What Does Matthew 1:15 Mean?
And Eliud brought forth Eleazar, and Eleazar brought forth Matthan, and Matthan brought forth Jacob.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And Eliud begat Eleazar; and Eleazar begat Matthan; and Matthan begat Jacob;THE KEY
The repeated Greek verb for “begat” belongs to the same word-family as birth, origin, and generation, so this is a line of lives coming into being through one another.
THE MEANING
You are not an isolated beginning: your life is received through others, and every life is situated within a line of origin. This verse holds receiving and giving forward together: one generation’s life becomes the beginning of another’s.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that your life starts in isolation or is self-originating: this verse names each person as arising through a prior life and continuing the line.
THE ROOT
ἐγέννησεν
egennēsen
GROWS FROM
γεν
gen (γεν): birth, coming into being, and generation.
“brought forth” in this verse is egennēsen. In ἐγέννησεν, the line’s repeated act belongs to the same Greek word-family as birth, origin, and generation. The verse holds parentage and emergence together: each named life is received from another and becomes the source of the next.
ALSO GROWS
gennaō: Beget; give birth.
γεννάω
This is the verb behind begat, naming the act that links each person in the verse.
genesis: Birth; origin.
γένεσις
It brings the idea of beginning into the same word-family as begetting.
genea: Generation; lineage.
γενεά
It names the chain of generations that this repeated verb traces.
THE PATTERN
Life is received through generations, with each generation carrying the line onward.
And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and brought forth a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth.And the women who were her neighbors called out a name for him, saying, A son is born to Naomi, and they called his name Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David.Abraham brought forth Isaac, and Isaac brought forth Jacob, and Jacob brought forth Judah and his brothers.THE THREAD
And Jacob brought forth Joseph, the husband of Mary, out of whom Jesus was brought forth, who is called the anointed one.The Greek word-family behind begat appears again in Matthew 1:16 in both begat and was born, carrying the generative language forward. The phrase of whom refers to Mary, and the verse names the next birth with a distinct turn in the wording.
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