III. Solution of Difficulties. SVq do not find that there was any oiijection made to these genealogies, either by Jew or Gentile, during the 1st century. Had any difficult}' on this head existed, we may reasonably suppose that the Jews, of all others, would have been but too ready to detect and expose it. We may, there- fore, fairly conclude that, whatever difficulty meets us now in harmonizing our Lord's pedigree as given by the two evangelists, it could have had no place in the first age of the Christian Church. In subsequent ages, however, objections were and still are made to the genealogies of Matthew and Luke.
A preliminar}' difficulty, which applies, however, equally to the O.-T. lists, lies in the small number of names between Jndah and David, being onlj' nine for an interval of 833 years, making the incredible aver- age of nearly a centurj' for each generation. Hence arises the presumption that some names have been omitted (see Browne, Ordo Saxlorum, p. 283), and at least three — more probably nine — mu.<t be supplied, in order to reduce this average to the ordinary age of pa- ternity ; three, Judah, Boaz, and Jesse, are known to have been advanced in life at tiie birth of their youn- gest sons, and Salmon was cTmsiderably fo. The syn- chronism of Nahshon with the Exode, and Boaz with the earlier judges, requii'es the insertion of these omit-
1. -Abraham.
2. Isaac.
3. Jacob.
4. Judah.
5. Phares. (i. Esrom.
7. Aram.
8. Aminadab.
9. Naason.
10. Salmon.
11. Boaz.
12. Obed.
13. Jesse.
14. David.
1. Solomon.
2. Kehoboam.
3. Abijah.
4. A?a.
5. Jehcsbaphat.
6. Jeluiram.
7. L'zziah. R. Jotliam. 9. Aliaz.
10. Ilezekiah.
11. Manasseh.
12. Anion.
13. Josiah.
14. Jehoiakim.
1. Jeconiah.
2. Saliitbiel.
3. Zeiubabel.
4. Abiiid.
5. Eliakim. C. Azor.
7. Sadok.
S. Achim.-
9. Eliud. 10. Eleazar. n. Matthan 12. Jacob. 1?. Joseph. 14. Jesus.
(2.) It is objected that Matthew omits three kings, viz. Ahaziah, joash, and Amaziah (comp. 1 Chron. iii, and 2 Kings viii), from his second series. In reference to this objection, it might suffice to say that Matthew, finding fourteen generations from Abraham to David inclusively, contracted, most likely in order to assist memory and give uniformity, the second, and possibly the last series. If we compare Ezra vii, 1-5 with 1 Chron. vi, 3-15, it will be seen that Ezra, in detailing, witli aiiparciit particularity, his own lineal descent from Aaron, calls Azariah, who was higli-priest at the dedication of the first Temple, the son, not of Johanan his fother, but of Meraioth, his ancestor at the distance of six generations. Doubtless the desire of abridg- ment led him to omit those names with whicli there were connected no very remarkable associations. Some of the early fathers, however, give a different solution of this difficulty. Ililaiy {in J\faftfi-tiim, cap. i) says: "Three generations are designedly passed
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GENEALOGY
over by Matthew, for Jaras is said to have begotten Ozias, when, in fact, he was the fourth from him, i. e. Jaras begat Ochazias from the Gentile familj' of Ahab, whose wife was Jezebel." That the omission of the three kings was a punishment inflicted upon the house of guilty joram to the fourth generation is the view 3'et mere pointadly put forth by St. Jerome also, and by mmv of our own best commentators. See Sox.
" (3.) Moreover, it is said that Matthew terms Zoro- babel the son of Salathiel, whereas in 1 Chron. iii, 19, he is called the son of Pedaiah. How is this? We answer that the Sept. version of 1 Chron. iii agrees with Matthew, and that this is the manner in which Zorobabel is designated in Ezra, Nehemiah, and Hag- gai. Josephus also calls him the son of Salathiel. V.'ers he not the immediate son of Salathiel, but of Pc- d li'ih, yet is it suitable to the language of the Jewish nation to count the grandson the son of the grandfa- ther. Thus Laban is called the son of Nahor (Gen. xxix, 5), as being the son of Bethucl, who was, in fact, the son of Nahor (xxiv, 47). If, according to another manner of rendering ver. 17 and 18, Sa'lathiel and Pe- daiah were brothers, Zorobabel might have been, by the Levirate law, the natural son of the one and the legal son of the other. See Pedaiah.
(4.) It is again asked, if it be, as Matthew states, that Salmon, son of Naason, prince of Israel, had married so remarkable a person as Eahal), how then comes it that snch a circumstance is not noticed in the book of Joshua ? This objection will have no force if we remember that this book, full as it is in describing the partition of Canaan among the several trilies, is yet very silent concerning the exploits, and even names, of the subordinate leaders of Israel. There is •nothing, therefore, surprising in the circumstance that it should pass over in total silence Salmon's marriage ■with Rahab. Had the matter in question been the espousal of Rahab by Joshua himself, the presmnption against its truth would be very different. Indeed Kimchi, in his Commentary on (he Book of Joshua, ad- duces a tradition to this effect, taken from the Baby- lonian Talmud. Every consideration, moreover, of a chronolorjical character is in favor of the circumstance of the son of Naason, born to him in the wilderness, being married to Rahab. See Rahab.