“1. There is some diversity among commentators in making out the three divisions, each of fourteen generations, v. 17. It is, however, obvious, that the first division begins with Abraham and ends with David. But does the second begin with David, or with Solomon? Assuredly with the former; because, just as the first begins apo Abraham, so the second also is said to begin apo David. The first extends heos David, and includes him; the second extends to an epoch and not to a person; and therefore the persons who are mentioned as coeval with this epoch are not reckoned before it. After the epoch the enumeration begins again with Jechoniah, and ends with Jesus. In this way the three divisions are made out thus:—

1. Abraham.
2. Isaac.
3. Jacob.
4. Judah.
5. Phares.
6. Esrom.
7. Aram.
8. Aminadab.
9. Naasson.
10. Salmon.
11. Boaz.
12. Obed.
13. Jesse.
14. David.

1. David.
2. Solomon.
3. Roboam.
4. Abiah.
5. Asa.
6. Josaphat.
7. Joram.
8. Uzziah (Ozias).
9. Jotham.
10. Ahaz.
11. Hezekiah.
12. Manasseh.
13. Amon.
14. Josiah.

1. Jechoniah.
2. Salathiel.
3. Zorobabel.
4. Abiud.
5. Eliakim.
6. Azor.
7. Sadoc.
8. Achim.
9. Eliud.
10. Eleazar.
11. Matthan.
12. Jacob.
13. Joseph.
14. Jesus.

“2. Another difficulty arises from the fact, that between Joram and Ozias, in v. 8, three names of Jewish kings are omitted, viz. Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah; see 2 K. 8, 25 and Chr. 22, 1. 2 K. 11, 2. 21 and 2 Chr. 22, 11. 2 K. 12, 21. 14, 1 and 2 Chr. 24, 27. Further, between Josiah and Jechoniah in v. 11, the name of Jehoiakim is also omitted; 2 K. 23, 34. 2 Chr. 36, 4. comp. 1 Chr. 3, 15, 16. If these four names are to be reckoned, then the second division, instead of fourteen generations, will contain eighteen, in contradiction to v. 17. To avoid this difficulty, Newcome and some others have regarded v. 17 as a mere gloss, ‘a marginal note taken into the text.’ This indeed is in itself possible; yet all the external testimony of manuscripts and versions is in favour of the genuineness of that verse. It is better therefore to regard these names as having been customarily omitted in the current genealogical tables, from which Matthew copied. Such omissions of particular generations did sometimes actually occur, ‘propteres quod malæ essent et impiæ,’ according to R. Sal. Jarchi; Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. in Matth. 1, 8. A striking example of an omission of this kind, apparently without any such reason, is found in Ezra 7, 1-5, compared with 1 Chr. 6, 3-15. This latter passage contains the lineal descent of the high-priests from Aaron to the captivity; while Ezra, in the place cited, in tracing back his own genealogy through the very same line of descent, omits at least six generations. A similar omission is necessarily implied in the genealogy of David, as given Ruth 4, 20-22. 1 Chr. 2, 10-12. Matth. 1, 5, 6. Salmon was contemporary with the capture of Jericho by Joshua, and married Rahab. But from that time until David, an interval of at least four hundred and fifty years (Acts 13, 20,) there intervened, according to the list, only four generations, averaging of course more than one hundred years to each. But the highest average in point of fact is three generations to a century; and if reckoned by the eldest sons they are usually shorter, or three generations for every seventy-five or eighty years. See Sir I. Newton's Chronol. p. 53. Lond. 1728.

“We may therefore rest in the necessary conclusion, that as our Lord's regular descent from David was always asserted, and was never denied even by the Jews; so Matthew, in tracing this admitted descent, appealed to genealogical tables, which were public and acknowledged in the family and tribe from which Christ sprang. He could not indeed do otherwise. How much stress was laid by the Jews upon lineage in general, and how much care and attention were bestowed upon such tables, is well known. See Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. in Matth. 1, 1. Comp. Phil. 3, 4, 5.

“II. Other questions of some difficulty present themselves, when we compare together the two genealogies.

“1. Both tables at first view purport to give the lineage of our Lord through Joseph. But Joseph cannot have been the son by natural descent of both Joseph and Heli (Eli), Matth. 1, 16. Luke 3, 23. Only one of the tables therefore can give his true lineage by generation. This is done apparently in that of Matthew; because, beginning at Abraham, it proceeds by natural descent, as we know from history, until after the exile; and then continues on in the same mode of expression until Joseph. Here the phrase is changed; and it is no longer Joseph who 'begat' Jesus, but Joseph ‘the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called the Christ.’ See Augustine, de Consensu Evangel. II. 5.

“2. To whom then does the genealogy in Luke chiefly relate? If in any way to Joseph, as the language purports, then it must be because he in some way bore the legal relation of son to Heli, either by adoption or by marriage. If the former simply, it is difficult to comprehend why, along with his true personal lineage as traced by Matthew up through the royal line of Jewish kings to David, there should be given also another subordinate genealogy, not personally his own, and running back through a different and inferior line to the same great ancestor. If, on the other hand, as is most probable, this relation to Heli came by marriage with his daughter, so that Joseph was truly his son-in-law (comp. Ruth 1, 8. 11. 12); then it follows, that the genealogy in Luke is in fact that of Mary the mother of Jesus. This being so, we can perceive a sufficient reason why this genealogy should be thus given, viz. in order to show definitely, that Jesus was in the most full and perfect sense a descendant of David: not only by law in the royal line of kings, through his reputed father, but also in fact by direct personal descent through his mother.

“That Mary, like Joseph, was a descendant of David, is not indeed elsewhere expressly said in the New Testament. Yet a very strong presumption to that effect is to be drawn from the address of the angel in Luke 1, 32; as also from the language of Luke 2, 5, where Joseph, as one of the posterity of David, is said to have gone up to Bethlehem, to enroll himself with Mary his espoused wife. The ground and circumstances of Mary's enrolment must obviously have been the same as in the case of Joseph himself. Whether all this arose from her having been an only child and heiress, as some suppose, so that she was espoused to Joseph in accordance with Num. 36, 8, 9, it is not necessary here to inquire. See Michaelis ‘Commentaries on the Laws of Moses,’ Part II. § 78.