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.
And the sons of Jeconiah Assir; Salathiel his son,
This verse names the sons of a king who was already a prisoner in Babylon, and carries his line on to Shealtiel. Behind the bare names lies a hard question — God had said no descendant of this man would ever sit on David's throne, so how does the promised King still come?
Jeconiah appears in Scripture under several names, and his story is short and bitter.
Son and successor of Jehoiakim king of Judah. According to 2 Kings 24:8 he began to reign when he was eighteen years old... He reigned only three months. Then Nebuchadnezzar took Jerusalem, and the great captivity of Judah was complete. Jehoiachin was taken to Babylon and held in prison for thirty-six years. When Evil-merodach came to the throne, he set Jehoiachin free and gave him a higher place than the other captive kings, and he ate at the king's table for the rest of his life. He is called JECONIAH in 1 Chronicles 3:16-17... He is also called CONIAH in Jeremiah 22:24, 28, and JECHONIAS in Matthew 1:11-12.
That is why this verse adds "the captive" to his name. Older translations read the same word as a personal name, Assir.
The kings listed just before this verse belong to Judah's last days.
From verse 15 on, after faithful Josiah's reign, we find the kings of the time of Judah's final ruin. The series ends with Zerubbabel, who came back from captivity but no longer carried the title of king.
Yet the list does not stop. Set it beside the list of the priests, and a difference stands out:
The priestly genealogy matches the royal genealogy (1 Chronicles 2, 3). But it ends here at the captivity. It does not run on past it, as the line of David does (1 Chronicles 3:19-24).
Jeremiah's sentence on Jeconiah sounds like the end of his family. This verse shows otherwise, and it may also explain a name missing from Matthew's list.
"Childless" here does not mean without descendants, for the prophecy itself mentions "his seed." It means "no direct heir of his own line to the throne" (Fausset). Matthew 1:12 shows plainly that he had descendants ("Jechonias begat Salathiel"), and so does 1 Chronicles 3:17 ("The sons of Jeconiah; Assir," etc.). The prophecy probably refers to his uncle taking the throne after him instead of his son Assir, who was likely his firstborn; or it may have been a prophecy that Assir would die young. That may be why Assir is not named in the genealogy in Matthew.
The ban fell on ruling, not on having children — and it ended the dynasty:
God had decreed that, as far as David's throne was concerned, he was to be written down as childless, because none of his seed would ever rule in Judah again. God had determined the end of this sinful line.
Matthew's line runs through this verse: Jeconiah, then Shealtiel. Long ago writers drew a strange conclusion from it.
As far back as Irenaeus, people pressed this conclusion: the direct line of descent here lies under a curse, and yet it did not lose the legal title. So it could hand on to someone else what could be 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 (Luke 1:32), while His mother's marriage made Him David's legal heir.
One writer follows the living descent through a different son of David. Luke names a different father for Shealtiel:
The line of descent from David through Solomon came to an end by God's sentence on the childless Jehoiachin... So Jechoniah was not the actual father of Salathiel. Matthew gives the succession, not the strict line of birth. We must now look for the heir to David's throne in the line of another of David's sons. Turn to Luke 3:27, and we learn that Salathiel's actual father was Neri, a descendant of Nathan.
Jeremiah pictured Coniah as a signet ring pulled off God's right hand. Haggai takes up the same picture and turns it around.
Haggai 2:20-23 are still another message from God... It looks on to the time when God will take the true seed of David (here still called "Zerubbabel my servant", a picture of Christ as "the prince of the house of David"), and make Him like a signet ring. Coniah, or Jeconiah, king of Judah, was faithless, and God plucked that signet off His right hand (compare Jeremiah 22:24). Christ is the opposite. He is the signet on God's right hand, to seal all His purposes for the nations and for His chosen people Israel.
- Captive. Jeconiah — also called Jehoiachin, Coniah and Jechonias — reigned three months. He then spent thirty-six years in a Babylonian prison, until a new king set him free and honoured him.
- Cursed. "Childless" did not mean without children; it meant no heir of his would ever rule in Judah again.
- Continued. The priests' list stops at the captivity. David's line runs past it and ends with Zerubbabel, who came home but was no longer called king.
- Conveyed. The cursed branch kept a legal title it could not use, and passed it on. Joseph's marriage gave Christ the legal right; birth from Mary made Him the real Son of David.
- Crowned. God plucked the signet off His hand in Jeremiah. In Haggai the signet is back — Christ, the true Seed of David, sealing all God's purposes.