The first verse

The first verse of Matthew reads, in Greek:

Βίβλος γενέσεως Ίησού Χριστού
υιού Δαυίδ
υιού Αβραάμ.

In English, word for word:

Book of lineage of Jesus Christ
of son David
of son Abraham.

Clearly, a word-for-word translation will often cause some confusion, and in many cases is hardly even possible.

In this verse, the first word is 'βίβλος,' which is pronounced, using modern Greek pronounciation, 'VEE-vloes' (The 'oe' of the second syllable indicates a long 'o' sound, as in 'hope'.)

Βίβλος means, generally, 'a book.' Greek does not always use a separate word for a/an.

The word 'γενέσεως' ('yeh-NEH-seh-oes') causes a bit more difficulty, since it is not the dictionary form of this word, which means 'lineage,' or 'genealogy,' or 'birth.' The dictionary form is 'γένεσις.'

The form used here - γενέσεως - indicates that this word is in the genitive case, and in this instance should be translated by adding the word 'of.'

A book of lineage

At this point, English translations will typically add 'the', to make the verse clearer in English:

A book of the lineage


The next two words in the verse are Ἰησού Χριστού ('Ee-ee-SOU Hrees-TOU') - 'Jesus Christ.' These two words are also in the genitive case, again indicating that the word 'of' should be added.

A book of the lineage of Jesus Christ

This is followed by two phrases (υιού Δαυίδ and υιού Αβραάμ) which further describe Jesus - as the son (υιού) of David (Δαυίδ) and the son (υιού) of Abraham (Αβραάμ).

The word for son - υιού - is also in the genitive case here; it is pronounced, approximately, 'ee-YOU'.

Δαυίδ is pronounced - be careful here - 'thah-VEED'. Note that the first letter - the delta - is not pronounced like an English 'd', but like the soft 'th' sound in 'that.'

Αβραάμ is pronounced 'Ah-vra-AHM'.


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Note: I am using a simplified (monotonic) accent system throughout this blog for typewritten Greek.