The first Mattan encountered in the historical narrative appears during one of the darkest hours of Judah’s spiritual declension. This Mattan was the high priest of Baal operating directly within the gates of Jerusalem during the tyrannical usurpation of Queen Athaliah. When Athaliah seized the throne by attempting to murder the entire seed royal, she systematically established the Phoenician worship of Baal within the holy city, installing Mattan to oversee the abominations of this foreign deity.
Mattan’s priesthood represented the ultimate betrayal of the true God of Israel, setting up graven images, altars, and incense stands in direct defiance of the temple of Solomon. However, his wicked tenure came to a violent end during the righteous coup engineered by Jehoiada the high priest. When the young King Joash was brought forth and crowned, the covenant-keeping remnant rose up to purge the land of idolatry, as precisely recorded in the King James Bible:
“And all the people of the land went into the house of Baal, and brake it down; his altars and his images brake they in pieces thoroughly, and slew Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars. And the priest appointed officers over the house of the LORD.” (2 Kings 11:18)
The parallel record in the Second Book of Chronicles confirms this absolute destruction of Baal’s sanctuary and the execution of its chief architect:
“Then all the people went to the house of Baal, and brake it down, and brake his altars and his images in pieces, and slew Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars.” (2 Chronicles 23:17)
By the slaughter of Mattan before his own compromised altars, Judah vindicated the truth, proving that every false system and its priesthood will ultimately be broken before the judgment of the Almighty.
Centuries later, the same name reappears in a context of pure grace and messianic fulfillment. The second Mattan recorded in Scripture is an essential link in the legal, royal lineage of Jesus Christ. This Mattan lived during the late intertestamental period, an era when the visible throne of David had been cast down, yet the providential hand of God was quietly preserving the royal seed in obscurity.
Mattan was the grandfather of Joseph, the husband of Mary, making him the legal great-grandfather of the Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh. Through his line, the legal right to the Davidic crown was safely transmitted through the Babylonian captivity down to the generation of the Messiah’s birth. The Holy Spirit has eternally secured his place in the opening registry of the New Testament:
“And Eliud begat Eleazar; and Eleazar begat Matthan; and Matthan begat Jacob; And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.” (Matthew 1:15-16)
While the first Mattan used his life to offer the “gift” of Jerusalem’s devotion to a dead idol, the second Mattan was used by God to carry forward the lineage that would introduce the ultimate Gift to all mankind—the Lord Jesus Christ, who came to destroy the works of the devil and deliver His people from their sins.