And after they were brought to Babylon, Jechonias begat Salathiel; and Salathiel begat Zorobabel;
After the carrying away into Babylon, Jeconiah fathered Shealtiel, and Shealtiel fathered Zerubbabel. The record belongs to Matthew's genealogy tracing Jesus' legal and royal descent through Joseph and David's male line through Solomon, presenting Joseph as His legal father and Jesus as David's heir and King. Luke gives Mary's literal blood line through Nathan, while Matthew gives Joseph's legal pedigree through Solomon, with Shealtiel and Zerubbabel as the point where the royal and natural lines meet. The genealogy thus identifies Jesus as the son of Abraham and son of David, the promised Seed in whom all nations should be blessed and the true Messiah foretold in Isaiah 9:6-7. It also shows He truly became a member of the human family with human ancestors, taking man's flesh and nature to sympathize with humanity in sorrow and temptation, and His line through sinners and Gentiles like Ruth the Moabitess shows His brotherhood with aliens and that a holy life is possible in this world.
Words and Historical Setting
After they were brought or taken or carried away to Babylon, Jechonias or Jeconiah fathered Salathiel or Shealtiel, and Salathiel fathered Zorobabel or Zerubbabel. The naming continues the genealogy after the exile to Babylon and after the deportation to Babylon, with Zorobabel following Salathiel in the line leading to Joseph, the reputed and legal father of Jesus. As part of Matthew's line through David's male descendants, through Solomon to Joseph, it traces Jesus' royal inheritance and legal paternal line and ancestry back through David to Abraham.
It belongs to the period from the Babylonian exile to Christ, recording part of Jesus' human genealogy in the descent toward Christ. It places Jechonias, the exiled monarch, at the head of the genealogy's third group of fourteen, marking the era of Israel's decline after the royal period, with the line continuing through Salathiel to Zorobabel. The genealogy is arranged in three symmetrical groups — Abraham's patriarchal era, David's royal era, and Jechonias's era of exile and decline — selecting ancestors to show descent and the successive phases of Hebrew history.
The verse gives plain family history rather than an inspired account of the events of those centuries, to be received as fact rather than given a fanciful spiritual meaning. Its persons and events are literal ancestors connected to Israel's real history, and the genealogy is not an allegory. It places Jeconiah's family line after the Babylonian exile and records Salathiel as the father of Zerubbabel within the line establishing Jesus' royal line across the Babylonian captivity.
It shows that Jesus' parents belonged to the Jewish people, since the genealogy in Matthew traces their family line through David and Judah. It belongs to the genealogy that traces Jesus' ancestry back to Abraham, presenting Christ as the perfect Jew. Christ's ancestry is traced through the human family from Adam, giving him a pedigree, and unlike Melchizedek, Christ was born and died. It is part of a Gospel genealogy whose line can be traced through Genesis back to the beginning, and Genesis provides the record needed to verify that genealogy.
Structure and Counting Generations
Matthew's genealogy is arranged in three groups of fourteen generations, with some generations omitted to form the three sections, and such omissions are not unusual since a grandfather may be called a father. The omissions are by design to show descent and the successive phases of Hebrew history rather than to list every generation. Those phases are Abraham's patriarchal era, David's royal era, and Jechonias's era of exile and decline, with Jechonias the exiled monarch standing at the head of the third group and continuing the line through Salathiel to Zorobabel. The omitted kings were familiar from Israel's historical records, and including them would have disrupted the arrangement, so the compressed list is not to be treated as a complete chronological record.
The verse is one of the forty-two generations counted from Abraham to Christ, each counted from father to son. Fourteen generations are reckoned from the carrying away to Babylon to Christ. That span from the exile to Christ is given as 606 years, averaging about forty to forty-three years per generation. That calculation cannot establish a fixed length for a generation because the spans between generations differ. No definite time is allotted to a generation and no time is fixed for the last generation, a generation was probably longer among the antediluvian patriarchs than at the present time, and generation sometimes means race, people, nation, or the people living at one time. The calculation of about forty or more years per generation across the span from Abraham to Jesus therefore cannot be depended upon to set the length of a generation for chronology.
Counted alongside the genealogies in Genesis 11 and Luke 3 as a father-to-son genealogy, the verse supports the claim that six thousand years from creation would amount to fewer than two hundred generations. The verse uses the same Greek word for begetting as for bringing forth or giving birth, showing that the word can describe a father begetting a child as well as a mother giving birth. The genealogical record including the verse is preserved among Scripture's original documents, and its differences from other records are evidence that the materials retain their distinct, contemporary forms rather than having been edited into a single harmonized account.
Legal Royal Line Through Joseph
Matthew's list is the legal, reputed paternal genealogy that traces Jesus' royal descent through Joseph and David's male descendants through Solomon, Rehoboam and the royal family. After the carrying to Babylon, Jechonias fathered Salathiel and Salathiel fathered Zorobabel in the continuing royal line that leads toward Joseph. In this reckoning Joseph stands as Jesus' legal, reputed father, and Jesus stands as Joseph's reputed or legal son and heir to David's throne and the throne of Israel. Matthew gives Joseph's pedigree while Luke gives Mary's, for among the Jews descent was reckoned through the male line and a daughter was not named, so her husband could be listed as the son of his father-in-law.
The genealogy shows Jesus as the Son of David, the rightful King and heir of Abraham. It supports the presentation of Jesus as the King of the Jews by establishing his royal descent from Abraham through David and Solomon, with the line from Jechonias through Salathiel to Zorobabel recorded in order. The preserved genealogy witnesses both to his royal pedigree and to the reliability of Scripture.
Joseph was Jesus' legal father, not his biological father, being himself a descendant of David. Jesus therefore inherited the kingdom from him by law and was legally David's heir. Matthew traces this royal ancestry through David back to Abraham, while Luke traces his human descent through David to Mary and back to Adam.
The verse traces the royal house back through David to Abraham, through whom the promises came. It continues the genealogy after the exile to Babylon by naming Jechonias, Salathiel, and Zorobabel in the line leading to Joseph, the reputed father of Jesus. As part of that ancestry from Abraham and David, it establishes his place in the promised family line and his claim to the covenant blessings and promised heirship.
Harmony With Luke's Genealogy
Matthew's list is Joseph's pedigree and legal genealogy traced through the males, while Luke's is Mary's genealogy and literal blood line. Jesus' physical descent came through Mary, while under Jewish law Joseph was counted as Jesus' father, so both accounts name Joseph as Jesus' father. As Joseph's reputed son Jesus was heir to the throne, and both lines show him as David's descendant through Joseph and through Mary as well.
Among the Jews descent was reckoned through the male line and through the husband, and a daughter was not named in a genealogy. Her husband could therefore be listed as the son of his father-in-law, and Joseph was counted as the son of Mary's father because he was her husband. Heli may have been another name for Joseph, or, as generally held, Heli is identified as Mary's father and Joseph's father-in-law, with Joseph named as Mary's husband and counted as Heli's son. The longer list of names in Mary's line explains the difference in the number of generations given by Matthew and Luke.
Matthew traces the line from David through Solomon to Joseph, Christ's legal father, presenting his royal lineage and royal ancestry through David and Joseph. Luke traces the parallel line from David through Nathan on Mary's side, giving her family line and tracing Jesus' human descent through David to Mary and back to Adam. Joseph is named as Mary's husband, and the two genealogies meet along the course of time.
Salathiel and Zorobabel are the point where the royal line through Solomon meets Luke's literal blood line from Adam through Mary and Nathan. There the lines traced from David through Solomon and Nathan come together, so that the blood of Solomon as well as the blood of Nathan was in both Joseph and Mary. This joining may have occurred through marriage. Matthew's list at this point represents royal inheritance and succession leading toward Jesus through Joseph rather than an unbroken father-to-son descent at every name.
Messiah and Covenant Promise
Matthew 1:12 belongs to the genealogy that establishes Jesus as a direct descendant of Abraham through forty-two generations and of David, identifying him as the son of Abraham, the promised Seed and Minister of the covenant. 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 line, in fulfillment of the promise that in Abraham's Seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed. That genealogy records a succession preserved through the generations and confirms Christ's legitimate heirship to the material promise made to Abraham, a promise that included the whole world. That pedigree was necessary to connect Abraham's promised Seed to Jesus, through whom the promised inheritance and restoration of the Lord's territory would come.
Israel was also a typical nation whose sanctuary and yearly service foreshadowed the work of salvation including the ministry of the High Priest in heaven, so there could not be another such nation. The genealogy in Matthew 1:1-16 proves Christ was the Son of David foretold in Isaiah 9:6-7, and is evidence that he was the true Messiah who was to come. His birth recorded there is a landmark in the fulfillment of the Old Testament's Gospel promises, showing that God's promises and prophecies were fulfilled in the Messiah. The promised family line continued through the Babylonian captivity from Jechonias through Salathiel to Zorobabel, preserving the lineage through which Jesus was to come.
God's protecting power kept this link intact through the exile toward the birth of Christ. Matthew 1 preserves the genealogy of the tribe of Judah, showing the lineage of Jesus through Judah. While the other tribes were scattered and their genealogies lost, the genealogies of Judah the ruler and Levi the priest were preserved, so the lineage of Jesus can be traced in Matthew 1 together with Luke 3 through both His mother's side and His father's side. The tribe of Judah was held together until Jesus came, showing that rulership remained with Judah until Shiloh came, and from that time Jesus became the center of the gathering of God's people.
Humanity and Believers' Encouragement
The genealogy to which this verse belongs shows that Jesus had human ancestors and truly became a member of the human family, sharing its sorrows and temptations though without sin, and that human lineage assures that he knows human needs from experience as a brother who can sympathize with humanity. His earthly ancestry stands within the history through which the effects of sin and heredity had weakened the human race, and the human inheritance he accepted enabled him to share human sorrows and temptations and give a sinless example. That descent came through generations marked by both faithful and wicked lives, showing that he took the same human flesh and blood with its liability to sin, so that his genealogy has meaning for his experience of heredity and temptation. His ancestors here, including Jechonias, Salathiel, and Zorobabel, belonged to the line of descent through which he came according to the flesh, placing the Messiah among human beings whose nature was subject to the iniquities common to humanity.
Unlike Melchizedek, Christ has an ancestry traced through the human family from Adam, giving him a pedigree, and he was born and died. The line to which the verse belongs includes wicked men and women and people of another race than the Jews, and it includes Ruth the Moabitess among the ancestors of Jesus, showing his brotherhood with aliens and Gentiles. This means Jesus took upon himself the nature of man and was tempted in all points as humans are. The chapter's genealogy encourages believers by showing Christ's connection to Abraham and the promised blessing received through faith in Christ. Descent in this line from Jeconiah, after the exile to Babylon, through Shealtiel to Zerubbabel was a privilege and opportunity, but natural birth alone did not assure heirship in the promises to Abraham, while through faith in Christ believers share Abraham's heirship to the world and are joint heirs with Christ in the throne of David.
Jesus came to save sinners and did not refuse to be born of sinners, yet lived a perfect life, showing that it is possible for human beings to live a holy life here in the world.
After the carrying away into Babylon, Jeconiah fathered Shealtiel, and Shealtiel fathered Zerubbabel. The record belongs to Matthew's genealogy tracing Jesus' legal and royal descent through Joseph and David's male line through Solomon, presenting Joseph as His legal father and Jesus as David's heir and King. Luke gives Mary's literal blood line through Nathan, while Matthew gives Joseph's legal pedigree through Solomon, with Shealtiel and Zerubbabel as the point where the royal and natural lines meet. The genealogy thus identifies Jesus as the son of Abraham and son of David, the promised Seed in whom all nations should be blessed and the true Messiah foretold in Isaiah 9:6-7. It also shows He truly became a member of the human family with human ancestors, taking man's flesh and nature to sympathize with humanity in sorrow and temptation, and His line through sinners and Gentiles like Ruth the Moabitess shows His brotherhood with aliens and that a holy life is possible in this world.
Words and Historical Setting
After they were brought or taken or carried away to Babylon, Jechonias or Jeconiah fathered Salathiel or Shealtiel, and Salathiel fathered Zorobabel or Zerubbabel. The naming continues the genealogy after the exile to Babylon and after the deportation to Babylon, with Zorobabel following Salathiel in the line leading to Joseph, the reputed and legal father of Jesus. As part of Matthew's line through David's male descendants, through Solomon to Joseph, it traces Jesus' royal inheritance and legal paternal line and ancestry back through David to Abraham.
It belongs to the period from the Babylonian exile to Christ, recording part of Jesus' human genealogy in the descent toward Christ. It places Jechonias, the exiled monarch, at the head of the genealogy's third group of fourteen, marking the era of Israel's decline after the royal period, with the line continuing through Salathiel to Zorobabel. The genealogy is arranged in three symmetrical groups — Abraham's patriarchal era, David's royal era, and Jechonias's era of exile and decline — selecting ancestors to show descent and the successive phases of Hebrew history.
The verse gives plain family history rather than an inspired account of the events of those centuries, to be received as fact rather than given a fanciful spiritual meaning. Its persons and events are literal ancestors connected to Israel's real history, and the genealogy is not an allegory. It places Jeconiah's family line after the Babylonian exile and records Salathiel as the father of Zerubbabel within the line establishing Jesus' royal line across the Babylonian captivity.
It shows that Jesus' parents belonged to the Jewish people, since the genealogy in Matthew traces their family line through David and Judah. It belongs to the genealogy that traces Jesus' ancestry back to Abraham, presenting Christ as the perfect Jew. Christ's ancestry is traced through the human family from Adam, giving him a pedigree, and unlike Melchizedek, Christ was born and died. It is part of a Gospel genealogy whose line can be traced through Genesis back to the beginning, and Genesis provides the record needed to verify that genealogy.
Structure and Counting Generations
Matthew's genealogy is arranged in three groups of fourteen generations, with some generations omitted to form the three sections, and such omissions are not unusual since a grandfather may be called a father. The omissions are by design to show descent and the successive phases of Hebrew history rather than to list every generation. Those phases are Abraham's patriarchal era, David's royal era, and Jechonias's era of exile and decline, with Jechonias the exiled monarch standing at the head of the third group and continuing the line through Salathiel to Zorobabel. The omitted kings were familiar from Israel's historical records, and including them would have disrupted the arrangement, so the compressed list is not to be treated as a complete chronological record.
The verse is one of the forty-two generations counted from Abraham to Christ, each counted from father to son. Fourteen generations are reckoned from the carrying away to Babylon to Christ. That span from the exile to Christ is given as 606 years, averaging about forty to forty-three years per generation. That calculation cannot establish a fixed length for a generation because the spans between generations differ. No definite time is allotted to a generation and no time is fixed for the last generation, a generation was probably longer among the antediluvian patriarchs than at the present time, and generation sometimes means race, people, nation, or the people living at one time. The calculation of about forty or more years per generation across the span from Abraham to Jesus therefore cannot be depended upon to set the length of a generation for chronology.
Counted alongside the genealogies in Genesis 11 and Luke 3 as a father-to-son genealogy, the verse supports the claim that six thousand years from creation would amount to fewer than two hundred generations. The verse uses the same Greek word for begetting as for bringing forth or giving birth, showing that the word can describe a father begetting a child as well as a mother giving birth. The genealogical record including the verse is preserved among Scripture's original documents, and its differences from other records are evidence that the materials retain their distinct, contemporary forms rather than having been edited into a single harmonized account.
Legal Royal Line Through Joseph
Matthew's list is the legal, reputed paternal genealogy that traces Jesus' royal descent through Joseph and David's male descendants through Solomon, Rehoboam and the royal family. After the carrying to Babylon, Jechonias fathered Salathiel and Salathiel fathered Zorobabel in the continuing royal line that leads toward Joseph. In this reckoning Joseph stands as Jesus' legal, reputed father, and Jesus stands as Joseph's reputed or legal son and heir to David's throne and the throne of Israel. Matthew gives Joseph's pedigree while Luke gives Mary's, for among the Jews descent was reckoned through the male line and a daughter was not named, so her husband could be listed as the son of his father-in-law.
The genealogy shows Jesus as the Son of David, the rightful King and heir of Abraham. It supports the presentation of Jesus as the King of the Jews by establishing his royal descent from Abraham through David and Solomon, with the line from Jechonias through Salathiel to Zorobabel recorded in order. The preserved genealogy witnesses both to his royal pedigree and to the reliability of Scripture.
Joseph was Jesus' legal father, not his biological father, being himself a descendant of David. Jesus therefore inherited the kingdom from him by law and was legally David's heir. Matthew traces this royal ancestry through David back to Abraham, while Luke traces his human descent through David to Mary and back to Adam.
The verse traces the royal house back through David to Abraham, through whom the promises came. It continues the genealogy after the exile to Babylon by naming Jechonias, Salathiel, and Zorobabel in the line leading to Joseph, the reputed father of Jesus. As part of that ancestry from Abraham and David, it establishes his place in the promised family line and his claim to the covenant blessings and promised heirship.
Harmony With Luke's Genealogy
Matthew's list is Joseph's pedigree and legal genealogy traced through the males, while Luke's is Mary's genealogy and literal blood line. Jesus' physical descent came through Mary, while under Jewish law Joseph was counted as Jesus' father, so both accounts name Joseph as Jesus' father. As Joseph's reputed son Jesus was heir to the throne, and both lines show him as David's descendant through Joseph and through Mary as well.
Among the Jews descent was reckoned through the male line and through the husband, and a daughter was not named in a genealogy. Her husband could therefore be listed as the son of his father-in-law, and Joseph was counted as the son of Mary's father because he was her husband. Heli may have been another name for Joseph, or, as generally held, Heli is identified as Mary's father and Joseph's father-in-law, with Joseph named as Mary's husband and counted as Heli's son. The longer list of names in Mary's line explains the difference in the number of generations given by Matthew and Luke.
Matthew traces the line from David through Solomon to Joseph, Christ's legal father, presenting his royal lineage and royal ancestry through David and Joseph. Luke traces the parallel line from David through Nathan on Mary's side, giving her family line and tracing Jesus' human descent through David to Mary and back to Adam. Joseph is named as Mary's husband, and the two genealogies meet along the course of time.
Salathiel and Zorobabel are the point where the royal line through Solomon meets Luke's literal blood line from Adam through Mary and Nathan. There the lines traced from David through Solomon and Nathan come together, so that the blood of Solomon as well as the blood of Nathan was in both Joseph and Mary. This joining may have occurred through marriage. Matthew's list at this point represents royal inheritance and succession leading toward Jesus through Joseph rather than an unbroken father-to-son descent at every name.
Messiah and Covenant Promise
Matthew 1:12 belongs to the genealogy that establishes Jesus as a direct descendant of Abraham through forty-two generations and of David, identifying him as the son of Abraham, the promised Seed and Minister of the covenant. 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 line, in fulfillment of the promise that in Abraham's Seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed. That genealogy records a succession preserved through the generations and confirms Christ's legitimate heirship to the material promise made to Abraham, a promise that included the whole world. That pedigree was necessary to connect Abraham's promised Seed to Jesus, through whom the promised inheritance and restoration of the Lord's territory would come.
Israel was also a typical nation whose sanctuary and yearly service foreshadowed the work of salvation including the ministry of the High Priest in heaven, so there could not be another such nation. The genealogy in Matthew 1:1-16 proves Christ was the Son of David foretold in Isaiah 9:6-7, and is evidence that he was the true Messiah who was to come. His birth recorded there is a landmark in the fulfillment of the Old Testament's Gospel promises, showing that God's promises and prophecies were fulfilled in the Messiah. The promised family line continued through the Babylonian captivity from Jechonias through Salathiel to Zorobabel, preserving the lineage through which Jesus was to come.
God's protecting power kept this link intact through the exile toward the birth of Christ. Matthew 1 preserves the genealogy of the tribe of Judah, showing the lineage of Jesus through Judah. While the other tribes were scattered and their genealogies lost, the genealogies of Judah the ruler and Levi the priest were preserved, so the lineage of Jesus can be traced in Matthew 1 together with Luke 3 through both His mother's side and His father's side. The tribe of Judah was held together until Jesus came, showing that rulership remained with Judah until Shiloh came, and from that time Jesus became the center of the gathering of God's people.
Humanity and Believers' Encouragement
The genealogy to which this verse belongs shows that Jesus had human ancestors and truly became a member of the human family, sharing its sorrows and temptations though without sin, and that human lineage assures that he knows human needs from experience as a brother who can sympathize with humanity. His earthly ancestry stands within the history through which the effects of sin and heredity had weakened the human race, and the human inheritance he accepted enabled him to share human sorrows and temptations and give a sinless example. That descent came through generations marked by both faithful and wicked lives, showing that he took the same human flesh and blood with its liability to sin, so that his genealogy has meaning for his experience of heredity and temptation. His ancestors here, including Jechonias, Salathiel, and Zorobabel, belonged to the line of descent through which he came according to the flesh, placing the Messiah among human beings whose nature was subject to the iniquities common to humanity.
Unlike Melchizedek, Christ has an ancestry traced through the human family from Adam, giving him a pedigree, and he was born and died. The line to which the verse belongs includes wicked men and women and people of another race than the Jews, and it includes Ruth the Moabitess among the ancestors of Jesus, showing his brotherhood with aliens and Gentiles. This means Jesus took upon himself the nature of man and was tempted in all points as humans are. The chapter's genealogy encourages believers by showing Christ's connection to Abraham and the promised blessing received through faith in Christ. Descent in this line from Jeconiah, after the exile to Babylon, through Shealtiel to Zerubbabel was a privilege and opportunity, but natural birth alone did not assure heirship in the promises to Abraham, while through faith in Christ believers share Abraham's heirship to the world and are joint heirs with Christ in the throne of David.
Jesus came to save sinners and did not refuse to be born of sinners, yet lived a perfect life, showing that it is possible for human beings to live a holy life here in the world.