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Mattan

Mattan [Heb. mattan "gift"]. A personal name.

1. A priest of Baal who was slain in Jerusalem before his altar during a religious reform and political turnover coordinated by the priest Jehoiada (2 Kgs 11:18; 2 Chr 23:17). After the crowning of Joash as king and the successful overturn of Athaliah, the idolatrous queen of Judah (2 Kgs 11:1-15), Jehoiada led the newly anointed king and the people into a covenant of loyalty to the Lord (1 Kgs 11:17). The first recorded action following this covenant was the destruction of the temple of Baal and the killing the Baal's priest, Mattan (2 Kgs 11:17-18).

2. A person listed in Jesus' genealogy as the son of Eleazar and father of Jacob, father of Joseph, the adoptive father of Jesus (Matt 1:15).

3. Father of Shephatiah, an official at King Zedekiah's court who hated Jeremiah and plotted his imprisonment (Jer 38:1-4).

C. Adelina Alexe

Citation

Footnote:

C. Adelina Alexe, “Mattan,“ Seventh-day Adventist International Biblical-Theological Dictionary (2026-), ed. Daniel K. Bediako and Keldie Paroschi, https://dictionary.adventist.org/mattan, accessed October 28, 2026

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