“Gematria”
17 December 2018
“The sum of generations is: fourteen from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the Babylonian deportation, fourteen from the Babylonian deportation to Christ” (Matthew 1).
This is an example of what Jews called “Gematria,” which assigns numerical value to Hebrew letters (A = 1, B = 2, etc.). It turns out that the Hebrew letters of the name David add up to fourteen.
Matthew is structuring his genealogy around the figure of David. Why? Because David received the promise of an eternal kingdom:
“Your throne shall be established for ever” (2 Samuel 7).
The promise is fulfilled!
Amen.