Jacob

About Jacob

Jacob is mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus Christ recorded in Mat.1.15-16. He is identified as the father of Joseph, who was the husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

This genealogy traces the lineage of Jesus from Abraham through David, and then to Joseph. Jacob is listed as the son of Matthan and the grandson of Eleazar (Mat.1.15). His father and a few generations before him are anonymous placeholders unnamed missing individuals that are necessray to increase the number of generations in Jesus' genealogy as recorded in Matthew to become the same as the number of generations in Luke. Matthew is known to deliberately miss out some individuals (kings Ahaziah, Joash and Amaziah) so it is likely he also missed out others, in order to create three sets of 14 generations (Mat.1.17). The inclusion of Jacob in this genealogy serves to establish Joseph's descent from the royal line of David, which was essential for Jesus to be recognized as the Messiah.

While little is known about Jacob's life, his place in the genealogy highlights the importance of family lineage in Jewish tradition and the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah's descent from David (2Sa.7.12-16; Isa.9.6-7).

It is important to note that while Joseph was Jesus' legal father, he was not his biological father, as Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit (Mat.1.18-25). Nonetheless, Joseph's lineage through Jacob was significant in establishing Jesus' claim to the Messianic title "Son of David" (Mat.1.1).

Description from STEPBible TIPNR (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0, lightly reformatted. This is background reference material, not Scripture and not a FaithGraph editorial claim.