But the Jewish custom placed an interval, longer or shorter, between the betrothal and the bringing home of the bride to her husband’s house. No religious ceremony and no vows of any kind accompanied this home-bringing although it was made a festive occasion with a procession and a feast following (Matt. 25:1, etc.). These Jewish procedures were only national and Oriental customs, not laws enjoined by God; and however socially and morally binding upon Jews they were while in vogue, they cannot now be imposed upon us as being of divine right.
Into this interval between the betrothal and the home-bringing Matthew places his readers when he adds, “before they came together,” πρὶνἤ with the infinitive, the main verb being affirmative. We are, of course, unable to say how long after the betrothal or how soon before the expected coming together Joseph made the discovery of Mary’s pregnancy. The point is immaterial for Matthew’s narrative. The aorist συνελθεῖν denotes nothing but the home-bringing which followed the Jewish espousal. It is not identical with coire or with “he knew her not” in v. 25, although the home-bringing naturally included the sexual union of the couple. Happily Joseph looked forward to the festive day when with his friends he would go and bring home his wife to his own home. Then occurred what struck him as a calamity: his wife “was found withchild.” The aorist εὑρέθη simply states the fact; this verb is used instead of the more usual δῆλος or φανερὸςεἶναι, R. 1121, and ἔχουσα (ἔμβρυον) ἐνγαστρί‚ “having (an embryo) in the womb,” is the conventional Greek for “being withchild.”
We are not told that Joseph alone made the discovery of his wife’s condition. Yet neither Matthew nor Luke refer to any other person. It is evident from the evangelist’s statement that Mary had revealed nothing to Joseph of the angel’s message given to her and of her submission to the will of God. The angel had directed her to her relative Elisabeth in the hill country, and she had gone to commune with this friend, but as far as Joseph was concerned, having no intimation as to what God’s will might be, she left all in God’s hands. This was an act of absolute reliance upon God, the more admirable the more we realize her situation as it must have been. An espoused woman, if found unfaithful, could be punished with death, Deut. 22:23, 24.
To what extent this law was observed at this time we have no means of knowing. Mary had absolutely no means of proving her spotlessness to Joseph or to any other person in Nazareth. Misgivings and doubts of various kinds, we may well assume, assailed her. Her one refuge was to place herself altogether into the hands of God. And this was well.
When describing Mary’s condition Matthew at once adds the phrase: ἐκΠνεύματοςἉγίου, “of the Holy Ghost.” This at once sheds the full light of divine truth upon the fact here recorded. Matthew has the thought of his readers in mind. Not for one instant are we left in doubt; every unworthy thought is completely forestalled. In this brief phrase Matthew records what is popularly called the virgin birth, and on this phrase hangs the entire paragraph, yea, all else that the New Testament reports concerning the Word made flesh. Either the eternal Son of God entered our race as Matthew here declares, or he did not. If he did not, if Jesus was an ordinary human bastard, or Joseph’s natural son by an act of forbidden cohabitation, then they who will may call him their Savior—their lascivious fancy cannot raise him from the mire into which they have cast him.
Matthew 1:19
19 And Joseph, her husband, being righteous and not willing to make her a public example resolved to divorce her privately. We may also translate, “as her husband”; for what Joseph resolved to do was the right of a husband, which he was by virtue of his betrothal. We must not bring in the idea of “breaking off the engagement,” which is out of line with this Jewish situation. The two motives which influenced Joseph are indicated by the two present participles. “Being righteous” marks Joseph as a truly religious Jew, puts him in the same class with Zacharias and Elisabeth who were “righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless,” makes him like Simeon who was “righteous and devout.” The word refers to the heart as well to the conduct. As a truly religious Jew, Joseph could not think of consummating his marriage with Mary under the present circumstances.
But we hear nothing about a burst of anger on his part; quite the contrary. “And not willing to make her a public example” shows us the second motive for the resolve he reached. He truly loved his betrothed wife and was torn with grief because of what his eyes saw in this gentle maiden whom he had always found a model of purity and who still bore this character. Two courses were open to Joseph: the one harsher, to charge Mary with adultery and thus to make her a public example (παραδειγματίσαι), letting such Jewish law as was in force at that time take its course; the other course, far more gentle, was to make use of the lax divorce laws of the Jews and without charging her with any crime give Mary a letter of divorcement, stating the cause in a veiled way or stating none at all. Joseph resolved on the milder course; ἐβουλήθη (aorist) means that he came to this decision, while the durative θέλων denotes only the desire that prompted him. The verb ἀπολῦσαι is the regular term for divorcing one from the marriage tie, Matt. 5:31, etc.; 19:3–9; Mark 10:2–12. Already this answers the contention that making her a public example signifies giving her a letter of divorce, and that λάθραἀπολῦσαι means merely to separate from her by a mutual agreement.
The latter would be as little “secret” as the former, as far as that point is concerned. Moreover, it would still leave Joseph Mary’s legal husband. In addition, it would not satisfy the law as then in vogue and thus could not satisfy Joseph’s sense of right. Letters of divorce were both private and legal, needing no publication before a court.
Matthew 1:20
20 Joseph had not yet carried out the resolution at which he had arrived when God intervened. But when he had thought on these things, i.e., had turned them over in his mind and reached his decision, lo, an angel of the Lord appeared to him during a dream saying to him: Joseph, son of David, fear not to take possession of Mary, thy wife; for what was conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she shall give birth to a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for it is he that shall save his people from their sins. The deponent, ἐνθυμηθέντος, here the aorist passive form, is transitive, R. 817. At the proper moment God intervenes. His hand, is made visible to us in the earthly story of Jesus in a most remarkable way.
As he guided the events pertaining to his Son, so he still guides all things for his sons even though his hand is now invisible. The angels of heaven are his servants and messengers, and it has been well said that we think of them too little amid the changing circumstances of our lives and look only for natural laws and natural causes, whereas God’s help is often extended through supernatural hands.
The interjection ἰδού, “lo” draws attention to the astounding thing that occurred at this critical moment. Behold the gracious guidance of God, his watchful care, the wondrous way in which he works, and the certainty with which he attains the necessary result! We have no article with ἄγγελοςΚυρίου, and thus this is one of Yahweh’s angels, “that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word,” Ps. 103:20; and not the Maleach Yahweh who so frequently appears in the Old Testament and is Yahweh himself. We may well assume that this angel is Gabriel, the same one who appeared to Mary, “the Mighty One of Jehovah,” or, “Hero of Jehovah,” to whom it was especially given to assist in ushering the Son into the world. He appears to Joseph “during a dream,” κατά to indicate extent and ὄναρ found only in the nominative and the accusative. The time for the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy had come, “your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions,” 2:28. Heaven had approached earth, therefore angels drew nigh, and the veil that hid their presence was pierced now and again.
We have no reason to think that this appearance of an angel was different from the one described in 2:13, where evidently the vision came at night while Joseph was asleep. We may well imagine Joseph lying on his bed, thinking on these things while sleep for a time fled his eyes until at last he sank into unconsciousness. Then the wondrous dream came to him. Yet Joseph did not dream about this angel. It was not like the unreal images, some lovely, some horrible, some silly and senseless that come to a sleeper in a dream. The angel of Joseph’s dream was real, ἐφάνη, “he appeared.” God is able to use man’s waking and his sleeping condition for making him see and hear his angel messengers.
And when God sends an angel messenger to a sleeper he never has the least difficulty in demonstrating that the appearance in the dream is actual and not like the mere images that at other times come to our consciousness during sleep. Joseph knew that this angel had been at his bedside that night. He regarded this dream and the one in 2:13 exactly as did Zacharias and Mary the angel vision they beheld with open eyes. Among the forms of revelation employed by God, dreams, such as this of Joseph, occupy the lowest rank. See Delitzsch, Biblische Psychologie. God himself chooses the form of revelation, adapting it to the person concerned.
How did Matthew know about Joseph’s dreams? Exactly in the way in which Luke knew the events which he recorded about Jesus’ nativity. He who sent the angel to Joseph knew how to have this and other events preserved truthfully for the church of future days.
The angel addresses Joseph as “son of David,” υἱός a nominative, usual in appositions to vocatives, R. 464. Matthew’s genealogy has shown Joseph to be a descendant of the royal house of David; so also was Mary. This fact is here made the basis of an appeal to him on this most important occasion to prove himself a true son of David, a man who has the Messianic faith of David, since the, promise to David was now in course of fulfillment. “Son of David” regards Joseph as a prince, and princely things were expected of him, to be a protector of the very Prince of heaven itself. Men love great names but so often fail to live up to them.
The fears and the misgivings of Joseph are removed because they have no foundation in reality; μὴφοβηθῇς is the subjunctive in an aorist negative command as in the classics. Joseph would in no way compromise himself, condone a crime, risk his happiness, or do anything hurtful or doubtful in taking possession of his wife, παραλαβεῖν, which is much like συνελθεῖν in v. 18, save that it indicates Joseph’s activity, while the latter indicates that of Joseph and Mary. On the contrary, by taking possession of his wife, bringing her to his own home, Joseph would do God’s will, serve God’s Son, shield and protect the mother of his Lord, himself receive a thousand blessings, and show himself a true prince of David’s line. “It is an honor for the wedded state that our Lord Jesus Christ, God’s Son, was not born of a simple unmarried maid but of Mary who was espoused as a true wife to Joseph, her husband.…. Thus also our Lord Christ was born of his mother according to the law in wedlock and honored it with his birth.” Luther.
The real point which had induced Joseph’s decision to divorce Mary is met most decisively by the γάρ clause in the angel’s statement: “for what is conceived of her is of the Holy Spirit.” “Conceived of the Holy Ghost,” Apostolic Creed. “And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary and was made man,” Nicene Creed. Thus all other Christian creeds, voicing the united faith of all ages of the Christian Church. In the Latin draft the Smalcald Articles add to “of the pure, holy Virgin Mary,” semper virgine (Concordia Triglotta, 460), a conviction held in Reformation times but devoid of actual Bible proof. “In Holy Scripture the word born does not always signify the outward birth as when the child comes from the mother’s body; but the Scriptures, when speaking of our humanity, also call that born when the child is made alive in the mother’s body as is here clearly stated, ‘born of the Holy Spirit,’ as was Christ.” Luther. Jesus had not yet left the womb, hence τὸγεννηθέν refers to the embryo and its conception: “that which was conceived,” the aorist pointing to the past act of conception; and thus also the neuter article is used, leaving the sex unnamed.
In the phrase ἐκΠνεύματοςἉγίου no article is needed in the Greek, R. 761 and 795. This point has been settled. This is true also with regard to Θεός and Κύριος. These terms are really proper names and thus may or may not have the article. Modernistic unitarian views deny the plain grammatical fact in order to convert the Third Person of the Godhead into the impersonal power of God. Yet this assault is unable to abolish the virgin birth.
In the angel’s statement Ἁγίου is placed after the Greek copula, lending an emphasis which the English cannot reproduce. If the angel had said “Spirit of God,” the critics could more easily have found room for their view; but “Holy Spirit” blocks every critical effort. From this word of the angel Matthew borrowed the phrase he uses in v. 18. The Third Person of the Godhead was so fully known to all Jews that no word of explanation is added, either here in the case of Joseph or in the case of Mary (Luke 1:35), or in the case of the crowds who listened to the Baptist (John 1:32–34). Examine the evidence in detail in all the Gospels and note that it includes the knowledge of the Son as the Second Person. It is a critical claim that the Trinity was not revealed to the Jews in the Old Testament.
The Jewish assaults against the deity of Jesus never operated with the claim that no Son of God and no Spirit of God existed but only with the idea that this man Jesus should call himself God’s Son.
The ineffable mystery of the incarnation is expressed by the angel in the simplest words yet in the most adequate way. The same feature is evident in all the evangelists when they speak of this mystery. Here is one of the clear marks of divine inspiration; facts and realities that the human mind will never comprehend are expressed in words of utter simplicity yet of perfect adequacy. In every case the fact is placed beyond question as a fact, but the profundity of the manner of the fact, how this or that is or can be, is left unrevealed. The reason for the latter is plain: the how lies beyond human comprehension. Who can understand how the conception took place ἐκΠνεύματοςἉγίου when no man has yet understood just how a common human being with his personality and all his physical and mental peculiarities is conceived in the usual act of procreation?
What ἐκ contains is voiced confessionally: “The most blessed Virgin bore not a mere man but, as the angel testifies, such a man as is truly the Son of the most high God, who showed his divine majesty even in his mother’s womb, inasmuch as he was born of a virgin, with her virginity inviolate. Therefore she is truly the mother of God and, nevertheless, remained a virgin.” Concordia Triglotta, 1023.
Matthew 1:21
21 Still more completely are Joseph’s fears dispelled: “And she shall give birth to a son,” etc. Bengel remarks: “Not, to thee,” as the angel said to Zacharias, Luke 1:13, when announcing the birth of the Baptist; compare Gen. 17:19, where Abraham is told, Sarah “shall bear thee a son.” Though similar, the angel’s statement to Joseph is vastly different. Note how categorically it and also the next statement are expressed: “she shall give birth to a son … he shall save,” etc. No if or and about it. The determinate counsel and the foreknowledge of God never fail. And now Joseph’s part in this counsel is revealed to him: “and thou shalt call his name Jesus,” καλέσεις, a volitive future of command, differing from the simple futuristic or predictive futures τέξεται and σώσει.
God is instating Joseph as the legal father and as the foster-father of the unborn child. What was already indicated in the bidding to “take possession of Mary, thy wife,” is here stated in so many words. Joseph’s course is made entirely clear. Only the choice of the child’s name is not left to Joseph, for he is under a far higher Father who himself attends to this important task. God named his Son, Ἰησοῦς, “Yahweh is helper,” “Yahweh saves”; see 1:1. The name is descriptive, embracing the entire saving work of God’s Son; and because of the divine character of this work it by implication describes also the person of the Son.
The reason for this name is clearly stated: “for it is he that shall save his people from their sins.” We must translate somewhat in this fashion in order to bring out the fact that αὐτός emphasizes “he” in the verb: “it is he—he alone” who shall save, etc. The verb “to save,” σώζειν like σωτήρ and σωτηρία‚ always denotes rescue and deliverance from danger and, when it is used soteriologically, rescue from the worst of mortal dangers, that of sin, death, and hell. But coupled with the act of rescue is the idea of keeping those rescued safe and secure, preserving them so that the danger shall not again involve them. Thus “to save” is one of the cardinal terms of the Scriptures. Compare σωτήρ in Mary’s hymn, Luke 1:47, and σωτηρία in that of Zacharias, Luke 1:69.
“His people,” λαὸςαὐτοῦ, denotes the Jews but in the sense in which Jesus said that he was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. “His people” is not restrictive: the Jews alone. The term is in place here, for Joseph is to understand that Mary’s child is to bring the deliverance long promised to the chosen nation. By delivering the Jews he would deliver all nations. It is impossible to give a double meaning to “his people”: first the people of Israel, and secondly the spiritual Israel or all believers. The two fail to harmonize. If faith and the actual appropriation of salvation is to be the mark of λαὸςαὐτοῦ‚ then only a small part of the Jewish nation is included in the second meaning.
The view that a paronomasia between the name “Jesus” and the verb “to save,” ought to be employed, and that this paronomasia is lost by the use of σώσει in the Greek, since the verb root is not identical with the root of the name, is untenable. If a play on these words might have been made in the Hebrew or the Aramaic, this is no reason for insisting that it was thus made and that it was lost in the Greek because the Greek translator of Matthew’s Hebrew failed to reproduce it. This sort of proof will never establish the fact that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, and that some unknown person later translated it into Greek. See the introduction. Matthew wrote in Greek. He properly explains “Jesus” by using σώζειν.
What more is needed? What more could Matthew do in the Greek, assuming that he thought of a paronomasia in the Hebrew? He did as we do when we think of a play on words which we might make in one language but find we cannot easily make in another—he did not make it. It would be only an embellishment. Matthew wrote for Jewish readers who understood what “Jesus” means; when, nevertheless, he adds the explanation in the Greek, this has a far higher purpose than to make plain an etymology. He aims to show the kind of “Jesus” this child would be.
Jesus shall save his people “from their sins.” With one stroke all political ideas are swept away for Joseph, such as deliverance from the Roman yoke, or from the ills this yoke had brought on the nation. The real evils under which the Jews suffered were “their sins.” Sometimes the collective ἁμαρτία, “sin,” is used, heaping all together into one vast unit mass; again, as here, this collective is spread out in the great plural “sins,” all varieties and kinds, yea, each and every individual thought, word, and deed by which men miss the mark set by God’s law—ἁμαρτάνειν, “to miss the mark.” These sins destroy us, body and soul, in time and in eternity. To save from these sins is salvation indeed. Who is mighty enough to effect such a salvation? Only he who was conceived of the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary, God’s Son. For to save from sins is to separate the sinner from his sins so that these sins can no longer reach him or inflict their deadly, damning power upon him.
But what man ever separated himself or another from even a single sin? Every sin clings closer than a shadow and will cling thus forever unless God’s own Son frees, rescues, saves us.
Matthew 1:22
22 And the whole of this has occurred in order that it be fulfilled what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet saying,
Lo, the virgin shall be withchild and shall give birth to a son,
And they shall call his name Immanuel; which is, when interpreted, With us God.
Several considerations lead to the conclusion that these are still the words of the angel spoken to Joseph, all except the clause which translates “Immanuel.” If Matthew were here writing an observation of his own he would be interrupting the narrative and should have written these two verses after v. 25, where they would have been in place. In v. 18 he set out to tell the γένεσις of Christ, which means both his conception and his birth; but at the end of v. 21 we have heard only of the conception, the birth not being mentioned until v. 25. Weightier still is the consideration that until the end of v. 21 the angel gave no support to Joseph’s faith save only his word; but if v. 22, 23 are words of the angel, he would give Joseph the strongest kind of support by citing to him the very promise now being fulfilled.
“The whole of this” is singular, hence not ταῦταπάντα but τοῦτοὅλον, this with all its features and parts. The formula here used: “in order that it be fulfilled what was spoken by the Lord (Κύριος for Yahweh) through the prophet,” is used almost constantly by Matthew throughout his Gospel with only occasional variation. He adopted this formula from the angel’s lips. In every case the veracity of God is substantiated, the greatness, power, wisdom, and grace of God who stands behind both the prophecy itself and its eventual fulfillment. When the fulfillment is an act of God such as the miraculous conception and birth of his Son, God’s foreknowledge is due to his purpose, his πρόθεσις is first and his πρόγνωσις dependent thereon; when the act foretold is one regarding man, the foreknowledge or πρόγνωσις is enough, infallibly recording in advance what man will do. The verb πληρωθῇ pictures the promise or the prophecy as an empty vessel which is at last filled when the event occurs.
The preposition ὑπό introduces the direct agent with the passive verb, and διά the mediate agent, R. 820. The actual speaker thus is Yahweh, and the prophet the medium or mouthpiece through (διά) which he speaks. This describes exactly the miracle of prophecy and of divine inspiration. These prepositions, running, as they do, through Scripture, are clear and convincing evidence of inspiration. God is the causa efficiens (ὑπό), God’s agents or instruments the causae instrumentales (διά). The angel did not need to name the prophet to Joseph who would know that Isa. 7:14 was referred to; and Matthew’s readers would also know.
Matthew 1:23
23 King Ahaz of Judah turned from Jehovah and sought help from the heathen king of Assyria. When he was told to ask a sign of God, either in the depth or in the height above, with a pious phrase he declined to do so. With strong rebuke Isaiah told Ahaz that God himself would give him a sign, namely this sign, that a virgin shall conceive and bear a son whose name she would call Immanuel. This sign meant to Ahaz that no helper would arise from the perverted house of David as represented in the wicked male descendants; that all the following wicked generations would perish; and that finally from this unnamed virgin the great divine Helper, Immanuel, would be born. “Lo” or “behold” draws attention to the wonder.
In their denials of the virgin birth the critics say that the Greek παρθένος, “virgin” or “maiden,” is misleading and declare: “The Hebrew has no thought of a miraculous birth, for the term rendered maiden simply means an adult woman, still young enough to become a mother, and is by no means confined to virgins.” It is true that ‘almah does not etymologically, like bethulah, denote a virgin but in general a young woman, as ‘elem’ denotes a young man. They are like the German Jungfrau and Juengling. But this is only part of the story. The LXX translated ‘almah ἡπαρθένος, “the virgin.” Zahn reports that since the time of Jerome it has been noted that in all the Old Testament passages where ‘almah occurs it is always used for “virgin,” and that also in Isa. 54:4 ‘alumim, coupled as it is with ‘almanuth (widowhood), means only maidenhood. Moreover, the Hebrew, the LXX, and Matthew have the article. The sign is not that a virgin, some young woman, shall conceive in a natural way, but “the virgin,” the specific virgin to whom also Micah 5:3 refers. “It is the virgin, whom the Spirit of prophecy reveals to the prophet, and who, although he cannot name her, stands before his soul as one chosen for extraordinary things.
How exalted she appears to him is indicated by her giving the name to her son, and this the name Immanuel.” Delitzsch (see his fine comment on this passage). The force of this comment is perceived when we compare Isa. 8:8; 9:5, 6; 11:1–10. No married woman conceiving in the ordinary manner, and no girl allowing herself to be seduced, could give birth to a son as great as the one Isaiah describes in these passages.
Isaiah’s sign was that the virgin would conceive and bear a son whom she would rightfully call Immanuel, namely the Immanuel described by Isaiah himself: to be born, Isa. 7:14; actually born, Isa. 9:6; in his glorious reign, Isa. 11. The fulfillment of this promised sign is the incarnation and virgin conception and birth of God’s own Son, who by this wondrous birth became “Immanuel,” “With us God.” Matthew adds the Greek translation: Μεθʼ ἡμῶνὁΘεός, not so much because his Jewish readers would not understand “Immanuel” but in order to have them all and any others dwell on the full significance of this name. The same angel told Mary that her virgin-born son would be called “the Son of God,” Luke 1:35. “He is God in bodily presentation, therefore a miracle in the form of a superhuman person. We would not dare to say this, because it transcends the Old Testament plane of knowledge, but the prophet himself says so, Isa. 9:6; 10:21; his statement is as clear as possible, we dare not darken it in the interest of a preconceived construction of history. The incarnation is, indeed, a veiled mystery in the Old Testament, but the veil is not so dense that it admits of no rays striking through. A ray of this kind, cast by the Spirit of prophecy into the spirit of the prophet, is this prophecy concerning Immanuel.
But if the Messiah is Immanuel in the sense that, as the prophet explicitly says, he is himself El (God), then his birth also must be a miraculous one. The prophet, indeed, does not say that ‘the virgin’ who had not known a man would bear a son without this, so that the son would be born, not out of the house of David, but as a gift of heaven into it; but this ‘virgin’ was and remained a riddle in the Old Testament, mightily stirring up the inquiry and search (1 Pet. 1:10–12), and awaiting a solution in historic fulfillment.” Delitzsch. This solution the New Testament records.
Matthew 1:24
24 And Joseph, having arisen from his sleep, did as the angel of the Lord ordered him and took possession of his wife and did not know her until she gave birth to a son; and he called his name Jesus. What Joseph thought is left to our imagination. Matthew tells what he did. He obeyed the angel’s order as one coming from Yahweh by bringing his wife to his home and thus consummating the marriage entered into at the time of the betrothal.
Matthew 1:25
25 Normally this would include marital sexual intercourse. But the angel’s revelation to Joseph concerning the divine nature of the child Mary had conceived, to which was undoubtedly added Mary’s communication about Gabriel’s appearance and revelation to her, caused Joseph to forego this marital right. The euphemism οὐκἐγίνωσκεναὐτήν is frequently found in the Greek, also in the Hebrew and the Latin. The idea is “to know intimately,” i.e., sexually, the verb being intensified. The imperfect tense intends to take the reader to the point marked by “until.” Yet this clause, like all similar clauses in the New Testament, neither states nor implies what occurred afterward. That the writer must indicate otherwise.
Luther’s semper virgine in the Smalcald Articles can neither be substantiated nor denied on the basis of this “until” clause. The reason for assuming the full marital relation after the birth of Jesus rests on other grounds, namely on the marriage bond itself. What Mary and Joseph revealed about their relation before the birth is what Matthew reports. If this relation continued afterward, we have a right to expect that it, too, would have been revealed and thus recorded by Matthew. The ordinary reader must take it that Matthew was altogether unconcerned about the intimacy after the birth, and that thus this normal intimacy followed.
The matter cannot be decided by pointing to πρωτότοκον in Luke 2:7, as though “firstborn” implies that other children were born later; see Exod. 13:2. The question whether Joseph and Mary had other children still remains an open question since no decisive statement occurs in the Gospels or elsewhere. Other children are named, but whether they were born to Mary cannot be established. To resort to general principles or considerations leads to no certainty.
We need not trouble about Isa. 7:14 where “the virgin” is the one who calls her son Immanuel, and Luke 1:31, where she is to give her son the name Jesus, while in Matthew 1:23 the angel uses the plural “they shall call,” and in v. 25 Joseph bestows the name as commanded by the angel in v. 21. Joseph and Mary acted in perfect harmony as to the name “Jesus.” “Immanuel” was not a given name but was descriptive of the divine nature of Jesus and of his incarnation.
C.-K. Biblisch-theologisches Woerterbuch der Neutestamentlichen Graezitaet von Dr. Hermann Cremer, zehnte, etc., Auflage, herausgegeben von D. Dr. Julius Koegel.
R. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, by A. T. Robertson, fourth edition.
Concordia Triglot Concordia. The Symbolical Books of the Ev. Lutheran Church.