When we read the two genealogies of Yeshua in Matthew and Luke, we may become greatly puzzled. How is it possible that they reveal totally different names in both Matthew and Luke? Is there a contradiction in the Bible? How are we to understand these two different genealogies?
Read Psalm 89.
3. “I have made a covenant with My chosen; I have sworn to David My servant,
4. ‘Your seed will I establish forever, and build up your throne to all generations.’ ” Selah.
God made a promise that the throne of David would always have a king. But we read in Jeremiah Chapter 22 a prophecy made by God.
Jeremiah 22:30. Thus says the LORD, “Write this man down as childless, a man who will not be blessed in his days. For no man of his seed shall be blessed, sitting on the throne of David and ruling any more in Judah.”
So what do we see here? No one from the seed of Jeconias will sit on the throne of David. They have been cut off. Do we have a problem here? Does this mean that the Messiah cannot come from the line of David? Mercifully, God had already worked out the solution because He knows the end from the beginning. God had His plan already laid out. Joseph, the husband of Mary, was directly in the line of King David. Therefore, legally, he had the right to this claim. He was also the stepfather of Yeshua and had legal rights over Him. Being a descendant of King David, he had the right to the promise – Psalm 89. 3-4.
But God had rejected the seed of Jeconias; therefore, none of his seed could become King. As Joseph was from the line of Jeconias, he lost the right to kingship.
So how are we to understand this?
The Gospel of Matthew shows the royal line of Joseph. The Gospel of Luke shows the physical or bloodline of Yeshua through Mary. Mary’s father was Heli and therefore father to Joseph by law. Heli was directly descended from another son of David’s, Nathan, who was Solomon’s brother. The two apparently differing genealogies in Matthew chapter 1 and Luke chapter 3 are easily reconciled.
Matthew 1 has the legal genealogy. Joseph, Mary’s husband, was a legal descendant of David, but God had cut off that line from ever ruling. Luke 3 shows the bloodline of the physical inheritance through Mary, his mother. Heli was Mary’s father, making Joseph his son-in-law. Jesus’ physical genealogy comes from David through his son Nathan, not Solomon.
Therefore, Yeshua had the legal right to become king, being a descendant of King David through another son, Nathan.
