and Ezekias begat Manasses, and Manasses begat Amon, and Amon begat Josias,
Four kings stand in one line here: Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amos, Josiah. In them Judah falls to its lowest point and then rises again. Why does Matthew name the worst king Judah ever had among the ancestors of the Messiah?
Matthew is not the only writer who gives Jesus' family line. Luke gives one too, and the two lists do not match.
Matthew 1:1-16 gives our Lord's genealogy, and another genealogy occurs in Luke 3:23-38. The two genealogies are different. Matthew traces the descent through Joseph in the royal line (as son of David). Luke traces it through Mary, in the natural descent from Adam (as son of man).
Anyone tracing a royal family tree would leave out the shameful names. Matthew leaves them in.
We might see sin upon sin, stain upon stain, woven into their various histories. It was one continuous fabric of what would make a Jew blush — what a man would never have dared of himself to bring out about a king he honoured. God, in His infinite goodness, would not let these things be forgotten... He is a Messiah who comes in search of sinners, and who would despise no needy one.
The middle name in this verse belongs to a king God broke and then forgave.
God brought the king of Assyria against Manasseh, who bound him with chains of brass and carried him to Babylon. There Manasseh, in his affliction, greatly humbled himself, and prayed to the Lord his God. His prayer was heard, and he was restored to Jerusalem. Then he knew that Jehovah was God... So God gave repentance to this wicked king, for His mercy endures forever. He is often held up as a trophy of God's marvellous grace in Old Testament times. Saul of Tarsus and the thief on the cross are held up in the same way in New Testament times... He is called MANASSES in Matthew 1:10.
Hezekiah, named just before him, had been given fifteen extra years of life. Commentators tie those years to the son named next.
Manasseh was only 12 years old at the time of his father's death, so he was born during the extra fifteen years that God had allowed Hezekiah. Manasseh was given 55 years to reign over Judah, but he was the most wicked king Judah ever had... We are surely taught here that God knew better what was good for Hezekiah than Hezekiah thought. We should learn to bow to God's will at all times, whatever we may think about it.
Amos — called Amon in some translations — had his father's whole story in front of him: the ruin and the recovery. He copied one and refused the other.
Unlike his father, Amon reigned only two years. He must have known that his father had repented and completely changed his ways. But this had no proper effect on Amon. He did not humble himself at all, but sinned more and more... His evil was so great that even his own servants had no respect for him, but conspired together and killed him in his own house. How sad that he had learned nothing either from the folly of his father or from the repentance of his father!
The verse ends with Josiah. The moment he took the throne was as dark as Judah ever knew.
The moment at which he came to the throne of his fathers was one of unusual gloom and heaviness. The tide of corruption, fed by many streams, had risen to its highest point. In His patience and long-suffering God had long held back the sword of judgement. Now it was about to fall in terrible severity upon the city of David.
Josiah came from Manasseh's line — the same king God had forgiven.
Though Jerusalem was destroyed because of his sin, Manasseh himself could receive a free and full pardon from the God of Israel. God valued that prayer for pardon, offered in the prison in Babylon, so highly that He had it recorded, to encourage other repentant sinners who would come back to Him. And God gave to that wicked king who humbled himself a little grandson, Josiah, who proved to be one of the very best of Judah's long line of kings. Such is the grace of God.
- Line. Matthew follows the royal line through Joseph, as son of David. Luke follows the natural line through Mary, back to Adam.
- Honesty. The list keeps the shameful names instead of hiding them. The King it leads to came looking for sinners.
- Mercy. Manasseh, Judah's worst king, humbled himself in captivity. God heard him, forgave him, and had his prayer recorded to encourage other sinners.
- Warning. Amon knew both his father's sin and his father's repentance. He copied the sin, refused the repentance, and died at his own servants' hands after two years.
- Fruit. Out of that same house came Josiah, one of Judah's best kings, at the nation's darkest hour. Grace runs from one end of the verse to the other.
and Josias begat Jechonias and his brethren, at the time of the carrying away of Babylon.
Matthew's list of royal names reaches its lowest point here. A king is carried off to Babylon, and the throne of David goes with him. It raises two long-debated questions. Who is "Jechoniah"? And how could a line under God's judgment still carry the promise of the Messiah?
One reading takes the man named here to be Jehoiakim, called by his son's name:
Jehoiakim is often called by the name of his son Jechoniah. Both names mean the same thing in Hebrew: the Lord will establish. Jehoiakim was carried away into Babylon (2 Kings 24:15). He had brothers, which Jechoniah did not (1 Chron. 3:15). So it becomes clear that Jechoniah here is Jehoiakim.
Commentators differ. Others hold that Matthew leaves Jehoiakim out, so this verse names his son. One writer points to how Hebrew uses the word "begat", and finds either explanation leaves the record intact:
In Hebrew, "begat" is constantly used for a descendant. Whatever Matthew's motive, there is no mistake... It is very possible that the words "Jehoiakim" and "Jehoiachin" are blended in Jechonias. This happens in other authors: the two names are written the same... Or Josiah was the last independent king of David's family, and Jechonias was the one carried away. He is put forward to mark the epoch, and Josiah is named as the last king who had any free place in Israel... In either case, the descent of David's family remains equally made good.
Jehoiakim's name is missing between Josiah and Jeconiah. One writer points to what Jeremiah wrote about that king:
We only need to look at Jeremiah 22:13-19. It gives ample reasons why the name of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah and father of Jeconiah, is left out of Matt. 1:11. "Those who honour Me I will honour, and those who despise Me shall be lightly esteemed."
Why brothers, in a list that otherwise names one man per generation? Judah's last years supply the answer:
Jeconiah's brothers are mentioned for a reason. Several of his close relatives were briefly put on the throne of Judah around the time of the captivity (2 Chron. 36:1-4, 10). Later the king of Babylon set Jeconiah free and treated him well (2 Kings 25:27-30). That is a picture of Judah's royalty being revived.
Jeremiah had pronounced that no descendant of this king would sit on David's throne. That sentence hangs over every name that follows in Matthew's list:
The genealogy shows the ruin hopeless except for God. Joseph, the last of the line here before Christ, is shown to be Jeconiah's son. And against Jeconiah prophecy had declared (Jer. 22:30) that as to the throne he should be "childless... for none of his offspring shall succeed in sitting on the throne of David and ruling again in Judah." As far back as Irenaeus this conclusion was pressed: here the direct line of descent is struck with a curse. Yet it was not stripped of the legal title. It could therefore hand on to another what was of no use to itself. The marriage of Joseph and Mary was, in the wisdom of God, the means of accomplishing this. The Lord's birth from Mary made Him the real Son of David (Luke 1:32). The marriage of His mother made Him David's legal heir.
In Babylon the captives were given new names. One writer sees more than politics behind that:
As a matter of policy, the king of Babylon might change their Hebrew names to Babylonian ones. He did the same with Daniel and his three companions. He would naturally seek to erase from their minds all memory of what they were... and if so, this was equally an attempt on Satan's part to swamp God's line of kings in the common mass of Gentile names. They were driven as captives to Babylon. Yet in that confusion the Spirit of God connects Josiah, the last real king of Judah, with his descendant born there.
This deportation closes the middle section of Matthew's list. One writer traces where the last stretch leads:
The second division runs from David until the carrying away to Babylon. The third is from that captivity until Christ. This last was clearly the evening history of Israel's past. But that evening is not the close. It ends with the brightest light of all — a picture of the day when at evening-time there shall be light... The splendour of Israel had declined. Israel was now broken and subject to the Gentiles. Even so, the recorded decline ends in the birth of the true Messiah.
- Ruin named. Here the kingdom falls and Judah's kings go to Babylon.
- Ruin recorded. Matthew drops Jehoiakim's name on purpose. Jeremiah 22 gives the reason.
- Ruin sealed. Jeconiah's line kept the legal title to the throne but carried a curse: none of his offspring would rule in Judah.
- Ruin outflanked. Mary gave the Lord real descent from David; Joseph's marriage gave Him the legal claim.
- Ruin answered. The evening section of the genealogy ends not in darkness but in the birth of the true Messiah.