And Solomon's son was Rehoboam; Abijah his son, Asa his son, Jehoshaphat his son,
Four names in a row — Rehoboam, then Abijah, Asa, Jehoshaphat — open a list of kings that runs from Solomon down to the exile. Why would God record a chain of fathers and sons at all? And what was He guarding by keeping it unbroken?
Many readers skip a chapter like this. One writer faced that objection head-on:
But someone may still challenge us like this: "Do you believe that God inspired the long string of names in the opening chapters of 1 Chronicles — those family lists? Were they written for our learning? And if so, what are we to learn from them?" We say without hesitation that we reverently believe God inspired every one of them. And we have no doubt at all that later on, the history of the people these lists specially belong to will fully prove their value, interest and importance.
The list starts with Solomon, and Solomon had no natural right to that place:
"And these were born to him in Jerusalem, Shimea and Shobab and Nathan and Solomon." Solomon was the last of these "four by Bathsheba the daughter of Ammiel." The Spirit of God takes care to say so. No one may boast in God's presence. The last becomes the first. The purpose of God alone triumphs. Solomon, the last of the four, son of the woman who had been the wife of Uriah, is the man chosen for the throne.
The phrase "his son" repeats down the whole line of kings. One writer explains what that repetition marks out:
Verses 10 to 24 give us Solomon's direct descendants. The words "his son" repeat again and again down to Zedekiah. They underline the contrast between descendants who come by grace and descendants who come by nature, as we have seen in the history of Edom.
The line ran unbroken from David to Josiah. What happened when it snapped told the nation where it stood with God:
In 1 Chronicles 3 we return to 1 Chronicles 2:15. The chapter lists David's sons and successors down to Josiah, in regular succession from father to son. It was God's order, and it held even when conspirators killed the father. So a break in this succession would be strong evidence that God had cast off the nation. And in fact that order did break after the death of Josiah, and the wrath began to fall as it had not before. As soon as God stops appointing to the throne, Satan steps in. Through his agents, the kings of Egypt and of Babylon, he sets up men on the throne whom God rejected and gave up to judgment.
The line had to survive, because a promise hung on it:
This future Son was to be "the offspring of David," so David's line had to last until He appeared. That is why God had promised David "to give to him always a lamp, and to his sons" (2 Chron. 21:7). Now, how was this lamp going to shine in the royal house until the appearing of the promised Son? How was it to pass through man's poisoned air and moral darkness without going out? Had it gone out, David's true Heir could never have appeared. Satan understood this. If he could manage to put out the lamp, all of God's counsels concerning the "Just Ruler over men" would come to nothing. The enemy did everything he could to crush this light. He failed. The Son of David appeared in the world and won the victory over Satan.
These names are not only a record of the past. They trace a purpose God had for the earth from the start:
The purpose of God is traced down first from nature in Adam, down to the kingly purpose in David and his line. Such was God's intention for the earth. It had come under a curse, but God always meant to reconcile, as we know, all things; so the Jew is here given to understand. Here is the certainty that God would recover the kingdom; He would restore the kingdom to Israel. Yet they misunderstood the timing. The disciples did the same.
- Grace chooses. Solomon, the youngest of four brothers, heads the royal list. Birth order counted for nothing; God's purpose alone triumphs.
- Grace records. The repeated "his son" marks out a line held by grace rather than by natural right.
- Grace orders. Father-to-son succession was God's own arrangement. When it collapsed, the break showed that God had set the nation aside.
- Grace protects. God promised David a lamp that would always burn, and Satan's attempts to put it out failed.
- Grace arrives. The list runs toward a King still to come, and carries the certainty that God will yet restore the kingdom.
Joram his son, Ahaziah his son, Joash his son,
This verse is a bare link in a chain: three kings of Judah, each named as the son of the one before. Yet two of these names go missing when Matthew traces the ancestry of Jesus. Why does Chronicles keep what the New Testament drops?
The phrase "his son" repeats all the way down the list. One writer finds meaning in that repetition:
Verses 10 to 24 give us Solomon's direct descendants. The words "his son" repeat again and again down to Zedekiah. They stress the contrast between the descendants according to grace and those according to nature, as we have seen in the history of Edom (1 Chron. 1:43-54).
Ahaziah, named second in this verse, took his direction from his mother:
He reigned, and "he also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab." His mother was that infamous Athaliah, the daughter of Omri. "His mother was his counselor in doing wickedly." … That is, the first evil begun by a godly king continues. The practice of his son is far from godly, for the bad example of a good man has immense influence, especially with those who are not good.
Matthew 1:8 runs straight from Joram to Uzziah. That skips the two kings named here, and Amaziah after them. Commentators treat the gap as deliberate:
It is evident that the omission was not careless or ignorant, but intentional. I do not doubt myself that the design was to signal God's solemn sentence on the connection with Athaliah, of the wicked house of Ahab, the wife of Joram. (Compare verse 8 with 2 Chron. 22 - 26.) Ahaziah vanishes, and Joash, and Amaziah, when the line reappears here in Uzziah. These generations God blots out along with that wicked woman.
If the reason were simply personal wickedness, other names would have gone too. One writer raises that objection and answers it from the second commandment:
The list includes Ahaz, Manasseh and Amon, each one infamous for very great wickedness. That seems to rule out the idea that wickedness is why these three were left out. So why are they excluded? Here we have a striking example of the principle so clearly expressed in the second commandment: "I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate Me." … Jehoshaphat was personally a good man. But by marrying his son Jehoram to Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, he brought down on his own descendants, to the third generation, the curse that rested on the house of Ahab.
The same writer draws a practical lesson from what followed:
For three generations we read of wholesale massacres in cold blood. … Athaliah, when her son Ahaziah died, killed all the royal children of the house of Judah except Joash. … Those who think it a light thing to be unequally yoked with unbelievers should look carefully at the sad history of the house of Jehoshaphat down to the fourth generation.
Joash is the third name here. He survived, and commentators see God's own faithfulness in that:
The royal house of Israel is destroyed without leaving a single man, and God begins the trial of His patience again with a new dynasty, that of Jehu. But it is not so with the house of Judah. The faithful God keeps His word, for He had promised David "a lamp to him and to his sons forever" (2 Kings 8:19). In the person of Joash He keeps alive for Himself a feeble candle stub which He does not put out.
The rescued king did not stay faithful to the end:
Joash did what was right in the sight of the Lord in his young years, and for as long as Jehoiada the priest lived. But once that faithful counsellor was gone, he fell prey to the flattery of his princes. He let them bring back groves and idols. He killed Zechariah, the son of his old friend, when Zechariah testified to the truth. In the end he died at the hands of his own servants.
One writer says what Chronicles is really tracing:
It sets David before us as the object of God's counsels about the kingship. Those counsels find their full accomplishment in Christ, the Son of David.
- Son — the repeated "his son" marks this out as a line held by grace, not by natural right.
- Marriage — Joram's marriage to Athaliah brought Ahab's house into David's. Ahaziah then followed his mother's counsel, and no unequal yoke is a small thing.
- Erased — Matthew leaves Ahaziah, Joash and Amaziah out. God's sentence on that connection reached the third generation.
- Lamp — yet Joash survives, because God had promised David a lamp, and He kept a feeble flame burning.
- Christ — Chronicles keeps the names for the sake of the throne, and that throne finds its full accomplishment in Christ, the Son of David.
Amaziah his son, Azariah his son, Jotham his son,
Three names pass by in a single breath here: a father, a son, and a grandson in the royal line of Judah. Each name carries its own story, and one of the three never appears in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1.
The words repeated after each name carry as much weight as the names. One writer reads the whole point of the chapter out of that repetition:
Verses 10 to 24 give us Solomon's direct descendants. The words "his son," repeated again and again down to Zedekiah, stress the contrast between descendants who come by grace and descendants who come by nature. We saw the same contrast in the history of Edom.
The same writer points to where this royal line is heading:
It presents David as the object of God's plans for the kingship — plans that Christ, the Son of David, will fully carry out.
Amaziah's verdict carries a reservation inside it:
"He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, yet not with a whole heart." "Yet not like David his father," we read; "he did in all things as Joash his father had done." The children of God show this same lack of heart-devotion.
That reservation was not harmless. It showed itself at the close of his life:
Amaziah did right in the sight of the Lord at the beginning of his reign, but not with a whole heart. In the end he worshipped the gods of Edom and would not listen to God's prophets.
The Azariah of this verse is the king better known as Uzziah. Commentators explain his two names in more than one way. One writer ties the change to the day he forced his way into the temple:
Neither usual explanation satisfies: that a scribe confused similar letters, or that he carried two names. The two names do not even mean quite the same thing. Azariah means "Jehovah helps," Uzziah means "My strength is Jehovah." Perhaps Azariah was his real name. Then, after he dared to force his way into the sanctuary and leprosy struck him for life, his name was changed to the related Uzziah — "My strength is Jehovah" — to mark that the "help" he had received had depended on his relation to the LORD.
A Bible dictionary draws the warning out of his reign:
Uzziah is a solemn example of a man who walked well until he was "strong," and of a man not chosen by God trying to take up the work of a priest.
The third name is Jotham. His short record draws a contrast with his father:
The words "he did not enter the temple of the LORD" mean that he did not act as his father Uzziah did, when he pushed his way into the work of the priests… "He became mighty, because he prepared his ways before the LORD his God." That statement is the key to all his success and prosperity. He lived and walked in the presence of the Lord. He was guided, strengthened, and kept by Him. This is what all God's people need. Preparing our ways before the Lord is still the way, the only way, to blessing and success.
Yet one blot remained on his reign, and it was not his own:
How good it is to find a king of Judah ending well, when so many who began well finished badly. There is only one blot on his reign, and it is not a personal one: "the people still followed corrupt practices."… Jotham walked well before God, but he did not have the moral power to put the people right.
Set this verse beside Matthew's genealogy and something is gone:
Names are left out of Matthew's list, and this brings the whole into the three divisions of "fourteen generations." Ozias is placed as the son of Joram. But look at 1 Chronicles 3:11-12, where Ozias is called Azariah, as he also is in 2 Kings 14:21, and you will see that three kings are left out: Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah. Such omissions are found in the genealogies of the Old Testament.
Commentators differ over the reason. One writer reads a deliberate judgment in the gap:
So the omission was clearly not careless or ignorant, but intentional. I have no doubt that the aim was to mark God's solemn sentence on Joram's connection with Athaliah, of the wicked house of Ahab. Ahaziah vanishes, and Joash, and Amaziah, and then the line reappears here in Uzziah. These generations God blots out along with that wicked woman.
Another writer declines to settle the motive at all, insisting only that nothing is lost by it: "What was his motive in omitting them may or may not be discoverable; but it does not affect the descent."
- Grace, not nature. The repeated "his son" marks a line carried by God's choice rather than natural right — a kingship aimed at Christ, the Son of David.
- Amaziah, the halved heart. He did right, but not with a whole heart, and a divided start ended in Edom's gods and a refusal to hear God's prophets.
- Azariah, the strong man. Also called Uzziah, he walked well until he was strong, then reached for a priesthood that was not his.
- Jotham, the ordered way. He would not repeat his father's intrusion; he became mighty because he prepared his ways before the LORD.
- The blotted name. Chronicles keeps Amaziah, but Matthew 1 leaves him out. Commentators differ: one traces the gap to Matthew's three sets of fourteen, another to God's sentence on Joram's marriage to Athaliah.
Ahaz his son, Hezekiah his son, Manasseh his son,
Three names stand side by side here: Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh. A faithless father, a son who reopened the house of God, and a grandson who became the worst king Judah ever had — the verse says nothing but "his son," and leaves us asking how such a line survived at all.
One phrase holds this list together from Solomon onward.
Verses 10 to 24 give us Solomon's direct descendants. The words "his son," repeated again and again down to Zedekiah, highlight the contrast between the descendants according to grace and those according to nature.
The same writer notes that the family of David carries the mark of God's choice from the start: Amnon the firstborn heads the list only to be set aside, and Solomon, a younger son, receives the throne — "nature's order is of no value."
The first name belonged to a king who lacked nothing except godliness.
He does not seem to have been a persecutor. Unlike his grandson Manasseh, he did not shed innocent blood or put the prophets to death. He had much that people admire and celebrate today — his name, Ahaz, means possessor. But all this, without godliness, is worth absolutely nothing. It seems he never repented. He died as he had lived: "and Hezekiah his son reigned in his place."
The middle name is the surprise. Nothing in Ahaz explains Hezekiah.
If piety is not passed down from father to son, grace can work in the heart and direct the steps of someone who had the most wicked father. This was the case with the son of Ahaz. The way Hezekiah sought the glory of his God shows remarkable faith and energy.
Look at what he grew up seeing.
The Lord's power and goodness show in this: Hezekiah was a good king, and his father was the worst who had yet sat on the throne. Ahaz had surrounded him with idolatry. He had idols in every separate city, in every grove, on every high hill; he had shut the doors of the Lord's house. Wherever Hezekiah looked, an idol met his eye. And yet in the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the Lord.
The third name reverses the second. It carries a warning for any parent who trusts in good teaching alone.
Manasseh was twelve years old when he succeeded his father Hezekiah. So he was born during the fifteen extra years of life that Hezekiah received in answer to his prayers and tears. There can be no doubt that Manasseh was taught the ways of God with care. Hezekiah himself said, "the father makes known to the children Your faithfulness." … Despite his early advantages Manasseh became the wickedest king Judah had ever known.
The same writer adds that the king of Assyria dragged Manasseh away to a prison in Babylon. There "Manasseh's downfall brought him to his senses," and he humbled himself and prayed.
Why does a line this damaged keep going? A promise held it, and a Person was coming through it.
This future Son had to be "the offspring of David." So David's line had to last until He appeared. That is why God had promised to give David a lamp always, and to give one to his sons. Now, how was this lamp going to shine in the royal house until the appearing of the promised Son? How was it to pass through man's poisoned air and moral darkness without going out? If it went out, David's true Heir could never appear.
God did not choose good men to carry this line.
But when it is a question of grace, God does not take perfect men to make up Christ's lineage. He chooses sinful men — often from among the worst of them — or sinful women. This shows the freedom of His choice.
- "His son" — the repeated phrase carries the line forward. It marks descent by grace, not by nature.
- Ahaz — he had much that people admire. Without godliness it was worth nothing, and he died unrepentant.
- Hezekiah — faith is not inherited. He grew up among his father's idols, yet opened the doors of God's house in his first month.
- Manasseh — teaching alone does not save. The best-taught son became the worst king, until trouble brought him to his senses.
- The lamp — through all three, God kept His promise of a lamp for David's sons. Grace chose the worst of men to carry the line to Christ.
Amon his son, Josiah his son.
1 Chronicles 3 traces David's royal line as a chain of fathers and sons. Here two links sit side by side: one of Judah's worst kings, and the son God used to bring revival.
The list is not just a record of births. One commentator points to the phrase repeated from Solomon down to the last king before Babylon:
Verses 10 to 24 give us Solomon's direct descendants. The words "his son" are repeated again and again down to Zedekiah. They point up the contrast between the descendants according to grace and those according to nature.
Amon did not die in his bed, yet the throne still passed to his own son. One writer treats that unbroken order as the test of whether God had given up on the nation:
In 1 Chronicles 3 we return to 1 Chronicles 2:15. The chapter gives David's sons and successors down to Josiah in regular succession, father to son. It was God's order, and it held even when conspirators killed the father. So a break in this succession would be strong evidence that God had cast off the nation. And in fact that order did break after Josiah died, and God began to pour out His wrath as He had not before.
So this verse holds the last links before the chain breaks. Josiah is the final name in God's order.
Amon gets one word in this verse. He was as far from God as his father Manasseh. A commentator sees even his violent end turned to good:
But first notice this. The early death of the wicked king Amon was an event full of blessing for Judah. The throne was suddenly left empty, and a child now filled it. Several hundred years earlier, the man of God who spoke against the altar of Jeroboam had announced that child's name at Bethel (1 Kings 13:2).
Others add that the people themselves acted to keep the throne in David's family:
However, Amon's servants were not able to take control of the government. The people of the land intervened and executed the servants responsible for Amon's death. This appears to be the energy of faith, for they made sure that one of the true line of David took the throne, even though he (Josiah) was only eight years old.
Nothing in Josiah's upbringing explains what he became. One commentator traces the family line to show where his revival came from:
The main mark of these revivals is that they are entirely the fruit of the grace of God. No one sees them coming. No preparatory work leads into them. No sign of repentance in the people comes first. They are the direct work of the Spirit of God, and they break out in a brilliant way while Judah lies in ruin. Hezekiah is the son of a godless father, Ahaz, who gave himself to idol worship. Hezekiah's son Manasseh turned even further from God than Ahaz had. Manasseh's son Amon was just as far from God, but Amon's son — Manasseh's grandson Josiah — is the instrument of the second revival in Judah.
The same principle runs the other way too. A godly father cannot hand faith on as an inheritance:
There is no such thing as succession in grace. The son of the most faithful father needs to be born again just as much as the most degraded of mankind. This is written clearly on many a page of the word of God. "You must be born again."
Behind this bare father-and-son notice stands a promise. One commentator explains what was at stake in every generation:
But for this future Son to be "the offspring of David," David's line had to continue until He appeared. That is why God had promised David "to give to him always a lamp, and to his sons." Now how was this lamp going to shine in the royal house until the promised Son appeared? How was it to pass through man's poisoned air and moral darkness without going out? Had it gone out, David's true Heir could never have appeared. Satan understood this. If he could put out the lamp, all of God's counsels concerning the "Just Ruler over men" would come to nothing. But despite all the enemy's efforts to put out this light, the Son of David appeared in the world, won the victory over Satan, and became for the Church the Yes and Amen of all God's promises.
- Lamp — God promised David a lamp in his house, because the promised Son had to come from his line. Every "his son" in this chapter is that lamp still burning.
- Air — The lamp had to pass through poisoned air. Amon is that air: a king as far from God as his father Manasseh, killed by conspirators.
- Order — The lamp was handed on anyway. Father-to-son succession held even through a palace murder. When it finally broke, that break showed God had cast off the nation.
- Grace — The lamp is never inherited. Nothing prepared Josiah's revival, and it came out of the worst home in the list. There is no succession in grace: every son needs new birth for himself.
- Christ — The lamp reached its goal. Despite every effort to put it out, the Son of David appeared and won the victory over Satan. That is why this line of names was kept.
And the sons of Josiah the firstborn Johanan, the second Jehoiakim, the third Zedekiah, the fourth Shallum.
The verse pauses the royal line to name four sons of Josiah, the last real king of Judah, and three of them sat on a collapsing throne. So why does Chronicles list the family in this order, and not in the order they reigned?
One writer sets three records side by side: Chronicles, Kings, and Matthew.
Here in 1 Chronicles 3 we appear to have all the sons of Josiah. 2 Kings 23 and 2 Chronicles 36 name only those who were made kings. But Matthew gives the right line from Josiah, leaving out the side branches, down to Joseph the husband of Mary. The firstborn died in Egypt, so it is the second son who carries on the line. He is carried to Babylon, and so is his son Jeconiah, who was born before the carrying away.
The fourth name is the puzzle. Shallum does not appear under that name in Kings or Chronicles. Writers differ over which son died in Egypt: one names the firstborn, while this reference work names Shallum and also says why "the fourth" does not mean "the youngest."
Son of Josiah king of Judah: he succeeded his father, but he reigned only three months. Pharaoh-necho then removed him from the throne and took him to Egypt, where he died. 1 Chr. 3:15; Jer. 22:11-12. He is called JEHOAHAZ in 2 Kings 23:30-34; 2 Chr. 36:1-4. The margin of 1 Chr. 3:15 identifies Johanan with Jehoahaz, but Jer. 22:11-12 shows it was Shallum who reigned under the name of Jehoahaz. He was evidently not the youngest son, though last on the list.
Up to this verse the line has run father to son. Now it runs brother to brother, and foreign kings do the appointing. One writer reads that break as a signal.
In 1 Chronicles 3 we return to 1 Chronicles 2:15. The list runs through David's sons and successors down to Josiah, in regular succession from father to son. This was God's order, and it held even when conspirators killed the father. So a break in this regular succession would be strong evidence that God had cast off the nation. And in fact the break came after the death of Josiah, and God began to pour out His wrath as He had not before. The moment God stops appointing kings, Satan steps in. Through his agents, the kings of Egypt and of Babylon, he sets up men on the throne whom God rejected and gave up to judgment.
One writer places Josiah's sons alongside other famous sons who went wrong.
For a time, the godly influence of Josiah touched the priests, the Levites and the people. But his own sons do not seem to have taken in the life and deeds of their father. If Josiah could have foreseen the evil ways of his sons, he would have had to say with David, in the words of an older translation, "My house is not so with God." Think of the sons of Aaron, the sons of Eli, the sons of Samuel, and the sons of Josiah. Their evil ways are a solemn warning to every godly father. He must watch his own house, in case the evils he hates and condemns in others turn up in his own family.
The prophets say more about these men than the history books do, and what they say about Shallum is bleak.
The prophetic books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel tell us more about the evil ways of the sons of Josiah than the historical books of Kings and Chronicles do. About Shallum we read in Jer. 22:10-12: "Weep not for him who is dead [Josiah], nor grieve for him, but weep bitterly for him who goes away [Shallum], for he shall return no more to see his native land." This suggests that something worse than mere deportation was in store for Josiah's worthless successor.
These sons take the royal line into captivity. One writer shows what the Spirit of God still does with it there.
There was great confusion when the people were driven as captives to Babylon. Yet in it the Spirit of God connects the last real king of Judah — Josiah — with his descendant born in Babylon. So Matthew has Josiah, Jeconiah, Salathiel; the dark time of Josiah's sons is shortened. Compare 1 Chron. 3:15-17 with Matthew 1:11-12. In Matthew the promised Seed appears, the last of the line. He will have no successor, for He lives for ever.
- Four named. Chronicles gives Josiah's whole family. Kings and 2 Chronicles name only the sons who reigned. Matthew keeps only the line that leads to Christ.
- Order broken. Father-to-son succession held all the way down to Josiah. After him brother follows brother. One writer reads that break as evidence God had cast off the nation.
- Powers step in. Once God stops appointing kings, Egypt and Babylon appoint them — men set up only to be given up to judgment.
- Legacy lost. Josiah's godly influence did not reach his own sons. Evil held in check in public can still be alive at home — a warning to every godly parent.
- Line kept. Through the ruin the Spirit still traces the royal line to the promised Seed. He is the one King who needs no successor, because He lives for ever.
And the sons of Jehoiakim Jeconiah his son, Zedekiah his son.
In 1 Chronicles 3:16 the royal list of Judah stops recording reigning kings and starts recording captives. It names Jeconiah and Zedekiah. Jeconiah carries both a sentence from God and the line that runs on to the Messiah.
Chronicles traces David's family from Solomon down. From verse 15 the names belong to the kingdom's collapse.
From verse 15 onward, after faithful Josiah's reign, we find the kings who reigned at the time of Judah's final ruin. The list ends with Zerubbabel, back from captivity but no longer holding the title of king.
Until Josiah the crown had passed from father to son without a break. One writer reads the end of that pattern as proof of something worse:
So a break in this orderly succession would be strong evidence that God had cast off the nation. And in fact that order was broken after the death of Josiah, and God's wrath began to pour out as it had not before. The moment God stops appointing men to the throne, Satan steps in. Through his agents, the kings of Egypt and of Babylon, he sets up men on the throne whom God rejected and gave up to judgment.
The verse says "his son" twice. One writer finds a point in that repeated phrase:
The words "his son" are repeated again and again down to Zedekiah. They bring out the contrast between descendants given by grace and descendants who come by nature, as we saw in the history of Edom.
The succession did not run through Josiah's eldest son.
The line goes on not through the first-born, who died in Egypt, but through the second son. Babylon takes him away, and with him his son Jeconiah, who was born before the exile. Out of all Josiah's sons and grandsons, the Spirit of God picks out this grandson to keep the true genealogy from David to the Messiah.
Jeconiah is also called Coniah and Jehoiachin. Jeremiah said of him: "Write this man down as childless, a man who shall not succeed in his days, for none of his offspring shall succeed in sitting on the throne of David and ruling again in Judah" (Jer. 22:30). Yet he did have children, so the word "childless" needs care.
The point of this verse is not that he would have no family, for it speaks of his offspring, and Matthew 1:11-12 shows his descendants. What we are told is that God had decreed him childless as far as the throne of David was concerned, because none of his offspring would rule in Judah any more. God had determined the end of this sinful line.
If a curse rests on the reigning line, how can a Son of David ever reign? One answer separates the legal right to the throne from the power to use it:
The genealogy shows a ruin that is hopeless except to God, because it shows Joseph, the last in this line before Christ, to be Jeconiah's son... The direct line of descent lies under a curse, yet it did not lose the legal title. So it could hand on to another what was of no use to itself. In the wisdom of God, the marriage of Joseph and Mary was the means of doing this. The Lord's birth from Mary made Him the real Son of David, while His mother's marriage made Him David's legal heir.
Commentators differ here. Others trace Mary through a different son of David: "The Messiah, the Son of David, could not come from the line of Solomon; He must come from the line of Nathan" (Arno Clemens Gaebelein).
Some names in this part of Chronicles do not match Matthew's list. One writer sees a reason behind that:
As a matter of policy the king of Babylon might change their Hebrew names to Babylonian ones, just as he did with Daniel and his three friends. He would naturally try to wipe from their minds every memory of who they were... and if so, it was just as much an attempt by Satan to lose God's line of kings in the common mass of Gentile names.
The Zedekiah named here is not the famous king. A Bible dictionary separates the last king of Judah, "the name given by Nebuchadnezzar to Mattaniah, son of Josiah," from a second man: "Son of Jeconiah, or Jehoiachin, king of Judah. 1 Chr. 3:16" (Morrish Bible Dictionary).
- Break. The father-to-son order that held from David to Josiah snaps here. That break marks a nation under judgment.
- Line. Out of all Josiah's sons and grandsons, the Spirit keeps Jeconiah as the link from David to the Messiah.
- Curse. "Childless" does not mean without children. It means no descendant of his would ever reign in Judah again.
- Title. The cursed line kept a legal right it could no longer use, and handed it on. Born of Mary, Christ is the real Son of David; through Joseph He is the legal heir.
- Grace. Babylon changed names and emptied the throne, but the record of David's family came through captivity intact, and it runs to the Messiah.