Is naturally read with especial interest, and has been made the subject of much comment, with great profit to souls. Upon it we venture a few remarks, which we hope will prove profitable and instructive.
The marvelous grace that brought three Gentile women to share with true-born daughters of Israel in the high distinction of being progenitors of the Messiah has often been noticed.
Viewing all that precedes it in the light of Matt. 1:17, we see that all the generations from Abraham to Christ, are equally divided into three fourteens.
The first fourteen flourished during the patriarchal age; “the patriarch David” (Acts 2:29), completing the list. They were for the most part “men of renown” and “elders,” who received a good report through faith, whom the Lord greatly honored, each in his own generation, by taking them up, and using them as instruments in His hands, of shaping the destinies of the nation that grew so very rapidly, and was so highly favored of Jehovah.
For the moment passing over the list of kings, we would say of the third fourteen, that, with the exception of Zerubbabel, they appear to have been what we now understand by the term “nobodies” in the nation. Joseph, the husband of Mary, was, as we all know, a working carpenter. Yet, though of no reputation in the nation, we are persuaded that Mal. 3:16, 17 accurately describes these who lived in a day of small things, and yet cast not away their confidence in the Lord God of Israel.
One remarkable feature in the second fourteen is the omission of three generations of kings in ver. 8, and of one in ver. 11. In ver. 8 we read, “And Joram begat Uzziah;” whereas in point of fact, Joram begat Ahaziah, whose son Joram, and grandson Amaziah, each wielded in turn the scepter of Judah. The insertion of Ahaz, Manasseh and Amon, each one infamous for very great wickedness, appears to preclude the thought that they were omitted for such a reason from the list. Why are they excluded? Ah! here we have a striking example of the practical carrying out of the principle, so clearly expressed in the second commandment, viz. “I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers, upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me.” The names of Ahab and Jezebel are painfully familiar to us all; and in marrying his son Jehoram to Athaliah their daughter, Jehoshaphat, though a good man personally, brought down upon his own descendants, to the third generation, the curse that rested upon the house of Ahab. For three generations we read of wholesale massacres in cold blood. Jehoram slew all his own brethren on his accession (2 Chron. 21:4); the Philistines and Arabians slew all his sons (22:1); and Athaliah, on the death of her son Ahaziah, slew all the seed royal of the house of Judah save Joash (22:10,11). The names of the son, grandson, and great-grandson of “Athaliah, that wicked woman,” herself inheriting the fierce and idolatrous spirit of her mother Jezebel, are excluded from mention in “the book of the generation of Jesus Christ.” Those who esteem it to be a light thing to become unequally yoked with unbelievers, should attentively consider the sad history of the house of Jehoshaphat unto the fourth generation; and such may readily perceive, that, by means of his having married his son to Athaliah, Satan all but accomplished the extermination of the royal house of David. The fact, made evident by the list given in Luke 3:23-38, of a reserve line from David, carefully preserved, does not in the least lessen the honor that rightly attaches to the name of Jehoshabeath the wife of Jehoiada, because her faithful preservation of the infant Joash prevented such a calamity from falling upon the nation (2 Chron. 22:10-12).
We simply need to refer to Jer. 22:13-19, as furnishing ample reasons why the name of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, and father of Jeconiah, is excluded from mention in Matt. 1:11. “Them that honor Me I will honor, and they that despise Me shall be lightly esteemed.”
IN Proverbs it is always “Jehovah “; once only is “Elohim” used (25:2), and (in 2:17) “Elohey-ha,” her God. In Ecclesiastes “Jehovah” is never used, always “Elohim “; and, where it is not “a man,” “ha-Adam” is regularly used. This falls in with the different objects of the books.