The Genealogy of Jesus

The genealogy of Jesus from David is given in Matt.1 and Luke 3. Matthew has Joseph the reputed father of Jesus descended from David through Solomon and the kings of Judah, whilst Luke traces his mother Mary’s descent from Nathan the younger brother of Solomon. Both lines converge on Zerubbabel the governor of Judah at the Return from Babylon and then they diverge again. There are some points of difference with the royal genealogy recorded in 1 Chron.3. The A.V. rendering in Luke (v.23) appears to make Joseph the son of Heli Mary’s father instead of Jacob; (Matt.1:16) this is due to the translators having added the words "which was the son of" in each case, for which there is no justification. The Greek reads like a family tree, from Heli upwards, "of Heli…of Matthat" etc., (Luke 3:23‑24) and the passage is more lucidly rendered "Jesus, about thirty years of age, (supposedly the son of Joseph), of Heli, of Matthat" etc.; Heli his Mother’s father being his immediate male forebear in that line and Mary his mother as a woman omitted from mention. It is usually said that a complete pedigree from David is not to be found in the Scriptures but a study of the subject may well lead to an opposite conclusion.

Luke’s account gives 19 generations from Jesus back to Zerubbabel; Matthew gives only 11. Since the period is nearly 600 years it is obvious that Matthew at least has omitted some names. Matthew’s account gives Abiud (Heb. Obadiah) as the son of Zerubbabel but according to Chronicles the latter had no son of that name and the only Obadiah recorded comes two generations later and he was not in the royal line. Luke gives Joanna (Heb. Johanan) as son of Zerubbabel; here again he had no son of that name (Zerubbabel’s son in the royal line was Hananiah, (v.19) which is a name closely akin to Johanan, but Hananiah had no son named Juda as demanded by Luke). It does seem therefore that in both the Matthew and Luke versions there is the omission of some names immediately following Zerubbabel. Luke mentions a Rhesa between Zerubbabel and Joanna, but this is not a name. "Rhesa" is the Aramaic word for "prince," equal to Hebrew "rezin," prince or noble, and this points to Luke having taken his data from a list written in Aramaic, the general language in use after the Babylonian captivity, having the entry "Prince Zerubbabel," his recognised position as leader of the restored nation under Cyrus.

It is evident then that neither Matthew’s nor Luke’s lists between Jesus and Zerubbabel are complete. Resource must be had to the royal pedigree of the Davidic line in 1 Chron.3 for assistance.

This chapter gives the line of descent of the kings of Judah from David to Jehoiachin and the continuing royal line for another eight generations, ending at about 432 BC in the days of Nehemiah. This line is clear cut and positive; the problem is to fill the gap, if gap exists, between this record and those of Matthew and Luke. This involves the probable number of generations in both the royal and the non‑royal lines between Zerubbabel and Jesus. It would appear that the interval between firstborn to firstborn during late Old Testament times in the Middle East was an average 22 years, Examples are:—

Davidic kings, Solomon to Jehoiachin 379 years =17 gens. =22.3 years per generation.

Israeli kings, Jehu to Zechariah 103 years =5 gens. =20.6 per generation.

Assyrian kings, father to son. 911‑781 BC =130 years.6 gens. = 21.7.

Parthian kings, from 3rd cent BC 384 years.17 gens. = 22.6.

Seleucid kings, from 3rd cent BC 247 years.11 gens. = 22.5

On this basis it might well be concluded that the generations in the royal line to Jesus averaged 22 years each. From the birth of Zerubbabel to that of Jesus, as far as can be deduced from relevant data, was about 560 years, and this implies 26 generations. Chronicles has 7 generations and Luke has 18, A Total of 25, which seems near the mark. Luke’s earliest name is Joanna (Johanan). The final generation in Chronicles lists the names of the seven sons of Elioenai without saying which of them carried on the royal line, but one of those names is Johanan!

Does this imply that Luke gave the full list of Jesus’s forebears through his mother Mary back as far as the last name in Chronicles, Johanan, and then went straight to Zerubbabel, knowing his readers could get the intervening names from the O.T.? From there he gave the full line to Nathan, the son of David and younger brother of Solomon. If Luke’s Joanna and Chronicles’ Johanan are one and the same, the total number of generations would be 24, but some part of this line, the non‑royal part, would involve later‑born sons with corresponding longer generation intervals. This would fit in well with the 26 just mentioned. It remains then to consider Matthew’s line.

Matthew goes from Jesus back to Abiud, 10 generations, on this basis a matter of 220 years. This implies a gap in Matthew’s record of some 340 years. Since Luke traces Mary’s line back to Zerubbabel as does that of Matthew with Joseph, it is obvious that Mary’s line must have diverged from the royal line at some time after 432 BC where Chronicles ended. Is it conceivable that Matthew gives the forebears of Jesus through Joseph in the legal royal line back as far as Abiud, and that this was the point where the two lines diverged? From there he skipped all intervening generations to Zerubbabel, and then continued with the royal descent of Judean kings back to Solomon the son of David. He did, even then, omit the three apostate kings, Ahaziah, Joash and Amaziah as unworthy of inclusion in his list, and also Jehoiakim, father of Jehoiachin, but this is not material since these appear plainly enough in O.T. history.

These 10 generations in 220 years would place Abiud about 220 BC and so perhaps make him the firstborn son of Amos in Luke’s list, to preserve the total 25 generations back to Zerubbabel. This would make him the elder brother of Mattathias son of Amos in Luke’s list, and there were then 8 generations from Mattathias to Mary against 10 from Abiud to Joseph, which is what would be expected if Mary’s line was from later born sons—the average generation being 27 years against 22 for the royal line.

If all this is a reasonable hypothesis, the position is:—

Luke gives the complete pedigree of Mary back to Johanan in about 432 BC. Chronicles carries on from Johanan back to Salathiel, father of Zerubbabel and Luke then traces their ancestry back another 20 generations to Nathan, son of David. There is only just enough room in this period to get that number of generations in, so that this list must be complete. Thus there is a complete pedigree from Mary back to David, and this was the natural "blood‑relationship" line which made Jesus literally a son of David.

Matthew gives the first ten generations from Joseph back to Abiud, about 220 BC, where it is joined in the person of Amos by the non‑royal line from Mary. Matthew breaks off here and resumes again at Zerubbabel—the intervening generations are all cared for by Luke and Chronicles. Matthew credits Zerubbabel and Salathiel as descended from Jehoiachin the exiled king which puts them in the line of ascent to Solomon and not Nathan. He then goes up the list of kings of Judah until he comes to Solomon. Again there is a complete pedigree but this time it is the official "legal" royal line from David through the kings of Judah.

This brings up the apparent disagreement as to the parentage of Salathiel and Zerubbabel. Chronicles and Matthew make Salathiel the son of Jehoiachin of Solomon’s line but Luke says he was the son of Neri (Heb. Neariah) of Nathan’s line. Matthew and Luke both say Zerubbabel was the son of Salathiel, but Chronicles of his brother Pedaiah. The resolution of this problem involves a little excursion into history.

The last legal king of Judah/Israel was Jehoiachin, deposed by Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BC and taken prisoner to Babylon where he died more than forty years later. (His uncle Zedekiah was appointed by Nebuchadnezzar to succeed him but he could not be true king while Jehoiachin lived; Zedekiah was deposed by the Babylonians eleven years later). Jehoiachin was taken to Babylon at 18 years of age, with at least two wives (2 Kings 24:3‑14) but still childless. It had been decreed by the Lord that because of his apostasy no man of his seed should ever rule on the throne of David; he would be declared childless (Jer.22:28‑30). A like sentence had been passed upon his father Jehoiakim "he shall have none to sit upon the throne of David." (Jer.36:30). At the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC Nebuchadnezzar took steps to destroy the entire royal house so that none remained to rally the people again (Jer.52:8‑11). The Lord also said through Ezekiel at the same time that there should no more be a king in Judah until Christ should come "whose right it is" (Ezek.21:25‑27). It is evident therefore that the literal blood descent of the royal house of Judah came to an end at that point.

The means by which this was brought about had been indicated to King Hezekiah three generations earlier. His posterity, he was told, would end up by being eunuchs in the palace of the King of Babylon (2 Kings 20:18; Isa.39:7). It was the custom of the Babylonians, and other warlike nations, having defeated a troublesome or rebellious people, to render their king and his sons incapable of fatherhood, so that the dynasty would die out and be unable to form a rallying point for possible future rebellion. This is what happened to Jehoiachin and any sons he had while in Babylon. With Zedekiah’s sons already dead, Nebuchadnezzar could feel that the Davidic dynasty was extinct and would give no further trouble. What he did not reckon with, probably through ignorance, was the peculiarly Israelite custom of Levirate marriage.

An element in the Mosaic law was the provision for continuance of the family line where a man died without sons. In such case the brother or nearest relative took the dead man’s wife and the son of such union was accounted legally the dead man’s son and heir of his estate. The relevant law is stated in Deut.25:5‑6 from which it is known as Levirate marriage. The story of Ruth and Boaz is a notable instance. It would seem that since from the point of view of male issue Jehoiachin was as good as dead, this law was invoked so that Neri (Neariah) of the line of Nathan took Jehoiachin’s wife, and the son of that union, Salathiel, became credited to Jehoiachin as his legal son and heir and entitled to carry on the royal line.

But this did not happen at once. According to Chronicles, Jehoiachin had seven sons, all born in Babylon, of whom Salathiel was one. One of the others, Pedaiah, appears as father of Zerubbabel but the other five are named and not referred to again. (An eighth name, Assir, does appear in 1 Chron.3:17 but this is an A.V. translator’s mistake. "Assir" is Hebrew for captive, and the sense of the verse should be "and the sons of Jeconiah (Jehoiachin) the captive, Salathiel his son"...etc.). The question arises, where and how do these five fit into the picture. The answer to this conundrum came only years ago in an unexpected manner. When Prof. Robert Koldewey excavated Daniel’s Babylon in 1914 he sent home to Berlin three hundred cuneiform tablets which were stored awaiting decipherment. They remained unexamined until 1939, when the Assyriologist Wiedner translated them and found one dated in the 13th year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar which mentioned the captive Jehoiachin, King of Judah and his five sons, the five being under the care of a Jew named Kenaiah. The 13th year corresponds to 592 BC, by which time Jehoiachin had been in Babylon five years. Since he had at least two wives, perhaps more, there is nothing unlikely in his having sired five sons during that time, and one might ask why, in such case, was Salathiel the son of Neariah proclaimed heir‑apparent to the throne. The answer to that may lie in the realm of political expediency. When Nebuchadnezzar took Jehoiachin captive in 597 BC he probably did not intend to extinguish the Jewish monarchy; he left Zedekiah as king and took Jehoiachin to Babylon as hostage for good behaviour. But eight years later Zedekiah rebelled, the Babylonians returned in force, and in 586 BC, after three years savage fighting, destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple, killed Zedekiah’s sons, took the rest of the people to Babylon and virtually depopulated Judea. It looks as though it was at this point that Nebuchadnezzar decided to extinguish the royal line and so any hope Jehoiachin may have had that one of his five sons, now between five and ten years old, would carry on his line was finally and brutally extinguished.

So Salathiel was born from Neariah and Jehoiachin’s wife, perhaps about 582 BC, declared legal son of Jehoiachin with the right of succession, grew to manhood, and married at the usual age of 18. By this time Nebuchadnezzar had perhaps become aware of the significance of the Levirate marriage and nipped this attempt to circumvent his intentions by treating Salathiel as he had treated Jehoiachin. Once again the royal line came to an end.

Then, in 561 BC, a few years later, Nebuchadnezzar died. His son and successor, Avil‑Marduk, (Hebrew name Evil‑merodach) was much more tolerantly disposed toward Jehoiachin, releasing him from prison and showing marked signs of favour (2 Kings 25:27‑30; Jer.52:31‑34). If now, in this new climate of tolerance, the youthful Salathiel invoked the Levirate law as did his reputed father, so that his wife was given to his half‑brother Pedaiah and of them was born Zerubbabel, he could be proclaimed legal son of Salathiel and so in his turn heir to the throne. Avil‑Marduk, now king of Babylon, took no notice and so the royal succession of the Kings of Judah was assured. Both Salathiel and Zerubbabel were in fact of the non‑royal line of Nathan but by means of the Law declared legal descendants of Solomon in the royal line. Pedaiah must have been the son of Neariah and his own wife since he does not figure in the royal succession and his inclusion as one of the sons of Jehoiachin in 1 Chron.3:19 is probably to show that he was a link in the transmission of the royal line from Jehoiachin to Zerubbabel, although not a true son, which would have nullified the Lord’s prohibition on the succession of any true son of Jehoiachin.

Thus seen, the natural line of descent of both Joseph and Mary came from Nathan the non‑royal son of David, but by means of the Levirate Law both Salathiel and Zerubbabel were adopted into the royal line and so their descendants carried the right of succession until, probably, Amos in about 220 BC had two sons, Abiud (Obadiah) the eldest, who inherited the royal rights which ultimately led to Joseph, and Mattathias, a younger son, leading to Mary. Scripture declares that Jesus is the rightful heir to the throne of David; it must follow that Joseph was the senior member of the Davidic line and, despite his humble station in life, the legal claimant to the throne had that throne been established in his own time.

AOH