Mattatha

Mattatha appears once in scripture, as a link in the Lukan genealogy of Jesus.

A Link in the Genealogy

The genealogy in Luke traces the ancestry of Jesus back through David. Mattatha stands between Menna and Nathan, the son of David through whom the line passes:

"the [son] of Melea, the [son] of Menna, the [son] of Mattatha, the [son] of Nathan, the [son] of David," (Lu 3:31).

Nothing further is recorded of Mattatha himself; his significance lies in the unbroken chain from David through Nathan that the text places him within.

A different man bearing a closely related name also appears in scripture, in the post-exilic record of foreign-marriage dissolutions. Among the sons of Hashum, Ezra lists "Mattenai, Mattattah, Zabad, Eliphelet, Jeremai, Manasseh, Shimei" (Ezr 10:33). This Mattattah is one of the men who had married foreign wives and put them away under the reform; he has no connection to the Lukan ancestor of Jesus.