Jesse
Father of David, the Root of Jesse
Son of Obed; father of David; the stump from which Messiah springs
Father of David and grandson of Boaz and Ruth. Isaiah's messianic prophecy of the shoot from the stump of Jesse (Isa 11:1) gave the Church its enduring image of the messianic genealogy as a flowering tree.
Jesse of Bethlehem is the father of David, and through that fatherhood one of the load-bearing names of biblical prophecy. In 1 Samuel 16, when Samuel comes to Bethlehem to anoint a new king, Jesse parades seven sons before the prophet — and God passes over every one. It is the youngest, David, still out with the sheep and not thought worth summoning, whom God chooses, with the famous lesson that 'the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart' (1 Samuel 16:7).
Jesse's lasting place in Christian imagination comes from Isaiah. 'There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots' (Isaiah 11:1) — and again, 'there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people' (Isaiah 11:10), a verse Paul applies directly to Christ (Romans 15:12). From this prophecy the medieval Church developed the 'Tree of Jesse,' the great image — carved in stone, glowing in stained glass — of a tree rising from the sleeping patriarch's side, branching up through the kings of Judah to the Virgin and the Christ-child at its summit. Jesse is the root; Christ is the flower.
Sources & Citations
- 1 Samuel 16
- Isaiah 11:1, 10
- Matthew 1:5–6
- Romans 15:12