The Gospel according to Matthew begins with genealogy. Matthew includes this information for the most part to demonstrate that Jesus was a true Israelite. He is described as the son of David and the son of Abraham, both of who were significant in the Old Testament. Matthew’s genealogy is mostly made up of father-son relationships until he gets to Joseph. He is made to shift his description because Joseph is not the father of Jesus because Mary was a virgin. He then relates Joseph to Jesus as Mary’s husband, who is the mother of Jesus. Women do not play a role in this passage until Matthew gets to Mary. He describes her as Jesus’s mother and uses her as a means to relate Joseph to Jesus.

Matthew uses the history of ancient Israel to tell the story of Jesus’s birth. Joseph and Mary are first forced to relocate after an angel tells Joseph that Herod is looking for Jesus to kill him. They move to Egypt and wait there for further instruction.Herod was not into the fact that he was tricked by the wiseman and so ordered the death of every child under the age of two in Bethlehem. After Herod dies, Joseph and Mary are instructed to return to Israel with Jesus, but Joseph is afraid of the new ruler, so he moves to Nazareth with his family. Matthew is trying to demonstrate that Jesus fulfills predictions that Hebrew prophets made about an incoming Messiah. He’s showing that Jesus is who the prophets were talking about by explaining where Jesus was born and where he lived.