The Hidden Virtue of Women in Matthew 1

In this essay, we are going to explore three fascinating things that Matthew does with women in his genealogy in Matthew chapter 1.

There are two basic steps to understanding biblical genealogies. First, you find the pattern of the genealogy. Second, you look for how the author breaks that pattern.

The pattern Matthew creates follows the family line through the male head of the household: a father who fathered a son, who fathered another son. But in four places, Matthew breaks that pattern by including four women.

Breaking the Expected Lineup

The break in the pattern is even more unexpected because he does not include the women we would anticipate. Matthew includes many of the patriarchs we expect from reading the biblical story up to this point—men like Abraham, Judah, and David. If that pattern held, we would expect the great matriarchs like Sarah, Rebekah, or Abigail to appear. Yet none of them are included.

Imagine reading your family tree, and when it comes time to list the wives, all the most prominent matriarchs are omitted, while unexpected figures are listed instead. You would think either that a mistake was made, or that the author had a deliberate purpose. Matthew includes Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba.

Before exploring why Matthew does this, we have to remember the purpose of this genealogy. It is designed to characterize and teach us about who Jesus is and what his kingdom is like; it is not merely a record of the individuals listed.

Three Marks of the Four Women

There are three important things to see about these women that reveal something about Jesus.

First, three of these women were Gentiles and one was married to a Gentile. Tamar and Rahab were Canaanites, Ruth was a Moabite, and Bathsheba was married to Uriah the Hittite. Through them, Matthew signals that Jesus belongs to both Jew and Gentile.

Second, they are women. Women were not typically included in ancient genealogies, not because they were unimportant or excluded from Israel, but because the convention followed patrilineal descent. By breaking convention, Matthew shows that Jesus and his kingdom reach out to and include women in a fuller, distinctive way.

Third, and most fascinating, these women are all connected to sexually questionable circumstances. Tamar disguised herself and tricked Judah into sleeping with her. Rahab was a prostitute. Ruth went to a man’s threshing floor at night, uncovering his feet. Bathsheba slept with David while she was married.

On the surface, one might assume these women were simply sinners. But notice that they are connected to sexually questionable situations, not necessarily sinful behavior on their part. There is a sharp contrast between surface appearances and the reality underneath.

Virtue Beneath the Surface

Let’s look at them again. Tamar tricked Judah into impregnating her because providing an heir was Judah’s duty to his deceased son, and he had refused to give her his remaining son. Tamar took matters into her own hands to compel Judah to fulfill his obligation.

Rahab was indeed a prostitute, but she used her house as a sanctuary to protect the Israelite spies, becoming one of the few Canaanites to convert to the God of Israel.

As for Bathsheba, while she was drawn into the encounter with David, the narrator in Samuel lays the blame squarely on David as the king wielding extraordinary power. The narrator introduces her as purifying herself from ritual uncleanness—marking her as a woman observing the law—who was victimized by David’s unchecked power.

And while Ruth came to Boaz at night, she did so to secure a redeemer and a child for her destitute mother-in-law, Naomi. In a biblical worldview, the marital union is what establishes the covenant of marriage. Ruth offering herself to Boaz was an offer of marriage and an heir for Naomi’s family line.

Most of these women bear an outward appearance of impropriety, but when you examine their circumstances, they were acting with remarkable virtue, fidelity, and courage.

Preparing the Way for Mary and Jesus

Matthew highlights these situations for two profound reasons.

First, this prepares us for Mary. She will soon find herself in a situation that appears scandalous and improper to the outside world, when in reality she is acting in supreme holiness and obedience to God.

Second, and even more deeply, Jesus’s entire ministry takes this exact moral shape. Time and again, Jesus is accused of improper, sinful actions, when in fact he is performing the greatest works of righteousness. The religious leaders do not merely disagree with him; they charge him with lawbreaking and evil. He is criticized for eating with tax collectors and sinners, working on the Sabbath, eating without washing hands, and speaking of the destruction of the temple.

What Jesus does appears scandalous to superficial observers, but it is the pinnacle of holiness. Israel in Jesus’s day had fallen into the state described by Isaiah:

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.

That inversion is precisely what the leaders did to these faithful women and to Jesus himself. And that is Matthew’s genealogical art.

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