Is there an error in the counting of the generations in Matthew chapter 1?

If Matthew, indeed, looked at the genealogies, it could not be mistake — he would have copied the genealogy as he found it; if at the history, then there is no possible ground for confusion. Nor did the circumstances of the history afford any occasion thereto. It is a perfectly gratuitous supposition, without any foundation in fact. Matthew has left them out intentionally, or what he was led of God to copy did; and there is no mistake: he has counted the generations he has given, and he has counted them correctly. Had he put them in and said there were fourteen, mistake might have been alleged. He has omitted the first three descendants of Athaliah — Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah. It is easily to be believed that the Spirit of God led Matthew to take the Jewish registers, for such would be the authentic means of proving a genealogy where the public fact was to be proved. To men it would have been even more suited to his purpose than any other, for they could not reject it. To the believer the revelation of the fact was sufficient; but an appeal to what men acknowledge is a means the Holy Ghost uses continually in grace. No one who has paid the least attention to Hebrew genealogies can have any difficulty whatever. Whole families are given under a name, nay, whole peoples, or even under the name of a district, if they were known by it; they are recommenced again, if any one had the character of a new stock. Many links are often left out, provided the family relationship is established; little else is generally aimed at. This is evident, on comparing them.

The first is, that Matthew was under manifest mistake in inserting fourteen names instead of eighteen, and in saying that there were only fourteen generations. This is a poor objection in presence of the moral power of the gospels; it shews a mind descended on low ground: but we will consider it. That Matthew has omitted three kings, none disputes; but this does not prove he made a mistake in doing so. The point he is shewing is Christ's legal connection with the throne of David: this, the omission of the three names did not in the smallest degree affect. The descent and the proof of it remain identically the same. Matthew and every one else knew of these three kings. What was his motive in omitting them may or may not be discoverable; but it does not affect the descent. What he gives is perfectly right. Mr. N. says, "I was struck with observing that the corruption of the two names, Ahaziah and Uzziah, into the same sound (Oziah), has been the cause of merging four generations into one." (Phases, p. 107.) Now this is a mere assertion without the smallest foundation whatever. In the genealogy in 1 Chronicles, where the names are found together, there is no similarity in sound or anything else. Uzziah is not used, but Azarias, which does not resemble Ozias in sound or in any way. In the general history there are long chapters Or details which absolutely preclude all confusion. Where did this corruption of both names into the same sound exist? Not in the LXX: there, where brought together, we have Ὀχοζίυς and Ἀζαμίας. Nor is there any confusion between these names. Uzziah is called Ozias by the LXX in 2 Chronicles. But there is not the smallest ground whatever for saying there is any confusion with Ahaziah. Azariah and Uzziah are much more alike in Hebrew, and even interchanged; but it is Ozias in Greek where it is read Uzziah, and Azarias where it is read Azariah. But with Ahaziah there is never any confusion whatever.

82 The term "begat" is constantly employed in Hebrew for a descendant. But whatever the motive of Matthew, there is no mistake. He has left out three kings, the children of an apostate woman, recommencing with him in whose reign the prophecies of Messiah dawned brightly on Israel, and he has counted his genealogies aright. It is very possible that the words "Jehoiakim" and "Jehoiakin" are blended in Jechonias, because this happens in other authors, that is, the two names are written the same. But Mr. N. does not see that this makes no difficulty. Jehoiakim, or Eliakim, was older than Jehoahaz, and is named with his brethren, Jehoahaz being omitted, and Jechonias, or Jehoiachin, is spoken of only in Babylon, whither he was carried. Or Josias, being the last independent king of David's family, and Jechonias, being the one actually carried away, is put forward as marking the epoch, and Josias named as being the last king who had any free place in Israel, for Jehoahaz was carried, after three months' reign, into Egypt, and Judah never after raised its head; hence the whole family is thrown together as the children of Josias, Jechonias being singled out as the person led captive and the fresh royal stock in Babylon. In either case, the descent of David's family remains alike made good.

83 The reader will remark that the three epochs are characteristic of the state of Israel or Judah, beginning, of course, with Abraham. These objections, then, have not the least weight. No one is called to believe that fourteen is eighteen. Matthew counts the generations he has given in the Jewish style of twice seven.

The genealogy in Matthew speaks of decadence. Corruption, ruin and hopelessness is clearly brought out in it. It begins with Abraham. And as generation after generation is mentioned, it puts before us the shameful history of Israel , with their unbelief, apostasy and judgments. At last it becomes all dark and all hopeless as far as Israel is concerned. Like Sarah's womb, as she indeed stands in type for the nation, the whole nation was dead, no hope, all ruin and corruption. But God can bring life from the dead. "But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, come of woman, come under the law, that He might redeem those under the law, that we might receive sonship" (Gal. 4:4). It is so with this present dispensation, for after awhile when the Lord has taken to Himself His Church, darkness, ruin and evil will prevail, and in the darkest hour of Israel's believing remnant and in the history of the world, the Firstborn will come again into the habitable world surrounded by worshipping angels (Heb. 1:6).

The division of the genealogy is threefold. From Abraham to David, from David to the carrying away into the Babylonian captivity, and from the carrying away into Babylon to Christ (verse 17). In each division are fourteen generations, twice seven in each division. This brings in perfect harmony and order, as He who has given it all is the Spirit of order and not disorder (1 Cor. 14:33). Seven is a highly symbolical number, peculiar to Israel . Much of the history of Israel is divided into seven; the seventy years of Captivity, the seventy prophetic weeks in Daniel, the last week still future composed of seven years, etc., are well-known facts to every reader of the Word. Here it is three .times twice seven, which means fulfillment and completeness. A closer investigation shows at once that a number of generations have been left out. Attempts have been made to explain this in different ways. Many poor, shortsighted men have put it down as an error, and higher critics and unbelievers have pointed it out as an argument against the inspiration of the Word, and as an example of the contradictions, which, according to them, exist in the Scriptures. Others have charged Matthew with ignorance, and that by not knowing any better, he left these generations out. As a Jew, he was, without question, well acquainted with the Old Testament writings. He had full access to all the collections of books which we term Old Testament. Out of the historical books it would have been a very easy matter to get together a complete register of names, such as would have been in full accord with the object in view to satisfy the Jew. Man indeed would have done that if he had to write the genealogy, but Matthew did not write according to his own taste or wish; the Holy Spirit wrote every word, and He has found it good to make a number of omissions. For this reason, that which is so often claimed to prove that there are contradictions in the Bible, and that the Bible is not infallible, is really a witness for the divinity of the Scriptures. In all this arrangement, leaving out and changing, the Holy Spirit has a wise purpose, and it does not follow, if we in our shortsightedness do not understand it all, that there must be an error involved somewhere. He has the right to do it, and it has been His pleasure to leave out generations. This is also so in the case of another Old Testament genealogy (see Ezra 7).

The most prominent omission is in verse eight. Three kings are left out. These are Ahaziah, Joash and Amaziah. Who were they? They are the descendants of the daughter of wicked Ahab, Athaliah. Athaliah desired to annihilate the kingly seed of the house of Judah. This was a satanic attempt to frustrate the purposes of God. It was, like Haman's attempt, inspired by him who is a murderer from the beginning. It may be called Anti-Messianity. This is undoubtedly the reason why the Holy Spirit left out these three kings.

An example of this class is the statement about the fourteen generations in Matthew 1:17. But we discover that the fourteen generations from David to the captivity is reached by omitting the names of the kings more immediately descended from the wicked Athaliah, the daughter of the yet more infamous Jezebel. Their names to the third generation are kept out of the genealogy. Thus the apparent error is found to be due to the fact that God's thoughts and ways and reckonings are not ours. If apostasy supervenes He does not count the generations affected by it.

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.

This, then, is the genealogy of Christ as given us here. 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. Why is it, we may be permitted to ask, that the apostle Matthew drops, of course by inspiration, some of the links of the chain? The Spirit of God was pleased to arrange the ancestry of our Lord into three divisions of fourteen generations each. Now, as there were actually more than fourteen generations between David and the Captivity, it was a matter of necessity that some should be discarded in order to equalize the series, and fourteen only are therefore recorded. Indeed, if you examine the Old Testament Scriptures, you will find that it is not at all uncommon in genealogies to drop some of the links of the chain. More than twice as many as in our verse are omitted in one place (Ezra 7:3). Now it was Ezra himself who wrote that book, and of course he knew his own descent far more familiarly than we do. And if any of us, by comparison with other parts, can find out the missing links, much more could he. And yet, in giving his own genealogy (chap. 7), the Spirit of God is pleased by him to omit no less than seven generations. This is the more remarkable as no one could exercise his rights as a priest unless he could trace his line up to Aaron without any question as to the succession. I have no doubt that there were special reasons for the omission elsewhere no less than in our Gospel; but the motives for it are a very different question. One of them I have named. There were more than twice seven generations in at least the second division; and this may have been one reason why the writer should omit several of them. But why these in particular? 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. For Athaliah, enraged at the premature end of her son, king Ahaziah, was guilty of a too successful attempt to destroy the seed-royal. But it could not be complete; for that family was selected out of all the families of God's people, never to be entirely extinguished till Shiloh came. There was but a single youthful scion, whom Jehoshabeath saved by concealment in the house of the Lord. The light was covered with a bushel for a time; but it was not put out. The then son of David appeared. It was a time when Judah had fallen into manifold and ever-deepening evil. But as surely as that young Joash was brought out of his darkness, — as truly as the priest was there to anoint the king, and the union of the two things accomplished the great purpose of God,so it will be when the years of man's rebellion against God are full. He will come forth who has been long hidden and forgotten, and all the enemies shall be trampled down; and then will Judah flourish indeed under the King, the true Son of David. For all this was the type of the reappearing of the true Messiah by and by. But my design is not so much to dwell upon that now as to inquire and suggest briefly why it is that we have these few kings omitted. 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. This appears to be the moral reason why we find three persons left out at this particular point. Then, in verse 11 we read, "And Josias begat Jechonias and his brethren at the time of the removal to Babylon." It is evident that the method is summary, Jehoahaz, whom the people made king, and who reigned for but three months, not being specified, and Jehoiakim being often called by the same name as his son Jechonias.

As an important instance to test the unbelieving cavil, take the genealogy in the first chapter of Matthew's Gospel. This, pseudo-criticism will have to be a compilation of ignorance and mistake. It is often assumed that Matthew simply adopted the existing Jewish register, Gaps in such pedigrees were quite understood and made no difficulty where the line was sure, and give no real ground for the charge of discrepancy with other lists. Compare Ezra 7:1-5 with 1 Chr. 6:1-15 for the stem of Aaron. This was open to the inspiring Spirit here as elsewhere, if such were God's will. But the genealogy here has marks of design which we find only in scripture. It opens with marking out the Lord as "son of David, son of Abraham," the beginnings of the kingdom as settled of God for ever, and of the promises. Then it presents from Abraham to David fourteen generations, from David to the Babylonish migration as many, and the same from that migration to the birth of Christ.

It is universally known that three generations are omitted from the intermediate series. Nobody can with candour conceive that Matthew, whose Gospel displays pre-eminent and profound acquaintance with the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets, did not perfectly well know that Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah were here left out between Joram and Uzziah. Even an unenlightened Israelite could not be ignorant of a fact so patent. It was therefore due to purpose, in no reasonable way to oversight or confusion. It was intended to arrange the line with but twice seven in each of its three sections: the beginning of the stock of promise down to the king of God's choice; the course of the kingdom till its utter evil and humiliation in Babylon; and the faithfulness of God notwithstanding in preserving the royal line to the virgin's Son according to prophecy. As therefore some links must be dropped to effect this aim, who could be so fittingly omitted as these three descendants of the foreign and murderous Athaliah? The Jews themselves may well have done this in some register of theirs, assuredly not ignorant of what they did, but with moral design. Whether this was so or not, we cannot say, as the registers were lost at the destruction of Jerusalem. But the omission is plain at this point and to the extent of leaving the intended links of fourteen generations. Whatever may have been the motive of the writer, the fact is before all; and the character of the Gospel altogether refutes the imputation that it was lack of care, intelligence, or honesty. If he was inspired to give the genealogy, it is impossible that God could either lie or err.

Thus, if you take Ezra, for instance, giving his own genealogy as a priest, you find that he omits not three links only in a chain, but seven. Doubtless there may have been a special reason for the omission; but whatever may be our judgment of the true solution of the difficulty, it is evident that a priest who was giving his own genealogy would not put it forward in a defective form. If in one who was of that sacerdotal succession where the proofs were rigorously required, where a defect in it would destroy his right to the exercise of spiritual functions — if in such a case there might legitimately be an omission, clearly there might be the same in regard to the Lord's genealogy; and the more, as this omission was not in the part of which the Scripture speaks nothing, but in the centre of its historical records, whence the merest child could supply the missing links at once. Evidently, therefore, the omission was not careless or ignorant, but intentional. I doubt not myself that the design was thereby to intimate the solemn sentence of God 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 once more reappears here in Uzziah. These generations God blots out along with that wicked woman.

There was literally another reason lying on the surface, that required certain names to drop out. The Spirit of God was pleased to give, in each of the three divisions of the Messiah's genealogy, fourteen generations, as from Abraham down to David, from David to the captivity, and from the captivity to Christ. Now, it is evident, that if there were in fact more links in each chain of generation than these fourteen, all above that number must be omitted. Then, as we have just seen, the omission is not haphazard, but made of special moral force. Thus, if there was a necessity because the Spirit of God limited Himself to a certain number of generations, there was also divine reason, as there always is in the word of God, for the choice of the names which had to be omitted,

The genealogy is divided for us into three parts, which are specially emphasized as consisting of fourteen generations each. The fact that some links in the genealogic chain have to be omitted, in order that there may be just this number, still further shows that there must be importance in it. The number must be itself significant, and probably that of the parts as well as of the generations contained in each.

In fact, the first part of the genealogy embraces both the heads of promise ― both Abraham and David. The second begins at once with one in whom departure from God manifested itself, one whose heart went after other gods than the One Only God, whose special favor had been shown him. After which there is a general history of decline, three descendants of the apostate murderess, Athaliah, being blotted out of the list altogether; while the Babylonish captivity, which was the giving up of the nation as the openly acknowledged people of God, ends the story in this part.