What Does Matthew 1:6 Mean?
And Jesse brought forth David the king, and David the king brought forth Solomon out of her who had been Uriah's wife.
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 Jesse begat David the king; and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Urias;THE KEY
The royal title is repeated, but the lineage does not let David’s kingship detach Solomon from Uriah’s wife.
THE MEANING
Your story can hold a public identity and an entangled origin at once. David’s kingship is named twice, while Solomon’s begetting remains attached to the woman identified through Uriah. The lineage preserves both authority and uncomfortable relational detail in one sentence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A celebrated title cannot make a complicated beginning disappear; the verse keeps Uriah in the lineage’s telling even while naming David king.
THE ROOT
ἐγέννησεν
egennēsen
GROWS FROM
γενν-
To beget, give birth to, bring forth.
“brought forth” in this verse is egennēsen. English can make “begat” sound like a bare genealogical formula, but the repeated Greek verb carries the sense of bringing forth. Its word family includes terms for lineage and origin, so the verse holds a life emerging within family history, not just a clean abstract chain.
ALSO GROWS
genos: Family, kind, lineage.
γένος
This related word makes the genealogy legible as a continuing family line.
genesis: Origin, birth, coming-to-be.
γένεσις
The same word family brings the idea of a beginning into this record of descent.
דָּוִד
Dāwīd
GROWS FROM
ד־ו־ד
Beloved; also a term for close male kin, such as an uncle.
David’s name carries belovedness alongside his royal identity. The verse repeats “king,” yet the name itself keeps relation and intimacy in view beside the lineage’s relational detail.
ALSO GROWS
dōd: Beloved one; also uncle or close male kin.
דּוֹד
The name’s kinship sense brings relationship into a verse that could otherwise read as a sequence of royal titles.
dōdî: My beloved.
דּוֹדִי
This form keeps the root’s language of belovedness present within the name David.
שְׁלֹמֹה
Shelomoh
GROWS FROM
ש־ל־ם
Wholeness, completeness, well-being.
Solomon’s name echoes the Hebrew family of wholeness and well-being, placing that meaning beside the verse’s unresolved relational history. The name does not erase that history; both remain in the same line.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, well-being, peace.
שָׁלוֹם
This familiar branch lets the meaning carried in Solomon’s name remain audible in the genealogy.
shalem: Whole, complete.
שָׁלֵם
This branch gives the name’s root a concrete sense of completeness beside a lineage that preserves its complexity.
THE PATTERN
Scripture’s lines of descent carry both what continues and the human history attached to how it came forth.
And Judah recognized them, and said, She has been more aligned than I, for I did not give her to Shelah my son. And he did not know her again.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.Judah brought forth Perez and Zerah out of Tamar, and Perez brought forth Hezron, and Hezron brought forth Ram.THE THREAD
Judah brought forth Perez and Zerah out of Tamar, and Perez brought forth Hezron, and Hezron brought forth Ram.Matthew uses the same Greek verb γεννάω (gennaō, “to beget”) here and in 1:6, binding both entries into one genealogy. Both lines preserve a maternal relationship within the record: Tamar is named, while Solomon’s mother is identified through Uriah.
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