Title: 13
Author: JBG
Last saved by: PJ D
Company: GDC

David’s Heir		13-04-14-A.ES13-09 /

David’s Heir: Matthew’s Chart Pedigree: Biblically Sourced to Zerubbabel; Temple Sourced from Zerubbabel to Joseph; Pretenders to the Throne: Deviations from Customary Primogeniture; The History of Purple Dye; Origin of the Phrase “Born to the Purple”
27.		Matthew’s chart pedigree that leads to Jesus takes the bloodline through Solomon:
Matthew 1:6 -	Jesse was the father of David the king.  David was the father of Solomon by Bathsheba who had been the wife of Uriah.
28.		The Lucan chart pedigree is different from Matthew’s since it describes the bloodline of Nathan down to Mary.
29.		These differences have given theologians difficulties in attempts to reconcile the two lines.  The Babylonian Captivity also creates problems since following the reign of Zerubbabel there is no biblical record of descendants down to Joseph or Mary.
30.		The names of the Lord’s ancestors back to Zerubbabel were provided by the detailed genealogical records of Jewish families kept in the temple in Jerusalem:
Part of the historical evaluation of Matthew 1:2–17 rests on the reliability of Matthew’s sources: the names in the first two-thirds of the genealogy are taken from the LXX [Septuagint].  After Zerubbabel, Matthew relies on extrabiblical sources of which we know nothing.  But there is good evidence that records were kept at least till the end of the first century.  Josephus refers to the “public registers” from which he extracts his genealogical information.  Eusebius cites Hegesippus \hej‑e‑sip'‑as\ to the effect that Emperor Domitian (a.d. 81–96) ordered all descendants of David slain.  Nevertheless two of them when summoned, though admitting their Davidic descent, showed their calloused hands to prove they were but poor farmers.  So they were let go.  But the account shows that genealogical information was still available.

See Paul L. Maier, Eusebius: The Church History (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1999), 108–109.

While no twentieth-century Jew could prove he was from the tribe of Judah, let alone from the house of David, that does not appear to have been a problem in the first century, when lineage was important in gaining access to temple worship.

D. A. Carson, “Matthew,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, gen. ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984), 8:63.

31.		There are some interesting personalities and circumstances in the Davidic line; for example:
Matthew 1:3 -	Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamer.
32.		It is with Judah that the messianic genealogy was narrowed to a specific tribe; however the line’s extension through Judah was threatened at the very beginning.
33.		Judah’s first two sons were, Er and Onan.  Er, the firstborn, married Tamar, but “was evil in the sight of the Lord” so he died the sin unto death.  (Genesis 38:6-7)
34.		Judah then required Onan to marry Tamar in order to “raise up offspring for your brother.”  (v. 8)
35.		Onan was insulted by the assignment so he refused to fulfill the duty.  The Lord was displeased with this decision so Onan died the sin unto death.  (vv. 9–10)
36.		Why were these two men removed from the line?  Er’s trends would have endangered the line in ways only omnipotence could discern while Onan’s decision would have brought it to an end.
37.		Following Onan’s death, Judah sent Tamer back to her father’s home to wait “until my son Shelah grows up.”  During the interim, Judah’s wife Shua died.
38.		When Tamar learned that Judah would be traveling near her father’s house, she disguised herself as a harlot and made herself available to Judah, her father-in-law.  Judah responded to her advances and she became pregnant with twins: Perez and Zerah.  Perez, the firstborn, thus continued the line through his son Hezron.   (vv. 11–30)
39.		It is quite unusual for women to be mentioned in Jewish genealogies but Matthew’s contains five: (1) Tamar, who surreptitiously hooked-up with her father-in-law Judah, (2) Rahab, the harlot was an inside agent for Joshua at Jericho and became the wife of Salmon and the mother of Boaz.
40.		Following immediately, Boaz married (3) Ruth whose firstborn was Obed the father of Jesse the grandfather of David.
Matthew 1:5 -	Salmon was the father of Boaz by Rahab, Boaz was the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse.
41.		We have already mentioned that David had as many as 7 wives before he spied (4) Bathsheba taking a bath on the roof of the barracks.  She turned out to be his right-woman and became the mother of Solomon and Nathan, the men whose progeny were the direct line to Messiah.
42.		The fifth woman mentioned in the pedigree is found in:
Matthew 1:16 -	Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of (5) Mary, by whom Jesus was born, who is called Messiah.
43.		Matthew concludes the genealogy the same way he began it.  In verse 1, he introduces the chart pedigree with the phrase, “The record of the chart pedigree of Jesus the Messiah/Christ.”
44.		The last word in verse 16 is CristÒj (Christós) but again translated “Messiah” in the New American Standard.
Pretenders to the throne:
1.		Even though primogeniture was the general practice in Israelite history, this was not always the case regarding the line of Christ.
2.	Numerous personalities were required to advance the line from Adam to Jesus and among the firstborn of each there was the possibility of malfeasance, intrigue, conspiracy, infanticide, assassination, and regicide.
3.	We opened this study by noting the incipiency of the angelic conflict in:
Genesis 3:15 -	“I will put enmity between you  [ Lucifer ] and the woman [ Eve ] and between your seed [ unregenerate mankind ] and her seed [ Messiah beginning with the Incarnation ].  He [ Messiah ] shall crush your skull [ Second Advent ], and you [ Lucifer ] will bruise His heel [ the crucifixion ].
4.	Lucifer completely understood the divine strategy: to provide a divine solution to the sin problem through procreation.
5.	Her “seed” would be the One who would “crush his skull” and Satan was intent on preventing that from happening.
6.	Therefore, all the machinations just mentioned were either inspired through demon influence or demon possession.
7.	Lucifer would learn of primogeniture: the firstborn son in the progression of Adam’s pedigree would be “born to the purple”:
In the ancient world the color purple was a mark of high rank and nobility.  This was occasioned by the very high cost of the purple dye used for the clothing of nobles and royalty.  A special purple dye was extracted from the murex shellfish found in the eastern Mediterranean.  The name Phoenicia seems to reflect the purple dye industry of the land since it is related to Greek foin…x [phoinix], purple.

“foin…x, Phoenician.   Purple or crimson, because the discovery and earliest use of this colour was ascribed to the Phoenicians” A Greek-English Lexicon, comp. Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, s.v. “foin…x.”

Purple clothing with fine linen was a status symbol, and purple was considered a valuable possession as shown by its occurrences in the Bible.  A purple cloth was used as a covering for the golden altar when it was being moved (Numbers 4:13).  Among the skilled workers requested by Solomon from Hiram the king of Tyre was one skilled “to work in gold, silver, bronze, and iron and in purple, crimson, and blue fabrics (2 Chronicles 2:7, 14).  The colors in the veil of the Temple were blue, purple, and crimson.  In Proverbs 31:22 a good wife has clothing of fine linen and purple.  King Solomon’s palanquin [sedan litter] had a seat of purple. (Song of Solomon 3:10).
The significance of purple cloth is also indicated in the non-Biblical sources.  In the Greek world, purple was often the sign of royalty and high rank.

Bastiann Van Elderen, “Purple,” in The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, gen. ed. Merrill C. Tenney (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1976), 4:960–61.

8.	The historical affinity of “royalty and high rank” for the color purple led to the metonymic phrase “born to the purple.”
Purple has been emblematic of royalty and hence of great wealth ever since the days of ancient Rome when the emperor’s robes were dyed purple.  As a result, purple came to symbolize wealth and power.  Even today we sometimes speak of people … as born to the purple, meaning they inherited vast riches and power.

William and Mary Morris, Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1977), 79.

Born to the purple: born of royal, or very aristocratic, parents (and thus be a privileged member of society).

A. P. Cowie, R. Mackin, and I. R. McCaig, Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic English: Phrase, Clause & Sentence Idioms (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 2:74.

9.	PRINCIPLE: Based strictly on the fact that those in the line of Christ from Judah to Jesse were in the tribe of Judah means they were “born to the purple” regardless of their economic or social standing.
10.	Beginning with the kings that followed David, each was “born to the purple” meaning power, influence, and often wealth, as members of the royal family of Israel.
11.	Following any person’s expression of faith in Christ, he is spiritually “born to the purple” as a member of the royal family of God.
12.	Born to the purple, we have “an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven.”  (1 Peter 1:4).
13.	Under the system of primogeniture, the privileges associated with being “born to the purple” is magnified by inheritance that includes religious leadership, authority over siblings, and a double portion of the father’s estate.

© 2013 by Joe Griffin Media Ministries.  All rights reserved.	www.joegriffin.org