of Abraham. as recorded by St. MATTHEW. 45 Mat. I. L. the Son of David, the Son an Introduction to his Hiftory, but more SECT. 9. especially to fhew, that he was the Son of David, and the Son of Abraham, as it was often foretold the Meffiah should be. (Compare Pfal. cxxxii. 11. Ifa. xi. 1. Jer. xxiii. 5. xxxiii. 15. and Gen. xii. 3. xxii. 18. xxvi. 4. xxviii. 14.) 2 Abraham begat Ifaac, and Ifaac begat Jacob, and Jacob begat Judas and his Brethren; 3 And Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar, and Phares begat Efrom, and Efrom begat Aram; 4 And Aram begat Aminidab, and Aminidab begat Naaffon, Now it is well known, that Abraham, that 2 renowned Patriarch, and Friend of GOD, from whom the whole Jewish Nation had the Honour to defcend, begat Ifaac in his Old Age, that Son of Sarah according to the Promife, with whom God's Covenant was established; and Ifaac begat Jacob, on whom also it was entailed in Preference to Efau, tho' his elder Brother; and Jacob begat Judab, and his eleven Brethren, who became the Heads of their respective Tribes. And as Judah was the Perfon, to whom his Defcendants should continue a distinct which Places it is applied to Genealogies ;) I think it beft, with the learned Dr. Scott, (b) Till Shiloh, that is, the Meffiah, came.] This Senfe of Jacob's Prophecy is fo beautifully illuftrated, and fo ftrongly afferted, by the prefent learned Bishop of Sarum, (Dr. Sherlock,) in his Difcourfes on Prophecy, Differt. 3. pag. 317, &c. that if I was writing on this Paffage of the Old Testament, I fhould have little to do but to refer my Reader to it. (c) Of 31 4 46 The Genealogy of CHRIST, SECT. 9. People were numbered and marshalled at Naaflon, and Naaffon begat Mount Sinai; (Numb. i. 7. x. 14.) and Mat. L4. Naaffon begat Salmon. 5 And after their Settlement in Canaan, acted Salmon; 5 And Salmon begat Booz of Rachab, and Booz begat Obed of Ruth, and Obed begat Jeffe; 6 And Jeffe begat David King begat Solomon of her the King, and David the that had been the Wife of Urias; (c) Of Rahab.] It is not indeed exprefsly faid, the was Rahab of Jericho, commonly called the Harlot, but I think there can be no Room to doubt it, as we know she was contemporary with Salmon, and may conclude, that the (this Rahab) was, as all the other Women mentioned in this Lift, a remarkable Perfon. Now there was no other of that Name, especially of this Age, of whom the Compiler of this Table could, (fo far as we can judge,) fuppofe his Reader to have any Knowledge. نوع (d) Boaz begat Obed, of Ruth the Moabitefs.] The Son of a Moabite by an Ifraelitish Woman could never be allowed to enter into the Congregation of the Lord; that is, at leaft he was rendered incapable of being a Prince in Ifrael, and perhaps even of being naturalized by Circumcifion; which may be the meaning of the Phrafe, Deut. xxiii. 3. (See Mr. Lowman's Hebrew Government, pag. 130, & feq.) But it evidently appears from this celebrated Inftance, that this Precept was not understood, as excluding the Defcendants of an Ifraelite by a Moabitifh Woman from any hereditary Honours and Privileges. Otherwife furely Salmon, the Son of Naaffon Prince of Judah, would never have married Rahab, one of the accurfed People of Canaan; nor would the Kinfman of Boaz have wanted a much better Reason than he affigned, (Ruth iv. 6.) for refufing to marry Ruth when the became a Widow. (e) Obed in a very advanced Age begat feffe.] That Salmon, Boaz, and Obed, must each of them have been about an hundred Years old, at the Birth of his Son here recorded, hath been observed by many, and is well accounted for by Dr. Whitby in particular: Annet. on ver. 4. (f) Febr 9 And Ozias begat Joatham, and Joatham begat Achaz, and Achaz begat 10 And Ezekias begat Manaffes, and Manaffes be gat acted in a Way moft unworthy his Charac-EC 47 T. 9. Mat. I. 6.. And to go forward therefore with the 7 Genealogy according to this. Line, Solomon begat Rehoboam, from whofe Government the Ten Tribes revolted under Jeroboam the Son of Nebat: And Rehoboam begat Abijah; and Abijab begat Afa, whofe Reign was fo long and profperous: And Afa begat the & good Jehoshaphat; and Jehoshaphat begat Fehoram, who unhappily dishonoured the holy Family, by an Alliance with Athaliah, the Daughter of Ahab. 2 Kings viii. 18. And And (to omit АHAZIAH, the Son of that (f) Fehoram may be faid to have begat Uzziah.] It is undeniably evident, from 2 Chron. chap. xxii. and following, that three Princes are here omitted. If this Table was taken from any publick Records amongst the Jews, the Evangelift does not feem refponfible for the Exactness of it; but if he himself drew it up, I think it will be but modeft in us to fuppofe, that it was by fome peculiar Divine Direction that the Sin of Jehoram is thus animadverted upon, even to the fourth Generation; his intermediate Defcendants being thus blotted out of the Records of Christ's Family, and overlooked as if they had never been. (g) The 9 48 The Genealogy of CHRIST, SECT. 9. nefs, and afterwards for his humble Repen gat Amon, and Amon betance: And Manaffeh begat that infamous gat Jofias; Mat. I. 10. and hardened Sinner Amon; and Amon begat Jofiah, that eminently pious Prince, whose Heart was fo early and fo tenderly impreffed with an Apprehenfion of GoD's approaching 11 Judgments. And Jofiah begat Fehoiakim, and his Royal Bethren, Jehoahaz and Zedekiah, who both of them were Kings of Judah; the former, Predeceffor to Jehoiakim, and the latter, the Succeffor of his Son (g): And about the Time of the Babylonish Captivity, Jehoiakim begat Jehoiachin, otherwife called Feconiah (h), who was so long the Prifoner of the Chaldeans. And II And Jofias begat Jechonias and his Brethren, carried away to Babylon. about the Time they were (g) The Succeffor of his Son.] On the Death of Jofiah, the People took Jehoahaz, otherwife called Shallum, tho' a younger Brother, and made him King in his Father's 'Stead; (2 Kings xxiii. 30, 31.) but Pharaoh-Necho in three Months Time deposed him, and carried him Captive to Egypt, according to the Prediction of the Prophet concerning him: (Jer. xxii. 10, 11, 12. compared with 2 Kings xxiii. 33, 34.) And having thus depofed him, he made Jehoiakim the elder Brother, who was formerly called Eliakim, King in his Room. But this Jehoiakim was foon fubdued by the King of Babylon, who after his Conqueft fuffered him for a while to continue on the Throne; 'but on his Revolt to the King of Egypt again, he was flain by the Chaldeans; (2 Kings xxiv. 1, 2.) and thrown out unburied, as Jofephus tells us, (Antiq. lib. x. cap. 6. (al. 8.) §. 3. Havercamp.) agreeable to what the Prophet had foretold: Jer. xxii 18, 19. xxxvi. 30. After his Death, his Son Jehoiachin, by fome called Fehoiakim the Second, was put in his Place; and this is he who is elsewhere called Feconiah, 1 Chron. iii. 16. and Coniah, Jer. xxii. 24. But after a Reign of three Months, he was taken Captive, and imprisoned by Nebuchadnezzar, 2 Kings xxiv. 8,—16. (according to the Prophecy, Jer. xxii. 24, 25, 26.) and after thirty-feven Years releafed: 2 Kings xxv. 27. In the mean Time, upon his being depofed, his Uncle Zedekiah, the third Son of Jofiah, was raised to the Throne; but after a Reign of eleven Years, his Eyes were put out, and he was carried Captive to Babylon, Jerufalem and the Temple being deftroyed. 2 Kings xxiv. 17, 18. xxv. 7.I have traced and ftated the Matter thus particularly, chiefly because it is a Key, not only to the Paraphrafe on this Text, but to much of the Book of Jeremiah, which, as it is plain that feveral Chapters of it are difplaced, cannot be well understood without a very exact Knowledge of the preceding Hiftory. (h) Jehoiakim begat Feconiah.] I here follow the Reading of the Bodleian, and other Manufcripts, (Notice of which is taken in the Margin of our Bibles,) INS DE EYEVUNTE τον Ιωακειμ Ιωακειμ δε εγεννησε τον Ιεχονίαν. And this indeed feems abfolutely neceffary, to keep up the Number of fourteen Generations; unless we fuppofe, that the Feconiah here is a different Perfon, from that Feconiah mentioned in the next Verfe; which feems a very unreasonable Suppofition, fince it is certain, that throughout this whole Table, each Perfon is mentioned twice, firft as the Son of the preceding, and then as the Father of the following.-I am obliged to the candid Animadverfion of Dr. Scott for for the fmall Alteration I have made in my Reading of this Verfe, from what was published in the firft Edition. (i) Feconiah begat Salathiel.] I cannot take upon me certainly to determine, whether Salathiel was the Son of Feconiah by Defcent, or Adoption. It is certain, that Luke (chap. iii. 27.) derives Salathiel from David, by Nathan, and not by Solomon, whofe Line might poffibly fail in feconiah. And this would be moft evidently congruous to Jer. xxii. 30. where it is faid, that feconiah fhould be written Childless, as we render it: But as the Difperfion of Yeconiah's Seed is there threatened, and at least seven Sons of his are reckoned up elsewhere, 1 Chron. iii. 17, 18. (supposing Affir, as the Word fignifies, to be only a kind of Sirname of Jeconiah the Captive,) a greater Number, than one could fuppofe fo unhappy a Prince would adopt in his Imprisonment; I should rather think, the Word in the fore-cited Prophecy fignifies, (as the Seventy fuppose, who have tranflated it exunguxlov,) naked, stripped, or rooted up; and the more fo, because it seems harsh, to fuppofe eyewnoe fhould fignify only he adopted. Yet I own, it is fomething strange, that Salathiel, who on this Suppofition was a Defcendant of Solomon, fhould be adopted by Neri, a Defcendant of Nathan, a younger and much inferior Branch of David's Family; or that it fhould be faid by Jeremiah, that none of Feconian's Seed fhould rule any more in Judah, if Zerubbabel, their first Ruler after the Captivity, was at fartheft but his Great Grandfon. On the whole, I fubmit fo difficult a Question to the Determination of abler Judges, and content myself with thus hinting at what I found moft material on either Side. If the two Genealogies do not fpeak of different Perfons that were named alike, I should conjecture, that Salathiel, the Son of Neri, might marry the Daughter of feconiah, and might poffibly on that Account be alfo adopted by him. The attentive Reader will fee, that this Hypothesis at least softens the Difficulties, infeparable from either of the former. (k) Salathiel begat Zerubbabel] This illuftrious Perfon Zerubbabel is fo often faid to have been the Son of Salathiel, or Shealtiel, which is nearly the fame, (and accordingly the Syriack here reads Schaltiel :) See Ezra iii. 2, 8. v. 2. Hag. i. 1, 12, 14. ii. 23. that I incline more and more to think with Brennius, that the Zerubbabel mentioned 1 Chron. iii. 17,-19. as the Son of Pedaiah the Brother of Salathiel, was a different Perfon from this. As the Name Zerubbabel fignifies a Stranger in Babylon, it is no Wonder that it should be given to several Children born in the Captivity.-If this Solution be not allowed, I fee not how the known Difficulty here can be removed, unlefs by acknowledging that the Books of Chronicles (the Author of which is unknown) may have fuffered by the Injuries of Time, fo that the prefent Reading of fome Paffages may be incorrect; which is very confiftent with owning the plenary Infpiration of those Books. By allowing this, we fhould fairly get rid of Two Parts in Three of the seeming Contradictions in the Writings of the Old Teftament, (I fpeak on an accurate Review of them;) and fhould be free from the fad Neceffity of fuch evafive Criticisms, as are more like to pain a candid Heart, than to fatisfy an attentive and penetrating Mind. The Omiffion of a Word or Two in a Genealogical Table, and fometimes the Miftake of a Letter or Two in tranfcribing, especially with regard to Names or Numbers, occafions many inextricable Difficulties, where in the Original Reading all might be perfectly clear. VOL. I. G (1) Ze |