The Gospel of Matthew begins Jesus’s genealogy with Abraham.
Matthew 1:1 introduces Jesus as the “son of David, the son of Abraham,” then traces the line through Isaac, Jacob, Judah, and later King David. The genealogy is arranged in three groups of fourteen generations, moving from Abraham to David, from David to the Babylonian exile, and from the exile to Jesus.
This differs from the genealogy in Luke, which reaches back to Adam and follows a different sequence of names. Matthew’s opening emphasizes Jesus’s place within the history of Israel and connects him with the promises associated with Abraham and David.
Readers sometimes confuse Matthew’s genealogy with Luke’s because both present a family line for Jesus. Matthew places the genealogy at the start of his Gospel, while Luke places his after Jesus’s baptism.