How God Used 5 Women with Questionable Pasts in Jesus Genealogy

Writer

Published December 14, 2020

Genealogies are not the most entertaining reading you can dive into. They do serve a purpose and they can reveal interesting ideas to us. Normally, they are there to legitimize an individual as an heir to a family or provide a connection to something in the past.

Matthew 1:1-17 is a genealogy of Jesus and there are a few notable issues. First, if you actually check the Biblical record, verse 17 can be disputed in its accuracy. There are actually a number of generations missing, but the intent of the author was not full accuracy, it was the idea of completion. Fourteen has a factor of seven, which in biblical numerology is related to completion and the author of Matthew was trying to show that God was in full control of the lineage of Jesus.

Additionally, it only goes back to Abraham, which serves to connect Jesus fully to his Jewish roots. In Luke 3:23-38, the genealogy goes all the way back to Adam, which would have been of more importance to Luke as he was a Gentile (non-Jewish) and needed to connect with Jesus prior to Abraham.

There is another issue in the genealogy of Matthew though and it is highly irregular considering the cultural biases that existed in the time it was written. There are five women listed in the genealogy of Jesus. This is highly unusual, especially given that the point of Matthew even listing the genealogy was to prove Jesus lineage back through David and Abraham which was done through the father’s side of a family (patrilineal)

It points out that Jesus is truly Jewish and an heir to David’s throne, fulfilling the promise that God made to King David that he would always have a descendant on the throne (2 Samuel 7:16). All this does is call out to us: why are these women listed in this genealogy? What purpose do they serve?

Photo credit: Unsplash

A Difficult Commonality

The most obvious commonality these women have is that they are contributors to the lineage of Jesus Christ. But there is another connecting thread. Every single woman in the genealogy list has a questionable, tarnished, or outright scandalous sexual history.

The nature of the issues regarding their sexuality are perhaps not as salacious as what we see in the headlines of our news and social media today, but in their time and cultures, these issues were sometimes death penalty level offenses. We should look at their stories to try to understand their bravery, comprehend God’s grace to them, and see how they can inform our lives of faith now.

Tamar

Matthew 1:3 / Genesis 38:1-30

Tamar can be difficult to perceive without context. For a woman of her time, if her husband died without her having a male child, she could have fallen on great difficulties with no ability to provide for herself. There was also a matter of honor for her, as women of her day were looked down upon if they could not provide their husbands with an heir.

When Tamar’s first husband (Er) died because he was evil, it was the responsibility of her father-in-law Judah to provide his next son (Onan) to create an heir for her first husband. It is a bit confusing (and gross), but these were the customs regarding inheritance in those days.

If the story of Tamar wasn’t tragic enough, Onan intentionally had sex with Tamar in a way that would not get her pregnant and provide the heir she was seeking and owed. He used her for pleasure and robbed the moment of its possible blessing by God. God struck Onan dead as well. Judah got scared and refused to let his third son (Shelah) try to provide an heir through Tamar. Keep in mind that this is what was owed Tamar and was what she wanted – an heir. Judah had a real problem raising evil sons it seems.

Here is where the story goes into full “say what?” mode. Tamar disguised herself as a religious prostitute and tricked her father-in-law Judah into getting her pregnant. This raises problems in regard to Judah. First, he thought he was visiting a religious prostitute. It is technically an act of worship to a fertility god or goddess. Wasn’t Judah supposed to be only worshipping Yahweh?

Second, maybe the evil of his sons really did indicate the sin in Judah’s heart as well when we consider he did not attend to the matter of Tamar when he should have. Third, Judah shows an incredible double standard when he says that Tamar should be stoned to death for getting pregnant. It is only when she shows evidence that Judah is the father that he realizes the difficulties he has forced the young woman to endure.

As for Tamar, she was used by evil men to gratify their sexual urges without providing for her needs. She showed an amazing drive and goal-oriented approach to solving her dilemma. Despite what she had to go through, God still triumphed in her life and used her to eventually bring Jesus into the world.

Photo credit: ©Getty Images/Richard Villalonundefined undefined

Rahab

Matthew 1:5 / Joshua 2:1-21 / Joshua 6:22-25

Rahab was a prostitute and a Gentile. Both of those issues disqualified her for what would be considered a normal life in the eyes of the Jewish people of her day. Everything about her would have been considered unclean. We don’t even know if she was a religious prostitute or a businesswoman (there are theological implications for both), but God was able to use her.

She provided shelter to a couple of Jewish spies as they were checking out the city of Jericho for the soon-to-arrive Jewish army. Because she helped them, God provided a way for her family to escape the impending destruction of Jericho. Not only that, we see that she also ended up as a bride to someone in the ancestry of King David and Jesus of Nazareth.

Ruth

Matthew 1:5 / Ruth 4:1-6

For Ruth, the difficulties around her sexuality are not as plain to us. They are more based in the Jewish taboo against men marrying women that are Gentiles. The Jewish nature of offspring is given by the mother, so a non-Jewish woman would not give birth to a Jewish child, even if the father was Jewish. Ruth was from Moab, a Gentile nation. There is also the matter of her being previously married. Even though she was a widow, there was still a cultural bias in place that was working against her. Now, add to this the fact that the man she eventually married (Boaz) was himself, very wealthy. For him, the cultural pressure would have been very strong to marry a Jewish girl from another wealthy family.

God must have placed in Boaz a desire for a wife that had integrity and love in her heart. It was something that outweighed the societal pressures to marry within expectations. Ruth checked off all the boxes he was looking for and he found himself in love. The story of Ruth really is a rags-to-riches love story and it is wholesome and well worth reading. She shows us that God will work quite willingly through a heart that is full of love and willing to do the right thing, even if it is difficult. In time, Ruth eventually becomes the grandmother of King David.

Photo credit: Wikipedia/Public Domain Image

Bathsheba

Matthew 1:6 / 2 Samuel 11:1-5 / 2 Samuel 12:24-25

Bathsheba is probably the most scandalous story on this list. It was so much so, that Matthew couldn’t even bring himself to write out her name in the genealogy. He refers to her as “the wife of Uriah.” She is the woman that had an adulterous relationship with King David and it nearly destroyed him.

If you read the account of how David saw her and then sent men for her, it is not really clear if she had much choice in the matter of a sexual relationship with David; she definitely did not have a choice in getting pregnant. Keep in mind, that by Mosaic Law, David and Bathsheba should have been stoned to death. She then lost her husband (Uriah) because David had him murdered in battle after a failed attempted to coverup the pregnancy. Add to that the trauma of losing the child that David fathered soon after birth, and we have a woman who by every right could claim to be broken and cursed.

Yet her story did not end there. Once David had reconciled with God, he married Bathsheba and they had another son named Solomon. King David had other sons who could claim the throne of Judah and Israel ahead of Solomon. It was God’s will and shrewd political maneuvers by Bathsheba that resulted in Solomon becoming the king after David. She is inspirational in that she did not dwell in the label of adulteress and sinner. Instead, she found forgiveness and moved forward so powerfully that her son became king and is still regarded as the wisest man to have walked the earth (except for Jesus).

Photo credit: Unsplash/Anthony Tran

Mary

Matthew 1:16 / Matthew 1:18-21 / Luke 1:26-38

Mary, the mother of Jesus, is the model of surrender to the will of God. She gave up everything that she was expecting from life to follow the calling of God. And what was that call? To be the mother of the Messiah, the Son of God. Here is where the issues around her sexuality begin. She was already engaged to be married, which in those days was pretty much fully married. There just needed to be a contract and a ceremony. The laws around adultery applied. When she came up pregnant (by the Holy Spirit), her husband-to-be had every right to apply the Mosaic Law to the situation. He was a gentle person, so he decided to keep everything quiet and not go through with the marriage. It was his right to decide. God told him to marry her anyway and raise his (God’s) child, Jesus.

So, what we have here is God asking Mary and Joseph to lay aside their sexual expectations for marriage. The stakes are monumental. Jesus Christ, the child to be born, will save the world from sin and death. Yes, for a short time, Mary would have had to deal with people close to her assuming that she had committed adultery. But God rectified the situation, he knew the people that he was asking to be a part of his plan. It worked and the results are celebrated to this day and forevermore.

They Speak Today

With the cultural emphasis on sex that we experience today, there are many people, especially women that have been hurt or have made choices that they are not proud of in their sex lives. Many may question how God can save them or would use them for his kingdom because they have a past. All of the women in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus are connected by questions regarding their sexual history. They tell us quite loudly that God not only forgives us, he purifies us, and he still has a purpose for us.

Ultimately, it is God who determines our value and the blood of Jesus covers all sin if we repent. The women that Matthew listed in the ancestry of Jesus say to us that God can redeem any that he chooses and he will use them, even to bring his son Jesus into the world. Do not listen to the voices that offer you shame and despair.

God has claimed you. Embrace the new life he offers.

Larry White is the pastor of Ephesus Baptist Church near Sanford, NC