And Ezekias begat Manasses; and Manasses begat Amon; and Amon begat Josias;
The verse continues the succession from Abraham through David and Solomon to Jesus, recording that Hezekiah fathered Manasseh, Manasseh fathered Amon, and Amon fathered Josiah. It belongs to Matthew's tracing of Jesus' royal, legal descent through Joseph, his reputed father, in the male line through David and Solomon, since heirship was reckoned through the father. As Joseph's legal son, Jesus inherited by right the kingdom and throne of David as Son of David and King of the Jews. The pedigree thus establishes his identity as the promised Messiah and Seed, connecting Abraham's promised seed with Jesus and his rightful descent from Abraham and David. It also shows he truly entered the human family by birth with a pedigree, through a line that included wicked and sinful ancestors, so he shares humanity's weakness and sorrows in order to sympathize, conquer sin, and save sinners.
Words and Genealogical Setting
Hezekiah fathered Manasseh, Manasseh fathered Amon, and Amon fathered Josiah, continuing the succession that runs from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Jesse and David through Solomon and Rehoboam and on through Hezekiah toward the birth of Jesus. This is the royal ancestry of Jesus, tracing Joseph's legal descent through Solomon's line from David with descent reckoned through the male line. On this legal side through Joseph, the lawful father of Jesus, the links from Hezekiah to Manasseh to Amon to Josiah carry forward the line from David through Solomon and Rehoboam and show Jesus legally entitled to the throne of Israel as Joseph's lawful son. The Solomon blood carried here was in both Joseph and Mary, because Matthew's royal line and Luke's blood line from Adam to Mary through Nathan meet in Salathiel and Zorobabel. This genealogy of Matthew 1:1-17 was among the Gospel records known to Julian, who raised an objection to it.
The word rendered begat denotes a man fathering a child, as it does throughout the genealogy. Generation here means steps in family descent such as father, son and grandson, counted from father to son. The whole list is counted as forty-two generations from Abraham to Christ, arranged in three sections of fourteen generations: from Abraham to David, from David until the carrying away into Babylon, and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ. Those three groups of fourteen, or double sevens, mark Hebrew history's patriarchal, royal and exilic phases. Some generations are omitted, as is sometimes done in biblical genealogies.
The list is selective rather than complete at every step, presenting royal inheritance from David to Joseph rather than an uninterrupted father-to-son record. Its omissions are deliberate to fit the plan of three fourteens, leaving out three generations so the list fits, and the names omitted were familiar kings of Judah, not unknown persons. Some names in the line represent descendants farther removed from the preceding king. As Joseph's reputed and lawful son, Jesus is thus presented as entitled to David's throne. Its selected links should not be treated as a complete record for calculating chronology.
Comparing the years covered by its successive groups of fourteen gives different average lengths, so the genealogy does not establish a fixed number of years for a generation or a timetable for Christ's coming. Those forty-two generations have been used to reckon a generation at somewhere in the vicinity of forty or more years, but God has given no definition of a generation as a fixed number of years and has not designed to fix that time in the last generation. A generation was probably longer in the days of the antediluvian patriarchs than at present, and the word generation sometimes means race, people or nation, and sometimes the people living upon the earth at one time.
The verse belongs to the preserved line of Judah, showing that Jesus' parents belonged to the Jewish people through David and the tribe of Judah. It traces Jesus' lineage through Judah, whose family line was preserved so that the ruler's descent and Jesus' connection to Judah could be established, and Judah's tribe remained together until Jesus came, when Christ became the center to whom God's people gather. In this record continuing through Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon and Josiah, the tribe through which Christ came is preserved. The record in Matthew 1:1-17 identifies Jesus Christ as the son of Abraham and presents him as the perfect Jew. Israel was chosen because they were the seed of Abraham and was set apart from other nations so the Messiah could be identified in this way, fulfilling God's promise to Abraham that all the nations of the earth would be blessed in his Seed, which is Christ.
The genealogy presents Jesus' ancestors as real people in a literal line of descent, connecting creation, Eden and the early generations through Abraham to Joseph, Mary and Israel. The genealogies traced by Matthew and Luke connect his lineage to Abraham, whose ancestry was regarded as proof of Israelite citizenship and a claim to the blessings of the covenants, while Luke traces it further back to Adam. This places Adam and the other named ancestors in the same real history as Joseph, Mary and Israel, and connects the accounts of creation, Eden and the early generations to Israel's later history. Without Genesis, whose lineage runs to the beginning, the Gospel genealogy cannot be verified. Its frame and background is the society, life and intellectual and religious development in Palestine, giving the historical setting for the picture of Christ.
It is a plain historical record whose value is not found by assigning its names a hidden spiritual meaning. It is preserved in Scripture as original documents having the flavor of contemporary authorship, raw material for history rather than finished history, spread before readers without editorial alteration or correction to bring it into harmony with the records of the kings of Judah and Israel. That lack of anxiety to vindicate consistency shows perfect simplicity and guileless confidence and the artlessness of conscious truth. Its rawness, incompleteness and redundancy, with no fitting together or adjusting to any system or theory, prove the facts have not been filtered through professional authors, and discrepancies in such materials are inevitable and show the real character of the materials as the primitive facts on which all systematic history must be founded.
Legal Royal Descent
Matthew's list is the royal, legal genealogy tracing Jesus' descent through Joseph, His reputed father and legal father, in the male line from David through Solomon, since heirship and inheritance were reckoned through the father. Hezekiah to Manasseh to Amon to Josiah continues that reigning house carried from Abraham through David to Joseph, presenting Jesus' royal descent and claim to kingship. As Joseph's lawful son, though Joseph was not His biological father, Jesus inherited by right the kingdom and the throne of David as Son of David and King of the Jews, heir to that reigning house and son of Abraham through whom the promises came. That kingly line is complete in its purpose yet selective as biblical genealogies sometimes are, omitting some generations and arranging them in groups of fourteen.
Luke gives a different genealogy with a distinct purpose, tracing Jesus as son of man in literal blood line through Mary back to Adam, from David through Nathan, Solomon's brother. Under Jewish law Joseph was Jesus' legal father while His physical descent came through Mary, and Joseph is named in Luke's line according to the custom of naming males instead of females, because genealogies were reckoned through the male line and because he was Mary's husband. Heli there is understood as Mary's father and Joseph's father-in-law, with Mary treated as daughter of her father and Jesus as Joseph's son, while one explanation holds Heli may have been another name for Joseph. The two lines meet in the course of time.
Mary also belongs to David's royal family, so Jesus has natural descent through her as well as legal descent through His marriage connection to Joseph's line. The Solomon blood carried through Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon and Josiah was in both Joseph and Mary, because Matthew's royal line and Luke's blood line from Adam to Mary through Nathan meet in Salathiel and Zorobabel. The differing numbers of generations in Matthew and Luke are explained by their tracing different family lines, with more names in Mary's line. One explanation treats the genealogy leading from Abraham to Christ, arranged in three sections of fourteen generations with some generations omitted, as tracing Mary's line.
Messiah and Covenant Promise
Matthew 1:10 belongs to the genealogy that traces Jesus' ancestry through Joseph, his reputed father, back through David to Abraham. That human descent through the kings of Judah establishes His identity as the promised Messiah and heir of the everlasting covenant made with Abraham and renewed to David. It supports His claim as the promised Seed and royal Heir by showing His rightful descent from Abraham, and it identifies Him as the Minister of the covenant. The record of Manasseh, Amon and Josiah continues that descent through David and Abraham to prove He is the Son of David and the true Messiah who was to come.
The recorded pedigree was necessary to preserve the link in Abraham's family line leading to Christ and to connect Abraham's promised seed with Jesus the divine Seed. It gives the genealogical record identifying Jesus Christ as the son of Abraham and establishes His rightful descent from Abraham and David and His claim as royal Heir. Israel was chosen because they were the seed of Abraham and was set apart from other nations so the Messiah could be identified in this way.
That succession preserves the lineage through which God's promises to Abraham were to be fulfilled. It establishes Christ's claim to Abraham's promised inheritance, which includes the whole world. In that Seed, which is Christ, God's promise to Abraham that all the nations of the earth would be blessed is fulfilled.
The verse places Manasseh and Amon in the royal line from David to Josiah. This traces Jesus' earthly pedigree through Judah's kings and links Him to David. That linkage prepares for the transition from the earthly priesthood to Christ's heavenly service.
Preservation and Scriptural Reliability
Despite Satan's efforts to destroy the promised line through the family of David, God preserved that lineage so that Jesus' earthly lineage could be traced back through the line of promise, with Manasseh and Amon standing in its succession toward Jesus. The carefully preserved royal genealogy from Abraham through David and Solomon to His birth bears witness to the reliability of Scripture and to Jesus' place in the promised royal line.
God chose one family and planted them as a separate people, removing and destroying idolatry from their land to acquaint them with truth, so that the world might be assured that the promises and prophecies were fulfilled in Messiah. When nations became grossly immoral He overthrew them by flood, fire, storm, earthquake, or by other nations to answer the end of justice, and His overthrow of the enraged Egyptians in mercy to His people and His extermination of the nations of Canaan, sunken in idolatry and sensuality, was mercy to the race. This dealing unfolded the doctrines and facts of Messiah's future kingdom, while the Levitical law displayed God's wisdom in the gradual development of the great plan of salvation, both to make it plain to human reason and to impress it deeply on the human heart. The genealogy recording the descent from Hezekiah through Manasseh and Amon to Josiah was among the Gospel records known to Julian, who raised an objection to it.
Humanity and Sinful Ancestors
Matthew 1:10 belongs to the tracing that proves Jesus truly descended from the human race rather than merely appearing in a human body, for He entered this world by birth into the human family and possessed a pedigree from Adam onward. His human ancestors join Him to humanity's sorrows and needs, so that He can be trusted as a brother who knows human experience and sympathizes with human weakness. His descent from David shows He was born in human flesh through ancestors subject to the same human iniquities as the rest of the race, entering humanity to conquer sin and lift people back to God and righteousness. That hereditary line is the history of His earthly ancestors through which He accepted humanity after four thousand years of sin had weakened the race, sharing its sorrows and temptations while living a sinless life.
The genealogy places Jesus among sinful ancestors, including men and women who were bad and some who were not Jewish, showing that Christ came to save sinners and did not refuse to be born among them. Manasseh stands in that line as one of its wicked ancestors, alongside both evil and good members of the family, showing that Jesus descended through a line marked by human sin and inherited liability. The exceptional inclusion of Ruth, a Moabitess and ancestress of David, points to His brotherhood with aliens and Gentiles, while the other women included point to His kinship with sinners. Unlike Melchizedek the priest, who had no beginning of days as an infant and no end of life, Christ was both born and died, proving that Christ and the Melchizedek who met Abraham were distinct individuals, with Christ being another priest after the same order.
Faith and Promised Inheritance
Matthew 1:10 belongs to the genealogy that proves believers have a right through faith in Christ to the blessing promised to Abraham. It supports the assurance that those promises belong to Abraham's spiritual descendants. Natural descent is a privilege and an opportunity, yet by itself it does not guarantee heirship. Through faith in Christ, believers share Abraham's promised inheritance of the world and become joint heirs with Christ to David's throne.
Generations and Chronology
Generation here means steps in family descent such as father, son and grandson, counted from father to son in the human genealogy from Abraham to the birth of Jesus. That genealogy is summed up as three periods of fourteen generations each: from Abraham to David, from David until the carrying away into Babylon, and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ. Counted in that father-to-son way, the forty-two generations listed from Abraham to Jesus have been reckoned at somewhere in the vicinity of forty years or forty or more years to each generation. Together with the genealogies in Genesis 11 and Luke 3, the same father-to-son counting supports the claim that fewer than two hundred generations span six thousand years.
The Bible gives no definition of a generation as a fixed number of years, and has not designed in the last generation to fix that time. Comparing the years covered by the successive groups of fourteen generations gives different average lengths, so the forty-two generations from Abraham to Christ do not establish a fixed number of years for a generation. That average of about forty or more years therefore gives no dependable measure for the length of a generation in chronology and no timetable for Christ's coming.
A generation was probably longer in the days of the antediluvian patriarchs than at the present time. The word generation sometimes means race, people, nation, and sometimes means the people living upon the earth at one time.
The verse continues the succession from Abraham through David and Solomon to Jesus, recording that Hezekiah fathered Manasseh, Manasseh fathered Amon, and Amon fathered Josiah. It belongs to Matthew's tracing of Jesus' royal, legal descent through Joseph, his reputed father, in the male line through David and Solomon, since heirship was reckoned through the father. As Joseph's legal son, Jesus inherited by right the kingdom and throne of David as Son of David and King of the Jews. The pedigree thus establishes his identity as the promised Messiah and Seed, connecting Abraham's promised seed with Jesus and his rightful descent from Abraham and David. It also shows he truly entered the human family by birth with a pedigree, through a line that included wicked and sinful ancestors, so he shares humanity's weakness and sorrows in order to sympathize, conquer sin, and save sinners.
Words and Genealogical Setting
Hezekiah fathered Manasseh, Manasseh fathered Amon, and Amon fathered Josiah, continuing the succession that runs from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Jesse and David through Solomon and Rehoboam and on through Hezekiah toward the birth of Jesus. This is the royal ancestry of Jesus, tracing Joseph's legal descent through Solomon's line from David with descent reckoned through the male line. On this legal side through Joseph, the lawful father of Jesus, the links from Hezekiah to Manasseh to Amon to Josiah carry forward the line from David through Solomon and Rehoboam and show Jesus legally entitled to the throne of Israel as Joseph's lawful son. The Solomon blood carried here was in both Joseph and Mary, because Matthew's royal line and Luke's blood line from Adam to Mary through Nathan meet in Salathiel and Zorobabel. This genealogy of Matthew 1:1-17 was among the Gospel records known to Julian, who raised an objection to it.
The word rendered begat denotes a man fathering a child, as it does throughout the genealogy. Generation here means steps in family descent such as father, son and grandson, counted from father to son. The whole list is counted as forty-two generations from Abraham to Christ, arranged in three sections of fourteen generations: from Abraham to David, from David until the carrying away into Babylon, and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ. Those three groups of fourteen, or double sevens, mark Hebrew history's patriarchal, royal and exilic phases. Some generations are omitted, as is sometimes done in biblical genealogies.
The list is selective rather than complete at every step, presenting royal inheritance from David to Joseph rather than an uninterrupted father-to-son record. Its omissions are deliberate to fit the plan of three fourteens, leaving out three generations so the list fits, and the names omitted were familiar kings of Judah, not unknown persons. Some names in the line represent descendants farther removed from the preceding king. As Joseph's reputed and lawful son, Jesus is thus presented as entitled to David's throne. Its selected links should not be treated as a complete record for calculating chronology.
Comparing the years covered by its successive groups of fourteen gives different average lengths, so the genealogy does not establish a fixed number of years for a generation or a timetable for Christ's coming. Those forty-two generations have been used to reckon a generation at somewhere in the vicinity of forty or more years, but God has given no definition of a generation as a fixed number of years and has not designed to fix that time in the last generation. A generation was probably longer in the days of the antediluvian patriarchs than at present, and the word generation sometimes means race, people or nation, and sometimes the people living upon the earth at one time.
The verse belongs to the preserved line of Judah, showing that Jesus' parents belonged to the Jewish people through David and the tribe of Judah. It traces Jesus' lineage through Judah, whose family line was preserved so that the ruler's descent and Jesus' connection to Judah could be established, and Judah's tribe remained together until Jesus came, when Christ became the center to whom God's people gather. In this record continuing through Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon and Josiah, the tribe through which Christ came is preserved. The record in Matthew 1:1-17 identifies Jesus Christ as the son of Abraham and presents him as the perfect Jew. Israel was chosen because they were the seed of Abraham and was set apart from other nations so the Messiah could be identified in this way, fulfilling God's promise to Abraham that all the nations of the earth would be blessed in his Seed, which is Christ.
The genealogy presents Jesus' ancestors as real people in a literal line of descent, connecting creation, Eden and the early generations through Abraham to Joseph, Mary and Israel. The genealogies traced by Matthew and Luke connect his lineage to Abraham, whose ancestry was regarded as proof of Israelite citizenship and a claim to the blessings of the covenants, while Luke traces it further back to Adam. This places Adam and the other named ancestors in the same real history as Joseph, Mary and Israel, and connects the accounts of creation, Eden and the early generations to Israel's later history. Without Genesis, whose lineage runs to the beginning, the Gospel genealogy cannot be verified. Its frame and background is the society, life and intellectual and religious development in Palestine, giving the historical setting for the picture of Christ.
It is a plain historical record whose value is not found by assigning its names a hidden spiritual meaning. It is preserved in Scripture as original documents having the flavor of contemporary authorship, raw material for history rather than finished history, spread before readers without editorial alteration or correction to bring it into harmony with the records of the kings of Judah and Israel. That lack of anxiety to vindicate consistency shows perfect simplicity and guileless confidence and the artlessness of conscious truth. Its rawness, incompleteness and redundancy, with no fitting together or adjusting to any system or theory, prove the facts have not been filtered through professional authors, and discrepancies in such materials are inevitable and show the real character of the materials as the primitive facts on which all systematic history must be founded.
Legal Royal Descent
Matthew's list is the royal, legal genealogy tracing Jesus' descent through Joseph, His reputed father and legal father, in the male line from David through Solomon, since heirship and inheritance were reckoned through the father. Hezekiah to Manasseh to Amon to Josiah continues that reigning house carried from Abraham through David to Joseph, presenting Jesus' royal descent and claim to kingship. As Joseph's lawful son, though Joseph was not His biological father, Jesus inherited by right the kingdom and the throne of David as Son of David and King of the Jews, heir to that reigning house and son of Abraham through whom the promises came. That kingly line is complete in its purpose yet selective as biblical genealogies sometimes are, omitting some generations and arranging them in groups of fourteen.
Luke gives a different genealogy with a distinct purpose, tracing Jesus as son of man in literal blood line through Mary back to Adam, from David through Nathan, Solomon's brother. Under Jewish law Joseph was Jesus' legal father while His physical descent came through Mary, and Joseph is named in Luke's line according to the custom of naming males instead of females, because genealogies were reckoned through the male line and because he was Mary's husband. Heli there is understood as Mary's father and Joseph's father-in-law, with Mary treated as daughter of her father and Jesus as Joseph's son, while one explanation holds Heli may have been another name for Joseph. The two lines meet in the course of time.
Mary also belongs to David's royal family, so Jesus has natural descent through her as well as legal descent through His marriage connection to Joseph's line. The Solomon blood carried through Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon and Josiah was in both Joseph and Mary, because Matthew's royal line and Luke's blood line from Adam to Mary through Nathan meet in Salathiel and Zorobabel. The differing numbers of generations in Matthew and Luke are explained by their tracing different family lines, with more names in Mary's line. One explanation treats the genealogy leading from Abraham to Christ, arranged in three sections of fourteen generations with some generations omitted, as tracing Mary's line.
Messiah and Covenant Promise
Matthew 1:10 belongs to the genealogy that traces Jesus' ancestry through Joseph, his reputed father, back through David to Abraham. That human descent through the kings of Judah establishes His identity as the promised Messiah and heir of the everlasting covenant made with Abraham and renewed to David. It supports His claim as the promised Seed and royal Heir by showing His rightful descent from Abraham, and it identifies Him as the Minister of the covenant. The record of Manasseh, Amon and Josiah continues that descent through David and Abraham to prove He is the Son of David and the true Messiah who was to come.
The recorded pedigree was necessary to preserve the link in Abraham's family line leading to Christ and to connect Abraham's promised seed with Jesus the divine Seed. It gives the genealogical record identifying Jesus Christ as the son of Abraham and establishes His rightful descent from Abraham and David and His claim as royal Heir. Israel was chosen because they were the seed of Abraham and was set apart from other nations so the Messiah could be identified in this way.
That succession preserves the lineage through which God's promises to Abraham were to be fulfilled. It establishes Christ's claim to Abraham's promised inheritance, which includes the whole world. In that Seed, which is Christ, God's promise to Abraham that all the nations of the earth would be blessed is fulfilled.
The verse places Manasseh and Amon in the royal line from David to Josiah. This traces Jesus' earthly pedigree through Judah's kings and links Him to David. That linkage prepares for the transition from the earthly priesthood to Christ's heavenly service.
Preservation and Scriptural Reliability
Despite Satan's efforts to destroy the promised line through the family of David, God preserved that lineage so that Jesus' earthly lineage could be traced back through the line of promise, with Manasseh and Amon standing in its succession toward Jesus. The carefully preserved royal genealogy from Abraham through David and Solomon to His birth bears witness to the reliability of Scripture and to Jesus' place in the promised royal line.
God chose one family and planted them as a separate people, removing and destroying idolatry from their land to acquaint them with truth, so that the world might be assured that the promises and prophecies were fulfilled in Messiah. When nations became grossly immoral He overthrew them by flood, fire, storm, earthquake, or by other nations to answer the end of justice, and His overthrow of the enraged Egyptians in mercy to His people and His extermination of the nations of Canaan, sunken in idolatry and sensuality, was mercy to the race. This dealing unfolded the doctrines and facts of Messiah's future kingdom, while the Levitical law displayed God's wisdom in the gradual development of the great plan of salvation, both to make it plain to human reason and to impress it deeply on the human heart. The genealogy recording the descent from Hezekiah through Manasseh and Amon to Josiah was among the Gospel records known to Julian, who raised an objection to it.
Humanity and Sinful Ancestors
Matthew 1:10 belongs to the tracing that proves Jesus truly descended from the human race rather than merely appearing in a human body, for He entered this world by birth into the human family and possessed a pedigree from Adam onward. His human ancestors join Him to humanity's sorrows and needs, so that He can be trusted as a brother who knows human experience and sympathizes with human weakness. His descent from David shows He was born in human flesh through ancestors subject to the same human iniquities as the rest of the race, entering humanity to conquer sin and lift people back to God and righteousness. That hereditary line is the history of His earthly ancestors through which He accepted humanity after four thousand years of sin had weakened the race, sharing its sorrows and temptations while living a sinless life.
The genealogy places Jesus among sinful ancestors, including men and women who were bad and some who were not Jewish, showing that Christ came to save sinners and did not refuse to be born among them. Manasseh stands in that line as one of its wicked ancestors, alongside both evil and good members of the family, showing that Jesus descended through a line marked by human sin and inherited liability. The exceptional inclusion of Ruth, a Moabitess and ancestress of David, points to His brotherhood with aliens and Gentiles, while the other women included point to His kinship with sinners. Unlike Melchizedek the priest, who had no beginning of days as an infant and no end of life, Christ was both born and died, proving that Christ and the Melchizedek who met Abraham were distinct individuals, with Christ being another priest after the same order.
Faith and Promised Inheritance
Matthew 1:10 belongs to the genealogy that proves believers have a right through faith in Christ to the blessing promised to Abraham. It supports the assurance that those promises belong to Abraham's spiritual descendants. Natural descent is a privilege and an opportunity, yet by itself it does not guarantee heirship. Through faith in Christ, believers share Abraham's promised inheritance of the world and become joint heirs with Christ to David's throne.
Generations and Chronology
Generation here means steps in family descent such as father, son and grandson, counted from father to son in the human genealogy from Abraham to the birth of Jesus. That genealogy is summed up as three periods of fourteen generations each: from Abraham to David, from David until the carrying away into Babylon, and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ. Counted in that father-to-son way, the forty-two generations listed from Abraham to Jesus have been reckoned at somewhere in the vicinity of forty years or forty or more years to each generation. Together with the genealogies in Genesis 11 and Luke 3, the same father-to-son counting supports the claim that fewer than two hundred generations span six thousand years.
The Bible gives no definition of a generation as a fixed number of years, and has not designed in the last generation to fix that time. Comparing the years covered by the successive groups of fourteen generations gives different average lengths, so the forty-two generations from Abraham to Christ do not establish a fixed number of years for a generation. That average of about forty or more years therefore gives no dependable measure for the length of a generation in chronology and no timetable for Christ's coming.
A generation was probably longer in the days of the antediluvian patriarchs than at the present time. The word generation sometimes means race, people, nation, and sometimes means the people living upon the earth at one time.