And Judah begat Perez and Zerah of Tamar; and Perez begat Hezron and Hezron begat Ram;
All Commentaries on Matthew 1:3 Go To Matthew 1
Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
Observe that Matthew does not name both without a meaning; for though the object of his writing only required the mention of Phares, yet in the twins amystery is signified; namely, the double life of the nations, one by the Law, the other by Faith.
But how did Ruth who was an alien marry a man that was a Jew? and wherefore in Christ's genealogy did His Evangelist so much as mention a union, which in the eye of the law was bastard? Thus the Saviour’s birth of a parentage not admitted by the law appears to us monstrous, until we attend to that declaration of the Apostle, “The Law was not given for the righteous, but forthe unrighteous.” For this woman who was an alien, aMoabitess, a nation with whom the Mosaic Law forbad all intermarriage, and shut them totally out of the Church, how did she enter into the Church, unless that she were holy and unstained in her life above the Law? Therefore she was exempt from this restriction of the Law, and deserved to be numbered in the Lord's lineage, chosen from the kindred of her mind, not of her body.
