MRS. A. S. LEWIS, ON THE GENEALOGIES OF OUR LORD. 13 



These three kings, it will be said, were not worse than otliers 

 of their line. One of them, indeed, Joash, was decidedly good 

 during the first part of his reign. The genealogy, which included 

 Manasseh, might well have included him. 



True, but they, viz., Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah, were the 

 descendants of Ahab and J ezebel in the second, third, and fourth 

 generations. 



We owe this explanation to Hilary and to Jerome.* So 

 when Matthew copied " Joram begat Ozias," it was only what he 

 found written in the official genealogy, and he made no mistake 

 about it. With Amaziah the curse was extinguished. We 

 must recollect that the descendants of Ahab and Jezebel in the 

 male line, seventy persons, actually perished (ii Kings x, 11) by 

 the hand of Jehu. 



Those who wish to understand the explanation of how the 

 number 42, that is three times fourteen, would convey to a 

 Jewish mind a confirmation of our Lord's claim to be the 

 Messiah, and also of how 72, the number of generations by which 

 He descended from God (see Luke iii), would signify that He 

 was the Saviour of all mankind, must consult Dr. Heer's book 

 for themselves. This is a region which I have no great wish to 

 explore. 



At the very beginning of the third group, verse 12, during the 

 Babylonian captivity, we are told that Jechonias begat Salathiel, 

 although of him it had been said in Jeremiah xxii, 30, " Write 

 ye this man childless." Yet in the very same verse these words 

 are explained to mean not that he was to have no children (see 

 I Chronicles iii, 17, 18), but that no man of his seed should 

 prosper. Perhaps Salathiel, his son, died young, and also 

 Pedaiah, son of Salathiel. Matthew Henry remarks that as 

 Pedaiah probably died in his father's lifetime, his son Zerubbabel, 

 was called the son of Salathiel. Thus the curse on Jechonias 

 died out in the third generation, for Zerubbabel had the high 

 privilege of returning to Jerusalem and helping to build the 

 temple and also of restoring the dynasty to its ancient thrones 

 (see Ezra ii, iii, iv, v ; Nehemiah vii, xii). 



The official registers were probably drawn up according to the 

 form of which we have a specimen in Euth iv, 18-22, where the 

 style is remarkably like that in Matthew's Gospel. If so, it is 

 not difficult to see that the statement of our Lord's birth must 

 have been nearly as it is in the Sinai Palimpsest, " Joseph begat 



* Hilary (Migne's Patrologia), vol, ix. Comm. on Matt, i, 8. Jerome, 

 vol. vii, c. 10. Comm. on Matt, i, 8 (Migne, vol. xxv). 



