And Jesse begat David the king; and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Urias;
And Jesse begat David the king; and David the king begat Solomon of her of Urias. [The words, "that had been the wife," introduced by our translators, only weaken the delicate brevity of our Evangelist - ek (G1537) tees (G3588) tou (G3588) Ouriou (G3774)]. Four women are here introduced: two of them Gentiles by birth-Rahab and Ruth; and three of them with a blot at them names in the Old Testament-Thamar, Rahab, and Bath-sheba. This feature in the print genealogy-herein differing from that given by Luke-comes well from him who styles himself in his list of the Twelve, what none of the other lists do, "Matthew the publican;" as if thereby to hold forth, at the very outset, the unsearchable riches of that grace which could not only fetch in "them that are afar off," but reach down even to "publicans and harlots," and raise them to "sit with the princes of his people." David is here twice emphatically called "David the king" (for the Manuscript authority against the repetition is insufficient), as not only the first of that royal line from which Messiah was to descend, but the one king of all that line from which the throne that Messiah was to occupy took its name - "the throne of David." The angel Gabriel, in announcing Him to His virgin-mother, calls it "the throne of David His father," sinking all the intermediate kings of that line, as having no importance except as links to connect the first and the last king of Israel as father and son. It will be observed that Rahab is here represented as the great-great-grandmother of David (see Ruth 4:20-22; and 1 Chronicles 2:11-15) - a thing not beyond possibility indeed, but extremely improbably, there being about four centuries between them. There can hardly be a doubt that one or two intermediate links are omitted. (See the notes at Matthew 1:17, and Remarks 1 and 2 at the end of this section.)