23 Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli, 24 the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph, 25 the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Esli, the son of Naggai, 26 the son of Maath, the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein, the son of Josech, the son of Joda, 27 the son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the son of Neri, 28 the son of Melchi, the son of Addi, the son of Cosam, the son of Elmadam, the son of Er, 29 the son of Joshua, the son of Eliezer, the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, 30 the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonam, the son of Eliakim, 31 the son of Melea, the son of Menna, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David, 32 the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Sala, the son of Nahshon, 33 the son of Amminadab, the son of Admin, the son of Arni, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah, 34 the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor, 35 the son of Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Eber, the son of Shelah, 36 the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech, 37 the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalaleel, the son of Cainan, 38 the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. Luke 3: 23-38 ESV
Luke 3: 23-38
Was about thirty years of age - He will die at the age of 33, but His ministry as our advocate before the Father continues. Thirty was the age of a certain maturity, when one was pulled from the priestly clan of Levi to the temple service. Jesus fulfills all righteousness here as well in keeping with the law. He is forever our High Priest.
…2“Take a census of the Kohathites among the Levites by their clans and families, 3men from thirty to fifty years old — everyone who is qualified to serve in the work at the Tent of Meeting. 4This service of the Kohathites at the Tent of Meeting regards the most holy things.… Numbers 4: 2-4
…16one who has become a priest not by a law of succession, but by the power of an indestructible life. 17For it is testified: “You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.” 18So the former commandment is set aside because it was weak and useless… Hebrews 7: 16-18
Being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph - This is actually Jesus lineage through Mary, and both are of the tribe of Judah, but you always do the line through the father. Joseph was not physically Jesus' dad, but he was legally by adoption. I know it's boring to look at a long ancestral list; it looks like roll call at school, but this lineage is important. The Jews kept very good records of family for some very practical reasons:
1. Most important is that God has prophesied about the seed of the woman, and later prophecies show that the Messiah would come from the line of David, who was of the tribe of Judah.
…9Judah is a young lion—my son, you return from the prey. Like a lion he crouches and lies down; like a lioness, who dares to rouse him? 10The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes and the allegiance of the nations is his. 11He ties his donkey to the vine, his colt to the choicest branch. He washes his garments in wine, his robes in the blood of grapes.… Genesis 49: 9-11
…16the prophecy of one who hears the words of God, who has knowledge from the Most High, who sees a vision from the Almighty, who bows down with eyes wide open: 17I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come forth from Jacob, and a scepter will arise from Israel. He will crush the skulls of Moab and strike down all the sons of Sheth. 18Edom will become a possession, as will Seir, his enemy; but Israel will perform with valor.… Numbers 24: 16-18
2. Lineage was also important concerning rights to a throne.
3. Lineage was of high importance to Israelites because this is the way their land was allotted. The land stayed with the families. If you sold your land it was only for the time until the next Jubilee, which happened every 50 years, and at that time the land must be returned to the family.
…21You are to divide this land among yourselves according to the tribes of Israel. 22 You shall allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the foreigners who dwell among you and who have children. You are to treat them as native-born Israelites; along with you, they shall be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. 23In whatever tribe a foreigner dwells, you are to assign his inheritance there,” declares the Lord GOD.… Ezekiel 47: 21-23
4. Lineage was important in accordance with the priesthood, they had to be sons of Aaron from the tribe of Levi. This tribes portion was not allotted by an assigned area for the clan, but their portion was the Lord. They worked in the temple and were paid from the offering.
…63And from among the priests: the descendants of Hobaiah, the descendants of Hakkoz, and the descendants of Barzillai (who had married a daughter of Barzillai the Gileadite and was called by their name). 64These men searched for their family records, but they could not find them and so were excluded from the priesthood as unclean. 65The governor ordered them not to eat the most holy things until there was a priest to consult the Urim and Thummim.… Nehemiah 7: 63-65
5. Lineage was used when the people paid taxes. So God provides a structure to insure the prophecies about His Messiah, Who is to come from the tribe of Judah, a Son of David. So when Jesus later makes the claim to being the Messiah, being a Son of David, being the Son of God, the easiest way to dispel this claim would be to look up His lineage, to look at the tax record. As much as His enemies hated Him I am sure that's what they did, but you never see that claim brought against Him, though they mention that He is supposed to come from the tribe of David, that they know He comes from Nazareth which doesn't seem to fit, and so look at the record. His parents are both of the Davidic line and they went to Bethlehem to pay their taxes at the census. Just like the miracles though, when they couldn't outwardly deny what their eyes saw, they blamed it on the devil, and in their Talmud they concocted a story about His mother being a whore, and Jesus being trained in Egypt to be a magician. Well that explains the miracles.
Now there are some differences in the names in the two records (Matthew 1:1-17, Luke 3)....In Matthew's genealogy and in Luke's genealogy we have different names in the records. Now let me... Let me help you to see what I'm saying. Luke traces Jesus' line back to David through Nathan. Look at Lk 3:31, "Son of Nathan, son of David." Now Nathan was David's third son born to Bathsheba. You remember Bathsheba? Okay, Nathan was her third son...David's third son, I should say, born to Bathsheba. So this line in Luke goes back to David through his son, Nathan. But the first son born to Bathsheba was whom? Solomon. And the genealogy in Matthew goes back through Solomon. So in Matthew's genealogy you go back through Solomon to David. In Luke's genealogy you go back through Nathan to David. So you have two different lines. You have one being all the people who came out of Solomon...another, all the people who came out of Nathan. Secondly, Matthew identifies Jesus' grandfather as a man named Jacob (Mt 1:16). It says Jesus' earthly father was Joseph and his (Joseph's) father was Jacob. But Luke 3:23 says that Jesus' grandfather's name is Eli, or Heli....Now this is a difference. So you've got two sons of David. That's different. And you've got two grandfathers of Jesus, one being Jacob in the genealogy of Matthew, one being Eli in the genealogy of Luke. Both are royal lines because both come out of David. Solomon comes out of David, Nathan comes out of David. You have both those royal lines. Interestingly, from David to Abraham the genealogy of Matthew and Luke are identical. From David back to Abraham, the names are the same. But from David down, the names are completely different. When you read the genealogy in Matthew 1 and you go Joseph, Jacob, you go through a list of names back to Solomon. Then you come here, you read Eli, and you go through a list of names back to Nathan. Those lists are completely different names. So what you have then is two genealogies, right? They have two grandfathers, going back to two sons of David with different names. Very simple, you have two genealogies. You'd be amazed how people struggle to try to explain that. I don't know what the struggle is all about. Everybody has two genealogies like that. One is maternal and one is paternal. In Matthew you have the genealogy of Joseph through his father Jacob back to David through Solomon. In Luke you have the gene...genealogy of Mary through her father, Eli. So Jesus, like everybody, had two grandfathers. He had a paternal grandfather through his father named Jacob. He had a grandfather through his mother named Eli. Now it's very important to note this. What you have then in Matthew is the genealogy of Jesus back through Joseph. In Luke is the genealogy of Jesus back through Mary.
Now that is the simplest explanation of the differences in the names. The names are the same once you hit David because all you have to do is go back to David to prove the royal blood. That's where it starts. The names are the same from David to Abraham. They're different because they come through Solomon on Joseph's side, and through Nathan on Mary's side. It's that simple.
Now was this important? Absolutely important because: Anybody who ascended to the throne got the legal right to the throne through his father, through his father. Even if there was an adoption the father still made that son a legal son by adoption. And Jesus could only receive the right to rule through His father. Genealogical records were traced through the males. That's why there are no females listed in Luke's genealogy. There are no females listed in the entire seventy-seven names because they come through the males. Even though it's Mary's genealogy, no female is mentioned, not even Mary is mentioned, and I'll explain that in a moment because that was not the form in a classic genealogy..... Jesus, though He was not the human son of Joseph, received His legal right to the throne from His adopted father, Joseph. Joseph was considered the true father of Jesus when he was the husband of Mary, even though Jesus was not His son physically. Because he married Mary whose son Jesus was, he became the legal father of Jesus. Therefore, from Joseph Jesus receives the legal right to the throne. It's interesting, just as a footnote. In that line from Solomon there's a name of a man, Jeconiah. Jeconiah was cursed and the curse on Jeconiah is in Jeremiah 22:24-30 and it says, "Jeconiah is cursed and no son of his will ever sit on the throne of Israel, ever." That's interesting because that's Joseph's line. Isn't that amazing? No son of his ever did sit on the throne. Jesus was not the son of Joseph. He did receive the legal right but he was not the natural child. So the curse was intact. (See another source - What is the curse of Jeconiah?)
Now, Luke then gives the genealogy of Mary back through Nathan, Solomon's brother. Matthew gives the paternal, Luke the maternal. Matthew goes Joseph, Jacob, Solomon, David and Luke goes Mary, Eli, Nathan, David. And again, the legal right comes from the father but somebody might want to argue that, somebody might want to say, yeah, yeah, that's the way we've done it, yeah we agree, adoption, etc., etc. But in the case of the Messiah, it's got to be the li... It’s got to be the blood of David, he’s got to be a blue blood. He’s got to have the real stuff.
And so, here is the genealogy of Mary which Luke gives under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to prove not only does He have the legal right to rule through His father, but He has the blood of David in his veins because of His mother. So either way, He is a descendant of David. He can be King legally through Joseph. He can be King naturally through Mary. The credentials are clear, they are detailed and they are irrefutable..... - Precept Austin
