Matthew traces the genealogy of Joseph back through Jacob who begat him, to

Solomon, David and Abraham. Luke traces Joseph's genealogy back through Heli, his

father-in-law, to Nathan, David, Abraham and Adam. Joseph is therefore the begotten

son of Jacob, and thus the son of David through Solomon; while Mary, the wife of

Joseph and daughter of Heli, was descended equally from David, but through Solomon's

brother Nathan, and so Joseph was the son-in-law of Heli.

There is another difficulty which is related to King Jeconiah who, through his

wickedness was rejected by the Lord who changed his name to Coniah, removing the

letters "Je" which form part of the Lord's name. Jeremiah was authorized to pronounce:

Yet we know that Coniah was not childless, for I Chron. 3: 17 gives us the names of

his sons. Looking carefully at what Jeremiah says, we should note that he is dealing with

the throne in saying "no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David

and ruling any more in Judah". In other words Jeconiah's children were debarred from

the throne and the line through Solomon comes to an end. It is evident that Salathiel (or

Shealtiel) whose father is recorded by Luke to have been "Neri . . . . . the son of Nathan,

which was the Son of David", had succeeded to the royal title and was therefore looked

upon as the son of Jeconiah by legal adoption, the royal line being transferred from the

line of Solomon to that of Nathan his brother, at this point, possibly by a marriage

between the families.

Matthew gives the genealogy of Joseph; Luke the genealogy of Mary. This was

necessary because of that bar that was set up to any of the literal seed of Coniah. As the

crown rights were forfeited, Nathan's line succeeds, so that the Saviour Who was born in

Bethlehem has the full right to the throne of David.

Another difficulty is the appearance of women in the genealogy. Women do not

normally appear in Jewish pedigrees and in Matthew's case they are women of doubtful

character, Tamar, Rahab, Bathsheba, and Ruth was a foreigner, a Moabitess. The reason

is surely that the One Who declared He had come to call sinners to repentance, does not

scorn such a descent. He was a friend of publicans and sinners, and in His infinite grace

and love stoops to reach them in their deepest needs.

We do not say that we have the answer to every problem in these genealogies. Many

of our difficulties are caused by our differing outlook, laws and customs from those of

N.T. days and we should remember that the Bible is not bound to explain every point that

we find difficult today. What is absolutely necessary for us to know, God has expressed

in His Word and this awaits our faith to grasp and receive the abundant blessing that