Note 2 — Chapter II · DAVIDICAL DESCENT OF JESUS, ACCORDING TO THE GENEALOGICAL TABLES OF MATTHEW AND LUKE.

In the Genealogy given by the author of the first Gospel, there is a comparison of the account with itself which is important, as it gives a result, a sum at its conclusion, whose correctness may be proved by comparing it with the previous statements. In the summing up it is said, that from Abraham to Christ there are three divisions of fourteen generations each, the first from Abraham to David, the second from David to the Babylonish exile, the third from the exile to Christ. Now if we compute the number of names for ourselves, we find the first fourteen from Abraham to David, both included, complete (2–5); also that from Solomon to Jechonias, after whom the Babylonish exile is mentioned (6–11); but from Jechonias to Jesus, even reckoning the latter as one, we can discover only thirteen (12–16). How shall we explain this discrepancy? The supposition that one of the names has escaped from the third division by an error of a transcriber,2 is in the highest degree improbable, since the deficiency is mentioned so early as by Porphyry.3 The insertion, in some manuscripts and versions, of the name Jehoiakim4 between Josias and Jechonias, does not supply the deficiency of the third division; it only adds a superfluous generation to the second division, which was already complete. As also there is no doubt that this deficiency originated with the author of the genealogy, the question arises: in what manner did he reckon so as to count fourteen generations for his third series? Truly it is possible to count in various ways, if an arbitrary inclusion and exclusion of the first and last members of the several series be permitted. It might indeed have been presupposed, that a generation already included in one division was necessarily excluded from another: but the compiler of the genealogy may perhaps have thought otherwise; and since David is twice mentioned in the table, it is possible that the author counted him twice: namely, at the end of the first series, and again at the beginning of the second. This would not indeed, any more than the insertion of Jehoiakim, fill up the deficiency in the third division, but give too many to the second; so that we must, with some commentators,5 conclude the second series not with Jechonias, as is usually done, but with his predecessor Josias: and now, by means of the double enumeration of David, Jechonias, who was superfluous in the second division, being available for the third, the last series, including Jesus, has its fourteen members complete. But it seems very arbitrary to reckon the concluding member of the first series twice, and not also that of the second: to avoid which inconsistency some interpreters have proposed to count Josias twice, as well as David, and thus complete the fourteen members of the third series without Jesus. But whilst this computation escapes one blunder, it falls into another; namely, that whereas the expression ἀπὸ Ἀβραὰμ ἕως Δαβὶδ κ.τ.λ. (v. 17) is supposed to include the latter, in ἀπὸ μετοικεσίας Βαβυλῶνος ἕως τοῦ Χριστοῦ, the latter is excluded. This difficulty may be avoided by counting Jechonias twice instead of Josias, which gives us fourteen names for the third division, including Jesus; but then, in order not to have too many in the second, we must drop the double enumeration of David, and thus be liable to the same charge of inconsistency as in the former case, since the double enumeration is made between the second and third divisions, and not between the first and second. Perhaps De Wette has found the right clue when he remarks, that in v. 17, in both transitions some member of the series is mentioned twice, but in the first case only that member is a person (David), and therefore to be twice reckoned. In the second case it is the Babylonish captivity occurring between Josias and Jechonias, which latter, since he had reigned only three months in Jerusalem (the greater part of his life having passed after the carrying away to Babylon), was mentioned indeed at the conclusion of the second series for the sake of connexion, but was to be reckoned only at the beginning of the third.6