Before Wright published the first two volumes of his Christian Origins and the Question of God series (1992; 1996) the discussion concerning late Second Temple Jewish concepts of exile was a quiet one. Since then, however, more and more scholars have begun to weigh in. Champions of the theory contend that Second Temple texts convey a matrix of concerns that together demonstrate a Jewish consciousness of being in a state of ongoing exile, notwithstanding the residency in the land of a significant population and a functioning temple. Dissenters argue that these scholars are illegitimately privileging one motif within a highly complex ancient religion, and assigning it a metanarrative role it never truly had. Others contend that 'ongoing' exile is too narrow of a description to account for the diversity of attitudes across several sects. Only recently, though, have major works been produced that thoroughly examine the primary texts in question. In the process, a growing chorus of voices is supporting, with various levels of enthusiasm, the thesis that a significant number of late Second Temple Jewish groups indeed understood themselves to be languishing in some form of exile: ongoing exile since the sixth century bce, in the throes of recurring cycles of exile, or a set of historic realities characterized with exilic metaphors.

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A handful of scholars have recently focused on the importance of “the deportation to Babylon” in Matt 1:11, 12, 17 and the determinative role it plays for understanding the author’s conceptualization of redemptive history. Others, however, demur. This article draws attention to three observations heretofore neglected in the discussion of what “the deportation to Babylon” might mean for appreciating the narrative’s theological setting, as well as interpreting the entire gospel: (1) an “interrupted chiasm"; (2) the precise meaning of μετοικεσία in 1:11, 12, 17; and (3) the enumeration of the generations in 1:17. The aggregate effect is to read Matthew’s genealogy in apocalyptic terms as an attempt to assert Yahweh’s covenantal faithfulness despite the chaos of historical events—namely, the exile that inhibits the path to fulfilling Davidic and therefore also Abrahamic promises.

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