and Asa begat Josaphat, and Josaphat begat Joram, and Joram begat Ozias,
Comentário deste versículo
The striking feature of Matthew 1:8 is what it omits. The verse reads, "Joram begat Ozias" — but between Joram (Jehoram) and Ozias (Uzziah), three kings of Judah are silently passed over: Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah. This is no scribal error. It is a deliberate act of the Spirit of God, and the commentators are remarkably united in explaining why.
The Omission Is Intentional
F. Hole states plainly:
F. Hole"The list given is remarkable for its omissions, since three kings, closely connected with the infamous Athaliah, are omitted in verse 8; and the summary as to the 'fourteen generations,' given in verse 17, shows that it is not an accidental omission, but that God disowns and refuses to reckon the kings that sprang more immediately from this devotee of Baal-worship."
J.N. Darby observes:
J.N. Darby"It is the legal genealogy which is given here, that is to say, the genealogy of Joseph, of whom Christ was the rightful heir according to Jewish law. The evangelist has omitted three kings of the parentage of Ahab, in order to have the fourteen generations in each period. Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim are also omitted. The object of the genealogy is not at all affected by this circumstance. The point was to give it as recognised by the Jews, and all the kings were well known to all."
Why These Three Kings?
The moral reason goes deeper than arithmetic. Jehoshaphat, a godly king, made the disastrous mistake of joining affinity with Ahab, king of Israel, and his son Jehoram married Athaliah, daughter of Ahab and likely of Jezebel. The three omitted kings — Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah — were Athaliah's descendants, tainted by that idolatrous stock.
William Kelly explains at length:
William Kelly"There are certain omissions in the list, and persons of some learning have been alike weak and daring, enough to impute a mistake to St. Matthew which no intelligent Sunday scholar would have made. For a child could copy what was clearly written out before him; and certainly Matthew could easily have taken the Old Testament and have reproduced the list of names and generations given us in the Chronicles and elsewhere. But there was a divine reason for omitting the particular names of Ahaziah, Joash and Amaziah from verse 8 — three generations."
He then identifies the cause:
a divine reason for omitting the particular names of Ahaziah, Joash and Amaziah"Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab, king of Israel, and wife of Jehoram, had thus entered by marriage the royal house of David; and a sorrowful hour it was indeed for Judah. ... The answer seems to be, that they sprang from Athaliah. Hence they were completely passed over. We find God thus marking His resentment at the introduction of that wicked and idolatrous stock from the house of Ahab. Athaliah's descendants are not mentioned even to the third generation."
Wm. C. Reid traces the chain of Jehoshaphat's unholy alliances with Ahab's house and concludes:
Wm. C. Reid"God has very plainly marked His displeasure of the unholy alliance of Jehoram and Athalia, for in the genealogy of the line of David in Matthew 1:8, three generations of this marriage have been purposely omitted by the Spirit of God."
The Double Seven — A Structural Design
The reading notes in the Bible Treasury highlight the numerical significance:
"There are some names omitted in this genealogy in connection with Athaliah, the daughter of Jezebel. In each division there is a double seven — the perfect number; but to make these sevens, three names are left out. The government of God had great prominence in the Old Testament. That will account for those names being omitted; the house of Ahab was horrible to Him."
The Consequences of the Alliance
An article on the Kings of Judah traces the full fruit of Jehoshaphat's association with Ahab — Jehoram murdered all his brothers, Ahaziah was slain by Jehu, and Athaliah herself massacred the seed royal — and concludes:
"God's displeasure at the union of a son of David with the idolatrous house of Ahab was not only marked by these judgments, but also by the exclusion from the genealogy of three generations of the progeny of this unholy alliance (Matt. 1:8)."
The omission thus serves a double purpose. Structurally, it maintains the Spirit's chosen pattern of three divisions of fourteen generations — three sets of double seven, the number of divine completeness. Morally, it enacts the governmental principle of Exodus 20:5, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third generation. The line of Ahab and Jezebel, introduced into the house of David through Jehoshaphat's ill-judged alliance, is struck from the Messianic record. Such omissions are not uncommon in Scripture — Kelly points out that Ezra omits seven generations from his own priestly genealogy (Ezra 7:3) — but in Matthew 1:8 the reason is unmistakably governmental: God refuses to reckon, even in the ancestry of His own Son, the fruit of that unholy alliance with the house of Baal.