Matthew 1:5 is the fifth verse of the Matthew 1

Matthew 1

Matthew 1 is the first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. It contains two distinct sections. The first lists the genealogy of Jesus's legal father Joseph from Abraham...

 of the Gospel of Matthew

Gospel of Matthew

The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...

 in the New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

. The verse is part of the section where the genealogy

Genealogy

Genealogy is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history. Genealogists use oral traditions, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members...

 of Joseph

Saint Joseph

Saint Joseph is a figure in the Gospels, the husband of the Virgin Mary and the earthly father of Jesus Christ ....

, the legal father of Jesus

Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

, is listed.

In the King James Version of the Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

 the text reads:

And Salmon begat Booz

Boaz

Boaz is a major figure in The Book of Ruth in the Bible. The term is found 24 times in the Scriptures, being two in Greek ....

 of Rachab

Rahab

Rahab, was, according to the Book of Joshua, a woman who lived in Jericho in the Promised Land and assisted the Israelites in capturing the city...

;

and Booz begat Obed of Ruth;

and Obed begat Jesse

Jesse

Jesse, Eshai or Yishai, is the father of the David, who became the king of the Israelites. His son David is sometimes called simply "Son of Jesse" ....

;

The World English Bible

World English Bible

The World English Bible is a public domain translation of the Bible that is currently in draft form. Work on the World English Bible began in 1997 and was known as the American Standard Version 1997...

 translates the passage as:

Salmon became the father of Boaz by Rahab.

Boaz became the father of Obed by Ruth.

Obed became the father of Jesse.

This genealogy matches that given in several other places in the Bible, including Luke 3:32. It covers the period after the Exodus

The Exodus

The Exodus is the story of the departure of the Israelites from ancient Egypt described in the Hebrew Bible.Narrowly defined, the term refers only to the departure from Egypt described in the Book of Exodus; more widely, it takes in the subsequent law-givings and wanderings in the wilderness...

 to around the founding of the Kingdom of Israel. The passage carries the genealogy through Salmon, Boaz, Obed, and Jesse of which only Boaz is notable. It also mentions two women, Rahab and Ruth

Book of Ruth

The Book of Ruth is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible, Tanakh, or Old Testament. In the Jewish canon the Book of Ruth is included in the third division, or the Writings . In the Christian canon the Book of Ruth is placed between Judges and 1 Samuel...

, both of whom are prominent Old Testament

Old Testament

The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...

 figures. For a full discussion of the women mentioned in Matthew's genealogy see Matthew 1:3

Matthew 1:3

Matthew 1:3 is the third verse of the first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. The verse is part of the section where the genealogy of Joseph, the legal father of Jesus, is listed....

.

Albright and Mann note that the author of Matthew spells Rahab's name as Rachab, a departure from the LXX spelling Matthew usually uses. The Rachab form also appears in the works of Josephus

Josephus

Titus Flavius Josephus , also called Joseph ben Matityahu , was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of...

. They speculate that this indicates a change in pronunciation during this period. Another problem, pointed out by Brown

Raymond E. Brown

The Reverend Raymond Edward Brown, S.S. , was an American Roman Catholic priest, a member of the Sulpician Fathers and a major Biblical scholar of his era...

, is that Rahab's position in this verse does not meet other traditions. No other source has her marrying Salmon and giving birth to Boaz. Jewish tradition has her as the wife of Joshua

Joshua

Joshua , is a minor figure in the Torah, being one of the spies for Israel and in few passages as Moses's assistant. He turns to be the central character in the Hebrew Bible's Book of Joshua...

, and thus, also in a different time period.

Further reading

• Kyallo Mutua, Charles. Salmon Was the Father of Boaz by "[Rachab]," Mt 1:5: A Study of Rahab Traditions. Romae : Pontificia Universitas Urbaniana, 2000.