Picking back up in Matthew, the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, is examined in detail. Some names carry little besides their place in the list; others carry the promise of the Messiah who will rule from David’s line.
David is the king God chose. Israel chose Saul; God appointed David, a man after His own heart who, despite failures, pursued the Lord. Solomon followed. He was known for wisdom and a generally good reign until foreign wives turned his heart after other gods.
Rehoboam caused the split. He rejected the counsel of Solomon’s older advisers, increased the burden, and the ten northern tribes broke away. Two kingdoms remained. Abijah walked in the sins of his father. Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and corrected much that his father had done, though he did not remove everything. Jehoshaphat taught the people the law of the Lord, sent priests throughout the land, and sought peace with the north, which later brought trouble.
Joram (Jehoram) walked in the way of Ahab, followed false gods, died of a painful intestinal disease, and was not mourned. Matthew then jumps from Joram to Uzziah. Joash, Amaziah, and others stand between them. Athaliah and other royal mothers sought to destroy the seed; Joash was saved by his sister.
Uzziah became king at sixteen (2 Chronicles 26:1). Early he sought the Lord in the days of Zechariah and prospered (2 Chronicles 26:5). Strength produced pride. He entered the temple to burn incense, a duty reserved for priests. Leprosy broke out on his forehead before the priests (2 Chronicles 26:19–20). He was thrust out, lived isolated until death, could not govern or enter the house of the Lord, and was buried in a field adjacent to the royal tombs because he was a leper (2 Chronicles 26:23).
Jotham judged the people while his father lived as a leper (2 Kings 15:5). He did what was right according to all Uzziah had done, yet the high places were not removed and the people still sacrificed there (2 Kings 15:34–35). He built the upper gate of the house of the Lord.
Ahaz walked in the way of the kings of Israel, made his sons pass through the fire to Molech (2 Kings 16:3–4; Leviticus 18:21), stripped the temple and palace to pay the king of Assyria (2 Kings 16:8), and after seeing an altar in Damascus ordered Uriah the priest to copy it and set it in the temple in place of the bronze altar of the Lord (2 Kings 16:10–16).
Hezekiah rejected his father’s way and did what was right according to all that David had done (2 Kings 18:1–3). He opened the doors of the temple his father had shut, sanctified the priests (2 Chronicles 29:3–19), destroyed the high places, sacred pillars, wooden images, and the bronze serpent that had become an idol called Nehushtan (2 Kings 18:4), and reinstituted the Passover on a national scale, inviting even Ephraim and Manasseh (2 Chronicles 30:1).
Manasseh did not merely drift. He rebuilt the high places Hezekiah had destroyed, raised altars for Baal, made wooden images, worshiped the host of heaven, made his sons pass through the fire, practiced sorcery, and filled Jerusalem with innocent blood (2 Kings 21:3–9). His evil exceeded that of the nations the Lord had driven out. The fall of Jerusalem and the exile are explicitly tied to the wrath provoked by Manasseh (2 Kings 24:3–4; Jeremiah 15:4).
Amon did evil as his father had done, served the same idols, and forsook the Lord (2 Kings 21:20–22). His servants conspired and killed him in his house. The people of the land executed the assassins and made Josiah king (2 Kings 21:23–24; 2 Chronicles 33:25).
Josiah began to reign at eight years of age (2 Chronicles 34:1). He did what was right, walking in the ways of David and not turning aside. He purged idolatry, broke down altars and images, beat them to powder, defiled Topheth in the Valley of Hinnom to stop child sacrifice, and removed mediums and household gods (2 Chronicles 34:4–7). While repairing the temple the Book of the Law was found. He kept a Passover such as had not been seen since the days of the judges (2 Kings 23:21). Yet the Lord did not turn from the wrath aroused by Manasseh (2 Kings 23:26). Josiah was killed by Pharaoh Neco at Megiddo (2 Kings 23:29).
From Josiah Matthew lists Jeconiah and his brothers, carried away to Babylon (Matthew 1:11). Intermediate sons of Josiah reigned briefly and were deposed by Egypt or Babylon. Jeconiah reigned three months and ten days before the siege. The curse on Jeconiah declares him childless as to the throne: none of his descendants shall sit on the throne of David or prosper in Judah (Jeremiah 22:24, 30).
This genealogy is Joseph’s line. Because Joseph descends from Jeconiah he has no legal right to the throne. Mary’s line, given in Luke 3:31, comes through Nathan, son of David by Bathsheba (1 Chronicles 3:5). Nathan carries the blood right without the Jeconiah curse. Jesus alone holds both the legal claim through Joseph’s house and the blood claim through Mary. No other person in history can claim both.
Though many kings failed and brought judgment, God remained true to His word. Jesus is the fulfillment.
