MATTHEW 1

The birth of Jesus is evidence of God's steadfast faithfulness . . .

• JOSEPH'S GENEALOGY 

1:1-17 The New Testament, and the Book of Matthew, opens with Joseph's genealogy. As the adoptive-father of Jesus, and husband of Mary, Joseph is significant. In verses 1-16, Joseph's ancestors are traced back to Abraham and Sarah.

So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations. Matthew 1:17

Abraham and David are specifically mentioned because each of their lives represent significant moments in the history of the family through which Jesus would be born. Abraham is specifically mentioned because it was with Abraham that God first established His covenant. 

... the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God. Genesis 17:1-8

In Genesis through II Samuel, we see this portion of the everlasting covenant fulfilled: In the Old Testament, God's people were initially named the tribes of Israel. They were a large group of tribes born from the twelve sons of Jacob, Abraham's grandson, (who was renamed Israel by God). Jacob's sons, turned into generations and tribes of people, were counted as God's people because they descended from Abraham and were thus included in the covenant. 

David is specifically mentioned because he was the first rightful king, one appointed by God because of his tremendous love for God. Through David, God transformed the tribes of Israel into a kingdom. 

The "carrying away" mentioned in Matthew 1:17 refers to Israel and Judah (the twelve tribes split into two kingdoms) when they were taken into captivity by Assyria and Babylon, respectively as a result of their unfaithfulness to the covenant. 

The tribes may not have been faithful to God but God remained faithful to them. He remains faithful to us. Evidence of both statements is the birth of Jesus and the redemption we receive through Him. Indeed David was the first king appointed by God but Jesus is the ultimate King. The King of kings, Revelation 19:16.

• CHILD OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 

1:18 God informed Mary of His plan to have her conceive a child of His Holy Spirit before she conceived. 

... the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!” 

But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.” 

Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I  do not know a man?” And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.  For with God nothing will be impossible.” 

Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her. Luke 1:26-35; 37-38

• THAT IT MIGHT BE FULFILLED  

1:19-23 Joseph, however, was informed after it already occurred. Therefore, Joseph initially interpreted Mary's pregnancy as evidence of betrayal. He responded accordingly, but not ungraciously. Joseph mulled over the situation, and planned to quietly end their engagement. But he chose not to publicly accuse or shun Mary. And it was perhaps this solemn and compassionate behavior that convinced the Lord to visit Joseph and inform him of what was actually happening. 

The Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and informed him that through Mary, He was fulfilling prophesy. 

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14

With the God-given knowledge that Mary was a vessel for the purposes of the Holy Spirit, he was able to reconcile his heart with Mary.

• AS THE LORD HAD BIDDEN HIM 

1:22-25 Joseph married Mary; but she remained a virgin until the birth. Following the Lord's instruction, they named the baby Jesus ("yeshua: savior), Immanuel, God with us.

THE BROTHERS' RUSE

In Genesis 32, Jacob was in the process of following God into permanent residence for his family. Among his children was a daughter named Dinah. Dinah had eleven brothers (and counting) so it is perhaps understandable that she would explore the new city to meet girls her own age. The problem was that Dinah's family was supposed to live separately from the people of the city because of their corruption. 

Dinah was from a special family in that, as a great-granddaughter Abraham, she was included in a covenant with God. And that covenant restricted Dinah from intermixing with the secular world. God was in the process of amassing a group of people who would become a city, a region, a kingdom, a nation of righteousness. To do that, He needed its members to be exclusively devoted to His covenant and its principles. Dinah would have been fully informed, but whether or not she fully ascribed to is debatable. For Dinah did mix with the members of the corrupt city and subsequently, perhaps accidentally, garnered the attention of one of its men.

• HE SAW HER, HE TOOK HER

The prince of the country noticed Dinah and he either fell in love with her, or lusted for her to the point of obsession. It is somewhat unclear as to whether Dinah elected to be with this man or was raped by him. For it is written that Dinah went to meet the daughters of the city, not the men. And if Shechem had truly fallen in love with Dinah, why does the original language of the verse suggest force? Furthermore, Shechem "took" Dinah before consulting her family, in a time and context when that was simply not done. 

Either way, Dinah's story serves as an analogy. It was not only Shechem that lusted-to-the-point-of-obsession after Jacob's family. The entire city was envious of their substantial substance. Like Shechem, they saw and wanted to take, possess, what had been gained by Jacob through faith. The incident between Shechem and Dinah provided their chance to do so. 

• THE PROPOSAL

Shechem demanded that his father, Hamor, arrange a marriage. Hamor was more than willing to do it, because he wanted access to Jacob's family too. So Hamor approached Jacob, with Dinah's brothers Simeon and Levi present, and began negotiations. With substantial quantities of both anger and grief, Jacob his sons listened to Hamor's proposal: 

“The soul of my son Shechem longs for your daughter. Please give her to him as a wife. And make marriages with us; give your daughters to us, and take our daughters to yourselves. So you shall dwell with us, and the land shall be before you. Dwell and trade in it, and acquire possessions for yourselves in it.”

Hamor did not only ask for Jacob to allow Dinah to marry Shechem. He asked for Jacob's entire family to intermarry with his people. He wanted a business arrangement... from which only he would profit. Quite unrelated to the subject at hand, the marriage of their two children, Hamor suggested that Jacob (&co) begun to trade with his city as well. He wanted access to Jacob's blessings. Perhaps realizing the wayward direction of his father's proposal, Shechem spoke:

Then Shechem said to her father and her brothers, “Let me find favor in your eyes, and whatever you say to me I will give. Ask me ever so much dowry and gift, and I will give according to what you say to me; but give me the young woman as a wife.”

He wanted her, by any means necessary. There are things in life, people, possessions and opportunities that we will want desperately. And therefore if Shechem truly was in love and gentle with Dinah, it would be easy to have sympathy for his position. But either way, he and Hamor represent that desperation we can perhaps all relate to. The state of mind wherein we want something by any means necessary, even if it means compromising our values, or disregarding God's timeline and voice. But once we diminish  our faith in those ways, we will inevitable come to realize that it did not work. And if it seemed to, it definitely did not achieve the satisfaction we thought it would. 

Blessing is a process. And throughout that process, God prepares us for the reception of the particular blessing we had been praying for, and working hard in faith toward. Therefore, we cannot skip ahead, or barter or scheme or do anything premature or off to the side and expect it to work or fulfill or remain.

Shechem and Hamor missed that point, but we must not. If they wanted access to God's blessings, they would have to commit, submit to God as Jacob had. Jacob, his father and grandfather had persisted in dogged, steadfast faith and that was the reality behind all of the things they had that Hamor envied. 

• CIRCUMCISION OF THE FLESH

Jacob's sons ironic response to Hamor is indicative of the fact that they recognized how fully Hamor missed the point.

But the sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor his father, and spoke deceitfully, because he had defiled Dinah their sister. And they said to them, “We cannot do this thing, to give our sister to one who is uncircumcised, for that would be a reproach to us. But on this condition we will consent to you: If you will become as we are, if every male of you is circumcised, then we will give our daughters to you, and we will take your daughters to us; and we will dwell with you, and we will become one people. But if you will not heed us and be circumcised, then we will take our daughter and be gone.”

Circumcision served as a symbol of commitment to the faith. It was not commitment itself. Jacob's sons (Dinah's brothers), Simeon and Levi, seemed to really highlight Shechem and Hamor's ignorance. For if they were to truly become as Jacob's family was, they needed to commit in mind and behavior to God.

Not realizing that, they agreed to the circumcision. Immediately Hamor professed glee at the prospect of obtaining Jacob's possessions for himself. He convinced the other men to join him in the circumcision, they saw it as a means to a very prosperous end. Simeon and Levi, in presenting this ruse to the city of, essentially welcomed these men to try and buy faith as they exactly thought they could. Their inevitable failure would be Simeon and Levi's satisfaction.

• CIRCUMCISION OF HEART 

For circumcision is indeed profitable if you keep the law; but if you are a breaker of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. Therefore, if an uncircumcised man keeps the righteous requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision? And will not the physically uncircumcised, if he fulfills the law, judge you who, even with your written code and circumcision, are a transgressor of the law? For he is not [a Christian] who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a [Christian] who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.

Romans 2:5-6 serves as further evidence that Shechem was an ineligible candidate for Dinah not because he was uncircumcised in flesh, but because he was uncircumcised in heart. Circumcision was an outward symbol of an inward commitment. He did not acknowledge God; he had no relationship with him. He had made no commitments to God's covenant. 

This pertains to us, today, because it reminds us that we cannot be subscribers to this faith only outwardly. We cannot go through the motions or traditions of religion and expect blessing. Neither can we neglect our faith, and the values it instills in us, to satisfy the desire for things existing outside of our grasp. Hamor and Shechem first tried to scheme their way in, then tried to in-authentically join. Neither means will work. 

Solid blessing, abundant provision, and fulfilling prosperity are acquired through wholehearted, steadfast active-commitment and obedient faith in a relationship with God. Such devotion to God is the circumcision of the heart:

Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe.
Deuteronomy 10:16-17

• UPON THE CITY BOLDLY

After the citywide circumcision (of their bodies), Simeon and Levi killed all of the males of the city (or perhaps all of the males of Hamor's family) while they were weak and in recovery. It was not Jacob's decision for them to do so, they acted on their own volition unless they were divinely commanded off-page, so to speak.

As with the beginning of the story, there is some room for debate here at the end. Did the brothers act with impulsive aggression? Or was their response so emphatic as to make the point that this corrupt city planned to take and use and defile all of Jacob's possessions. Perhaps they preemptively did to the city what the city planned to do to them. Does Dinah's story serve as a metaphor for the lust and destruction the city had planned against Jacob and his possessions? 

Even if their intentions were not quite so directly malicious, it is what would have happened. The whole world was corrupt; God and Abraham's covenant was a response and solution to that fact. God led, blessed and protected Jacob's family so that righteousness would remain in the earth long enough for it to matter. The steadfast faith of this family through generations would change the projection of humanity from desolation to salvation. Through Abraham's genes would come Jesus, our teacher and savior and therefore if that lineage had been corrupted, the opportunity for Jesus' conception would have been thwarted. 

Indeed Shechem was, and our own desperation at times seems willing to obtain the object of desire by any means necessary... if that is true, we must remind ourselves to abandon all but the "means" of genuine faith.