*1:1 There is no definite article.
†1:6 Sins may be forgiven, but your curriculum remains—3,000 years later we still read about David's sin (Bathsheba is not named, she was Uriah's wife). The only women included in the genealogy (Tamar, Rahab, Ruth [Deuteronomy 23:13], Bathsheba) represent some violation—perhaps to emphasize the grace of God.
‡1:16 Here the formula changes, because Jesus could not be the son of Joseph—see Jeremiah 22:30.
§1:17 This is really Joseph's genealogy. As foster father he confers the legal right to the throne of David on Jesus. Since the throne of David has to do with the covenant people, this genealogy only goes back to Abraham. In contrast, Mary's genealogy (Luke 3:23-38) goes back to Adam and God—Jesus was literally son of both Adam and God. It has been observed that from David to the captivity there were seventeen kings, but Ahaziah reigned only one year, Amon only two and Abijah only three, so they would not count as generations—Matthew is correct in saying there were fourteen ‘generations’. For further discussion of perceived difficulties in this genealogy, please see the Appendix: Some related anomalies in Matthew's genealogy of the Christ.
*1:18 For more detail on this, see Luke 1:26-38.
†1:19 The betrothal was legally binding, so the man was then called ‘husband’, even before the physical union.
‡1:21 To whom does “His people” refer? To actually receive the salvation one must believe into Jesus, so the reference would appear to be to those who have identified with Him as their Savior.
§1:23 The quote is from Isaiah 7:14. Matthew uses the Greek παρθενος, which unambiguously means ‘virgin’, to translate the Hebrew ‘alma’, which is ambiguous—it refers to a young woman who may be a virgin, but not necessarily. Isaiah did not use bethulah, which refers unambiguously to a virgin, because, I suppose, the context demands an immediate fulfillment, which was supplied by Isaiah's wife, as the next chapter makes clear. It follows that translations of Isaiah 7:14 that render ‘young woman’ are not doing violence to the Hebrew Text.
*1:23 ‘God with us’ is stronger than ‘God is with us’; Jesus was literally God living among us.
†1:24 Apparently there was some urgency involved; it sounds like he did it that same night (Mary was at least three months pregnant)—at night there would not be any onlookers.
‡1:25 The use of this conjunction implies that they had normal relations after Jesus' birth, and in fact they had at least six children together. In the Bible the verb ‘to know’ is used to refer to sexual intercourse. Matthew is said to have ‘published’ his Gospel in about 39 AD. By then Mary would be past the age when she could have children, even if she was still alive. So for Matthew to write ‘firstborn’ means there were others later; if Mary had had only one child Matthew would have written ‘only born’.
§1:25 Only 0.5% of the Greek manuscripts, of objectively inferior quality, omit “her” and “the firstborn” (as in NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.). That is eight manuscripts against 1,454 that have been collated, but there are probably over 300 others yet to be collated that will swell the number against the eight. Why do so-called ‘evangelical’ scholars insist on damaging the Text based on such ridiculously inferior and inadequate ‘evidence’?