Mary’s Genealogy

In Lk 3:23-28 we find Mary’s genealogy and some interesting facts regarding the “line of Christ”.

You may have heard that Jesus was 33 years old when he died.  We can determine his age by counting the passovers between Lk 3:23 and his crucifixion.  In Jn 1:32-34 Jesus was baptized when he was almost 30, Lk 3:23.  Jn 2:13 records the first passover after Jesus began his ministry.  Jesus was 30.  Jn 5:1 records the second passover; he was 31.  In Jn 6:4, at the third passover, Jesus was 32.  And in Jn 12:1, right before the fourth passover, the one during which he died, he was 33.

It was supposed that Jesus was the son of Joseph.  He was a carpenter, Mk 6:3.  And they asked in Matt 13:55, “Is not this the carpenter’s son”?  In Jn 8:41 the Pharisees claimed, “we be not born of fornication”, implying that Jesus was.  Even Mary stated that Joseph was Jesus’s father in Lk 2:48.

The genealogies in Matt 1 and Lk 4 don’t match.  That’s because Matthew records Jospeh’s genealogy and Luke records Mary’s genealogy.  Jospeh was Heli’s son-in-law, not is son.  There are other places in the Bible where an in law is called either a son or a daughter.  In Ruth 1:11-12 Naomi called her daughters-in-law daughters.  Saul called David, “son”, in1 Sam 24:16, 26:21, 25 even though he was Saul’s son-in-law 1 Sam 18:22-23.

Through this genealogy and Matthew’s we find that Jesus is from David’s line through Solomon in Matt 1:6 and through Nathan in Lk 3:31.  In Matthew he is the son of Abraham and David, Matt 1:1, giving him special significance to Israel by the covenants made with Abraham and David.  He is the Son of God.  And in Luke, he is the son of Adam, and thus the Son of Man.  He is the last Adam, 1 Cor 15:45.

In this genealogy we find an interesting insertion.  Cainan is listed as Arphaxad’s son in Lk 3:36.  But according to the genealogies in Gen 10:24, 11:12, Arphaxad begat Salah.  In Luke, Cainan is the father of Sala.

Cainan is not a mistake.  Luke added him because God revealed to Luke that he was in this line of generations.  There are other places where generations are skipped.  Notice the skip in Matt 1:8 Joram begat Ozias (Uzziah).  Actually, the descendants are Joram (Jehoram), Ahaziah, Joash, Amaziah, then Uzziah.  Matthew skipped three.

So, clearly Salah could be Arphaxad’s grandson.  See Dan 5:2, 18 where Nebuchadnezzar is called Belshazzar’s father.  In fact, he was Belshazzar’s grandfather.

You’re not going to find much help looking up an explanation in commentaries. From Gill’s exposition of the Entire Bible… Cainan “is in many Greek copies, and in the Vulgate Latin, and all the Oriental versions, even in the Syriac, the oldest of them; but ought not to stand neither in the text, nor in any version: for certain it is, there never was such a Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, for Salah was his son”.

Cainan was someone revealed to Luke to authenticate God’s authorship of the Holy Bible.  Similar things are found in other places in the New Testament.  For example, Paul gives us the names of the magicians who opposed Moses, 2 Tim 3:8.  Jude is the one who tells us what happened to Moses’s body after he died, Jude 9.  Jude also tells us the words that Enoch preached, Jude 14-15.  And in Matt 27:9, we find something spoken by Jeremy (Jeremiah) that Zechariah actually wrote down.

To study the previous lesson, see John’s Baptism.  To study the next lesson, see Jesus’ Temptation.