Matthew’s Account

The infancy narrative of Matthew answers the question of who Jesus was by first focusing on Jesus as the promised Messiah of the line of David (see 2 Samuel 7:12–16; Psalms 89:4, 132:11; Isaiah 9:7, 11:1; and Jeremiah 23:5–6). Beginning with and descending from Abraham, Jesus’s genealogy is broken into three sections: Abraham to David, David to the exile in Babylon, and from the exile to Joseph and thence to Jesus (Matthew 1:1–16). David thus plays a pivotal role in this succession of ancestors. The fact that Matthew uses 14 generations for each of these divisions stresses Jesus’s Davidic heritage because 14 is the numerical equivalent of David’s name in Hebrew, the original language of the text.1

Mary also seems to have been of the House of David, which provides an important genealogical tie for the Savior.2 By carefully noting that her child was “of the Holy Ghost” and by quoting Isaiah 7:14 that a virgin would conceive, Matthew establishes Mary’s purity and the divine nature of her child’s conception (Matthew 1:18, 23), points that Luke and the Book of Mormon also emphasize.

However, because kingship descended through the male line, this legal genealogy needed to be traced through Joseph to have the requisite authority. Joseph was not the biological father of Jesus, but by accepting Mary’s son and giving Jesus a name, he legally claimed the child, thereby making Jesus an heir of the royal line. Moreover Matthew emphasizes Joseph’s important role as Jesus’s foster father. Joseph’s actions of protecting his young family echo those of Joseph in Genesis. Joseph the carpenter also receives revelations through dreams and takes his family into Egypt to save them.

In Deuteronomy 18:15, Moses prophesied that God would raise up a prophet “like unto me” that Israel should hearken to in all things. In his gospel Matthew portrays Jesus as this new Moses, as is seen later in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7), but also as one greater than Moses. There, Jesus ascends a hill where He gives a “new” law just as Moses had ascended Mount Sinai to receive the old law. This association of Jesus and Moses helps explain why Matthew preserved the sad story of Herod’s slaughter of children “from two years and under” in Bethlehem (2:16–18) when other historical and scriptural sources do not. Just as Pharaoh had killed all the Hebrew baby boys by drowning them in the Nile, thereby almost killing the deliverer, Moses (Exodus 1:15–2:10), Herod tried to kill the promised Savior, the true King of the Jews.

The visit of the Magi, or “Wise Men,” supports Matthew’s testimony that Jesus was the promised king, who came not only for his own people but for all the peoples of the earth. Although the Magi who came seeking Jesus might have been connected with the House of Israel, the wise men have traditionally been connected with the magi, or astrologers and wise men of Babylonia and Persia. While these wise men were certainly moved by the Spirit of God, if they were Gentiles, then their arrival to recognize and worship the newborn King of the Jews at least partially fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah 60:3: “And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.” Another example of how all peoples—not just ethnic Israel—were part of the Christmas story may be found in the inclusion of four women in the genealogy, each of whom also seems to have been from outside of Israel.

The arrival of the Magi during the last year of the reign of Herod the Great (ruled 37–4 b.c.) helps date the birth of Jesus, but the Magi’s arrival in Bethlehem was considerably after Jesus’s birth. They found Mary and the baby Jesus established in a house, not the temporary accommodations of a stable or cave. Herod’s edict that all children two years and younger be slain also suggests that months, if not years, had passed.

But Jesus was more than just the promised king of David’s line or a new prophet in the guise of Moses. Throughout his gospel, Matthew commonly connects prophecies from Jewish scriptures with the life of Jesus, showing who He truly was. Accordingly, in the first of five quotations from the Hebrew scriptures in his infancy narrative (Matthew 1:23; 2:6, 15, 18, and 23), Matthew sees the birth of Jesus as the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14. The promised babe is, in very fact, Immanuel, or “God with us.”

Although Matthew’s account focuses especially on who the Babe of Bethlehem was, the name that an angel directed Joseph to give Mary’s son emphasizes what He came to do. The name Yehoshua, which through the Greek came into English as “Jesus,” means “Jehovah is salvation,” explaining the command “Thou shalt call him JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).