Matthew 1:17 Commentary and Bible Study

We have seen that some generations have been skipped by Matthew in his genealogy of Christ via Joseph, and this may have happened in all three of the groups of fourteen names. We also note that the three triads of fourteen are arrived at by counting Abraham to David inclusive, Solomon to Jechonias inclusive, and Jechonias (again, so counted twice) to Jesus, who is called the Christ. The reason for including Jechonias in two of the fourteens may be that his life spanned the time before the exile and the time in the exile. If we want to attribute some symbolic significance to the number fourteen, then this appears to break the symmetry, but if Matthew is simply drawing our attention to this in order to aid memorization or to point to the rough equality of these three significant periods in Israel’s and therefore Jesus’ history, then we are not worried by this approximate method of counting the generations. Matthew has selected these names out of the greater number of names and generations that Luke indicates.