The Pulpit Commentary - Matthew 1:18
Now the birth ( Matthew 1:1 , note). γέννησις ("generation") of the received text refers to the causative act, the true reading ( γένεσις ) to the birth itself (cf. Luke 1:14 ). Of Jesus Christ was on this wise . The Revised Version margin says, "Some ancient authorities read, 'of the Christ,'" but perhaps the reading, "of Christ Jesus" (B [Origen]), is even preferable, as in no good manuscript of the New Testament is the article elsewhere prefixed to "Jesus Christ," and the easy... read more
The Pulpit Commentary - Matthew 1:17
Fourteen generations . To make the list more easy to remember, the names were so ordered that there should be the same number in each of the three divisions. Thus a means was afforded of checking the correctness of the enumeration, and the list became a sort of memoria technica. Unto Christ; better here, unto the Christ. For now begins the history which tells of this Jesus as the specially Anointed One of God, the true Messiah, of which all the previously anointed messengers had been but... read more