And Jesus himself began to be, &c.— Our Lord having received these different testimonies from his Father, from the Spirit, and from John the Baptist, all given in the presence of the multitudes assembled to John's baptism, began his ministry when he was about thirty years old, the age at which the priests entered on their sacred ministrations in the temple. See the beginning of the first note on this chapter. To understand St. Luke's account of our Lord's age at his baptism aright, we must take notice, that his words stand thus in construction; Και αυτος ο Ιησους αρχομενος, ην ωσει ετων τριακοντα : and Jesus himself, when he began, was about thirty year of age; that is to say, when he began his ministry,—in opposition to the commencement of the Baptist's ministry, the history of which is given in the preceding part of this chapter. In Acts 1:21-22 we read, Wherefore, of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning [αρξαμενος,] from the baptism of John unto the same day that he was taken up from us, &c. Here Christ's ministry is evidently said to have commenced at the baptism of John,—the time that John baptized him, and to have ended at the day of his ascension. The author of the Vindication of the beginning of St. Matthew's and St. Luke's Gospels, would render the words, and Jesus was obedient (or lived in subjection to his parents) about thirty years: and he produces several passages from approved Greek authors, in which αρχομενος signifies subject; but in all these places it is used in some connection or opposition, which determines the sense, and therefore none of them are instances parallel to this; and since the evangelist had before expressed our Lord's subjection to his parents by the word υποτασομενος, Ch. Luke 2:51 there is great reason to believe that he would have used the same word here, had he intended to give us the same idea. With what amazement should we reflect upon it, that the blessed Jesus, though so early ripened for the most extensive services, should live in retirement even till the thirtieth year! that he deferred his ministry so long, should teach us not to thrust ourselves forward to public stations, till we plainly discover a divine call. That he deferred it no longer, should be an engagement to us to avoid unnecessary delays, and to give God the prime and vigour of our life. Our great Master attained not, as it seems, to the conclusion of his thirty-fifth year, if he so much as entered upon it; yet what glorious atchievements did heaccomplish within those narrow limits of time! happy that servant who with any proportionate zeal dispatches the great business of life!
Being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph,— I. In the first place, with respect to the genealogies of St. Matthew and St. Luke, we may observe, that St. Matthew opens his history with our Lord's genealogy, by Joseph his supposed Father; St. Luke gives us his genealogy on the mother's side. The words before us, properly pointed and translated, run thus; being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, the son of Heli. He was the son of Joseph by common report; but in reality the son of Heli, by his mother who was Heli's daughter. We have a parallel example, Genesis 36:2 where Aholibamah's pedigree is thus deduced; Aholibamah, the daughter of Anah the daughter of Zibeon; for, since it appears from Luke 3:24-25 that Anah was the son, not the daughter of Zibeon, it is undeniable that as Moses calls Aholibamah the daughter both of Anah and of Zibeon, because she was the grand-daughter; so Jesus is fitly called the son of Heli, because he was his grandson. However, the common pointingandconstructionofthepassagemaybe retained, consistently with the present opinion; because though the words the son of Heli should be referred to Joseph, they may imply no more than that Joseph was Heli's son-in-law, his son by marriage with his daughter Mary. The ancient Jews and Christians understood this passage in the one or other of these senses; for the Talmudists commonly call Mary by the name of Heli's daughter. In proof of what we have advanced above, we observe that the two genealogies are entirely different, from David downward; and that if, as some have supposed, these genealogies exhibit Joseph's pedigree only, the one by hisnatural, the other by his legal father, the natural and legal fathers would have been brothers, when it is plain they were not; Jacob, Joseph's father in St. Matthew, being the son of Matthan, the son of Eleazar; whereas Heli, the father supposed to be assigned by St. Luke, was the son of Matthat, a different person from Matthan, because the son of Levi. And further, on this supposition we should be altogether uncertain whether our Lord's mother, from whom alone he sprang, was a daughter of David; and consequently could not prove that he had any other relation to David, than that his mother was married to one of the descendants of that prince. Let the reader judge whether this fully comes up to the import of the passages of Scripture which tell us, he was made of the seed of David. Romans 1:3.Acts 2:30.
II. Taking it for granted, then, that St. Luke gives our Lord's real pedigree, and St. Matthew that of his supposed father, it may reasonably be asked, why St. Matthew has done so? To which it may be replied, that he intended to remove the scruples of those who knew that the Messiah was to be the heir of David's crown; a reason, which appears the stronger, if we suppose with some learned writers, that St. Matthew wrote posterior to St. Luke, who has given the real pedigree. Now, though Joseph was not Christ's real father, it was directly for the evangelist's purpose to derive his pedigree from David, and shew that he was the eldest surviving branch of the posterity of that prince; because, that point established, it was well enough understood that Joseph, by marrying our Lord's mother, after he knew she was with child of him, adopted him for his son, and raised him both to the dignity and the privileges of David's heir; accordingly, the genealogy concludes in terms which imply this; Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus. Joseph is not called the father of Jesus, but the husband of his mother Mary; and the privileges following this adoption will appear to be more essentially connected with it, if, as is probable, Joseph never had any child: for thus the regal line of David's descendants by Solomon, failing in Joseph, his rights were properly transferred to Jesus, his adopted son, who indeed was of the same family, though by another branch. St. Matthew therefore has deduced our Lord's political and royal pedigree, with a view to prove his title to the kingdom of Israel, by virtue of the rights which he acquired through his adoption; whereas St. Luke explains his natural descent in the several successions of those from whom he derived his human nature, down to the Virgin Mary. See the note on Matthew 1:16.
III. Our Lord's genealogy given by St. Luke, will appear with a beautiful propriety, if the place which it holds in his history is attended to. It stands immediately after Jesus is said to have received the testimony of the Spirit, declaring him the Son of God (which includes his being the true Messiah), and before he entered on his ministry, the first act of which was, his encountering with and vanquishing the strongest temptations of the arch enemy of mankind. Christ's genealogy by his mother, who conceived him miraculously, placed in this order, seems to insinuate that he was the seed of the woman, which, in the first intimation of mercy vouchsafed to mankind after the fall, was predicted to bruise the serpent's head. Accordingly, St. Luke, as became the historian who related Christ's miraculous conception in the womb of his mother, carries his genealogy up to Adam, who together with Eve received the before-mentioned promise concerning the restitution of mankind by the seed of the woman. That the genealogy, not only of our Lord's mother, but of his reputed father, should have been given by the sacred historians, was wisely ordered; because the two, taken together, prove him to be descended from David and Abraham in every respect, and consequently that one of the most remarkable characters of the Messiah was fulfilled in him; the principal promises concerning the great personage, in whom all the families of the earth were to be blessed, having been made to those patriarchs in quality of his progenitors. See Genesis 22:18. Psalms 132:11-12 and Matthew 1:1.
IV. Bishop Burnet, speaking of the authentic tables which, according to the custom of the Jewish nation, were preserved with the greatest accuracy, observes, that had not the genealogy of Christ been taken exactly according to the temple registers, the bare shewing of them had served to have confuted the whole. For, if any one thing among them was clear and uncontroverted (the sacred oracles excepted), it was the register of their genealogies; since these proved that they were Abraham's seed, and likewise made out their title to the lands, which from the days of Joshua were to pass down either to immediate descendants, or, as they failed, to collateral degrees. Now this shews plainly, that there was a double office kept of their pedigrees; one was natural, and might be taken when the rolls of circumcision were made up; and the other relative to the division of the land; in which, when the collateral line came instead of the natural, then the last was dropped, as extinct, and the other remained. It being thus plain from their constitution, that they had these two orders of tables, we are not at all concerned in the diversity of the two evangelists on this head; since both might have copied them out from those two offices at the temple; and if they had not done it faithfully, the Jews could have authentically demonstrated their error in ascribing to our Saviour by a false pedigree, that received character of the Messiah,—that he was to be the son of David. Therefore, since no exceptions were made at the time when the sight of the rolls must have ended the inquiry, it is plain that they were faithfully copied out; nor are we now bound to answer such difficulties as seem to arise out of them, since they were not questioned at the time in which only an appeal could be made to the public registers themselves.