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What the Bible says about Three Missing Kings in Matthew 1
(From Forerunner Commentary)

2 Chronicles 15:1-2

When Asa, one of the better kings of Judah, needed some advice during a crisis, God sent a prophet to teach him this important truth. Other verses in the Bible expand on the principle that underlies what Azariah says here. Jesus uses the same principle when He says that God judges us as we judge others (Matthew 7:1-5), so we need to be careful about the kind of judgment we use in evaluating others whose hearts we cannot read. Jesus also teaches in the Lord's Prayer that God will forgive us as we forgive (Matthew 6:12).

The underlying principle speaks to reciprocity in spiritual matters. In this case, God tells Asa that faithfulness or loyalty to God is a two-way street. Our actions, good or bad, will receive a corresponding reaction from God. If we are faithful, He will be with us, but we can expect His wrath if we rebel. We cannot count on past good behavior to excuse us in the present.

Notice what Paul tells Christians in the church at Colossae:

And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled [He has granted repentance], in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight—if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel [salvation], which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister. (Colossians 1:21-23)

God works the same way today under the New Covenant as He did during the reigns of Joash, Amaziah, and Uzziah. They all began well, doing “good in the sight of the LORD . . ..” But when their godly, human anchors died, or their pride swelled, they began to turn aside. God soon found fault with them and sent them a prophet to turn them to repentance, but they hardened their hearts and rejected God's offer of mercy. They did not continue in the faith.

Continuing steadily on God's path tests the reality of our faith. Will we remain loyal to God despite setbacks and trials or even through persecution? We must. As Jesus says in Matthew 24:13, “But he who endures to the end shall be saved.”

John W. Ritenbaugh
Three Missing Kings (Part Two)

2 Chronicles 21:1-4

What a horrible way to begin his reign! He slays his brothers to ensure that they do not usurp his throne. If we give him the benefit of the doubt, it is entirely possible that, from a carnal standpoint, he had good reason to rid himself of them. Perhaps his brothers showed signs of plotting a coup d'état out of envy (though God says in verse 13 that they were better men than Jehoram). Maybe they thought Jehoshaphat should have given them the throne since they were better men. In any case, Jehoram held power, and he beat them to the punch, putting them to death before they assassinated him.

The background for this event reaches back to II Chronicles 18:1, where it innocently reads, “Jehoshaphat had riches and honor in abundance, and by marriage he allied himself with Ahab.” Ahab, whose wife was the infamous Jezebel, was possibly the most wicked king who ever ruled over Israel. Jehoshaphat and Ahab cemented their relationship by arranging a marriage between Jehoshaphat's son, Jehoram, and Ahab and Jezebel's daughter, Athaliah. Such arranged dynastic marriages were quite common in those days. So, the two houses becamee allies through marriage.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Three Missing Kings (Part One)

2 Chronicles 21:18-20

The language here indicates the low regard in which his subjects held him. His regrettable story had its beginnings in a foolish, arranged marriage and ended with tragic results for Judah. Jehoram preferred to follow the ways of his evil wife and her equally wicked parents rather than his godly father. Jehoram's evil was so pernicious that it just kept growing and consuming more victims. The people refused to honor him with burial among the other kings of Judah. He died unlamented and unmissed, yet this evil man is on the list of Christ's forebears.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Three Missing Kings (Part One)

2 Chronicles 24:2

In the life of Joash, Jehoiada proved a powerful influence for good. Joash reigned for forty years, but unfortunately, Jehoiada did not live through its entirety, as II Chronicles 24:15-16 relates:

But Jehoiada grew old and full of days, and he died; he was one hundred and thirty years old when he died. And they buried him in the city of David among the kings.

The Bible does not record that many high priests were buried with the kings of Judah. This honor is quite distinctive. It is a recognition of his being a great, righteous man and a tremendous, positive influence on Joash, as well as an acknowledgment that Jehoiada had actually ruled the kingdom. Despite being the front man as the heir of David, Joash did not really have it in him to be king—but Jehoiada did. We see this to be true in the next verses:

Now after the death of Jehoiada the leaders of Judah came and bowed down to the king. And the king listened to them. Therefore they left the house of the LORD God of their fathers, and served wooden images and idols . . .. (II Chronicles 24:17-18)

The wording in the first part of the last sentence implies that these Judahite leaders abandoned the way of life represented by the Temple. We would say that they “left the church.” In other words, the nation's entire political leadership apostatized, using weak Joash to return to the paganism they had enjoyed under Joash's grandfather, father, and grandmother. God was not pleased:

. . . and wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem because of their trespass. Yet He sent prophets to them, to bring them back to the LORD; and they testified against them, but they would not listen. Then the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah, son of Jehoiada the priest, who stood above the people, and said to them, “Thus says God: 'Why do you transgress the commandments of the LORD so you cannot prosper? Because you have forsaken the LORD, He also has forsaken you.' So they conspired against him, and at the command of the king they stoned him with stones in the court of the house of the LORD. Thus Joash did not remember the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done to him . . .. (II Chronicles 24:18-22)

Jehoiada was not his biological father, but he had acted as his father. He had reared this king of Judah from his infancy, but Joash appears not to have appreciated all that Jehoiada had done for him.

Thus Joash the king did not remember the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done to him, but killed his son; and as he died, [Zechariah] said, “The LORD look on it, and repay!” (II Chronicles 24:22)

This heinous act shows what ingratitude can do to a person's thinking. Jesus refers to this murder in Matthew 23:35-36 when He says that the Jewish authorities had slain His prophets “from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.” Interestingly, Jesus seems to answer Zechariah's plea to bring them to justice for his death, saying in verse 36, “Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.”

God made him and his counselors account for Zechariah's death not long thereafter, sending the Syrians against Judah and Jerusalem (II Chronicles 24:23-24). The Syrian army not only plundered the wealth of the leaders of Judah, but they also killed them. So God punished them for their part in Zechariah's death.

Joash did not escape the divine judgment. His fate was assassination and the disgrace of not being buried with the kings (II Chronicles 24:25). It makes for a fascinating contrast to compare him, a scion of David who suffered death at the hands of his servants, with his “father” Jehoiada, a descendant of Aaron whom the people held in such high regard that they buried him among the kings. The one's path led to shame while the other's led to honor.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Three Missing Kings (Part Two)

2 Chronicles 24:2

Joash, Amaziah, and Uzziah all started out well but later hardened their hearts. They all rejected God's Word and refused to repent. God wanted them to return to Him, but their intransigence forced His hand.

Is God hard? Is He austere and unmerciful? Does God owe us salvation and eternal life? Is He bound to give us blessings regardless of our conduct, despite the direction of our lives? No, our choices decide our fate (see Ezekiel 18:23-28).

God demands individual responsibility. He never condones sin nor grants license for anyone to disobey His commands. The subject here is not about transgressions done out of weakness or ignorance but those committed as a way of life with knowledge of wrongdoing. He judges such sins seriously. Yet, even for such sins, God always desires and allows the sinner to repent.

As we see in the examples of these kings, He will always chase after the sinner with His Word and allow him time to repent. He always leaves the door open for a sinner who will return to Him. But eventually, the mind becomes set (Ecclesiastes 8:11), the conscience becomes seared (I Timothy 4:2), and repentance becomes impossible.

At some point, a sinner will no longer change, and God says that He then makes a final judgment. He tells Moses after he had offered his own life for the sins of Israel, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book” (Exodus 32:33). God enters names into the Book of Life, and He has the prerogative to erase names from it as well—a sobering thought indeed.

Essentially, Joash, Amaziah, and Uzziah all quoted Deuteronomy 29:19: “I shall have peace, even though I walk in the imagination [dictates] of my heart.” At a certain point, confronted with their sins, they said, “I will not repent, I will not listen to God's prophets. I will continue in the direction I am going, and despite that, I will live in peace and prosperity.” God says that is the kind of thinking He expects from a drunk: “I can continue to drink and not get become impaired.”

In verse 20, Moses reaches a scary conclusion about how God would deal with such a person at that point:

The LORD would not spare him; for then the anger of the LORD and His jealousy would burn against that man, and every curse that is written in this book would settle on him, and the LORD would blot out his name from under heaven.

Through Moses, God is saying, “Do not kid yourself. You cannot live in violation of My ways and expect Me not to respond.” Most of us have come out of a Protestant society that teaches that God is essentially obligated to give us salvation because of the depth of His grace. Protestant theology proclaims that His mercy is so great that, as long as we have accepted the blood of Jesus Christ, salvation is assured. This claim is not true. While this teaching tickles people's ears, they forget that God's justice perfectly balances His mercy, and His love tempers both.

He knows that anybody who desires to live in a way opposed to His way of life would be miserable for all eternity should he inherit the Kingdom of God. God's sense of justice will not allow Him to give eternal life to such a person. He will not commit a person to that depth of misery, nor will He allow him to cause suffering for others. Like Satan, he would be a thorn in the side of the godly. If God determines that it would not be good for someone to live in His Kingdom, because he refuses to live as God requires, he will not be there.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Three Missing Kings (Part Two)

2 Chronicles 24:15-16

It is not known if many high priests were buried among the kings. This honor was quite distinctive, and it was a recognition of two things: 1) that he was a great, righteous man and a tremendous influence on Joash; 2) that in reality Jehoiada actually ruled Judah for many years. He was the real king, whereas Joash, the front man, did not have what it took to be a good king. However, Jehoiada did.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Why Three Kings Are Missing From Matthew 1

2 Chronicles 24:17-18

In other words, they left the way of life that was represented by the Temple. Today, we might say that they left the church, as it were.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Why Three Kings Are Missing From Matthew 1

2 Chronicles 24:18-22

Jehoiada the priest was not Joash's biological father, but he had acted as a father to him. He had essentially reared this king of Judah.

This passage recounts the murder that Jesus referred to in Matthew 23:35, when He said, "'You murdered [Zechariah] between the temple and the altar." It just shows what ingratitude can do to a person's thinking.

Let us evaluate Joash's character. He was a "fellow traveler." He was a leaner, a clinging vine, who did not have the resources within himself to choose his own course. Whenever he was pressured, he had nothing within to give him strength, so he drooped and spiritually died. Joash bent whichever way the wind blew. He was easily influenced by his peers. He went whatever way the crowd was going. His character reflected the crowd that he had joined. When Jehoiada was with him, and the influence was for good, then Joash was compliant and seemingly a good king. However, when he was with his peers, a bad crowd, he was afraid to buck his peers and his character plummeted. We should also add that he did not repent when he was warned.

In the end, he was assassinated and not buried with the kings (II Chronicles 24:25). Is that not an interesting contrast between him and his "father" Jehoiada, who was not even in the kingly line but a priest. Yet, he was held in such high regard that he was buried with the kings. We must conclude that Joash's character was merely programmed; it had not truly been internalized. It was not genuine.

Faith and character have to be grounded within us and personally held. We should recall Ezekiel 14:14, concerning Noah, Job, and Daniel. Even these three righteous men could save only themselves.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Why Three Kings Are Missing From Matthew 1

2 Chronicles 24:22

Jesus calls him “Zechariah, son of Berechiah” (Matthew 23:35-36) whereas the chronicler records that he was the son of Jehoiada (II Chronicles 24:22). Because the place of death matches in both accounts, most commentators believe the two refer to the same man. One of the following two solutions to this problem is likely to be true: 1) Berechiah is Zechariah's father, but as in so many cases in Scripture, he is said to be the “son” of his very elderly grandfather, Jehoiada; or 2) Jehoiada went by at least two names, one of them being Berechiah.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Three Missing Kings (Part Two)

2 Chronicles 24:25

Most translators believe “sons” should be singular “son,” as the Septuagint reads. But it is not without precedence that monarchs have taken vengeance on family members of their opponents. Joash's grandfather and grandmother, Jehoram and Athaliah, both purged their families of potential rivals (II Chronicles 21:4; 22:10). Perhaps their examples inspired Joash to kill some of Jehoiada's family to somehow avert Zechariah's plea for divine repayment. If such were the case, plural “sons” would be correct.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Three Missing Kings (Part Two)

2 Chronicles 25:2

This evaluation of Amaziah's character provides a key to understanding his character. In II Chronicles 25:11-12, a battle between Judah and Edom occurs, and Amaziah wins a great victory. Then he does something that defies logic:

Now it was so, after Amaziah came from the slaughter of the Edomites, that he brought the gods of the people of Seir, set them up to be his gods, and bowed down before them, and burned incense to them. (II Chronicles 25:14)

This reaction is hard to comprehend! God gave him a great victory over the Edomites and their gods, and instead of praising and worshipping the God of Israel, he decides to adopt the idols of Edom as his gods. What was he thinking? God responds as we might expect:

Therefore the anger of the LORD was aroused against Amaziah, and He sent him a prophet who said to him, “Why have you sought the gods of the people, which could not rescue their own people from your hand?” So it was, as he talked with him, that the king said to him, “Have we made you the king's counselor? Cease! Why should you be killed?” Then the prophet ceased and said, “I know that God has determined to destroy you because you have done this and have not heeded my advice.” (II Chronicles 25:15-16)

Amaziah would not take correction and threatened to kill God's prophet if he continued to criticize him for his actions. Though he had followed the prophet's advice earlier, the king is now beginning to expose his disloyal heart.

Feeling strong, Amaziah decides to challenge Israel, whose angry mercenaries had killed three thousand Judahites after being dismissed from Judah's service—not a very smart move. For one thing, it pitted Judah with two tribes against Israel with its ten tribes. Joash, king of Israel, was justifiably contemptuous of Amaziah's challenge, warning him of defeat in the form of a parable (II Chronicles 25:18).

Amaziah, in his pride, refuses to listen. The chronicler interjects that God inspired his refusal because He needed to punish the king for taking Edomite gods as his own (verse 20). Amaziah takes his forces into battle against Israel at Beth Shemesh, and he and his army are smashed just as the king of Israel had predicted.

Like his father Joash, Amaziah comes to a violent end years later:

After the time that Amaziah turned away from following the LORD, they [likely a group of nobles] made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem, and he fled to Lachish; but they sent after him to Lachish and killed him there. Then they brought him on horses and buried him with his fathers in the City of Judah. (II Chronicles 25:27-28)

So, for the second time in as many generations, the king of Judah is assassinated. The conspirators held Amaziah in such contempt that they killed him, tied him over the back of a horse, and sent his body back to Jerusalem for burial. Another king suffers an ignominious end, although he at least had the honor of burial among the former kings of Judah.

In terms of character, Amaziah was unstable, reversing his early loyalty to God on a dime. He wanted victory and glory, and when God gave it to him, he failed to see that God was its source and absurdly chose to worship Edomite gods. Instead of listening to God's prophet, he threatened him with death. He foolishly challenged a far stronger Israelite army, expecting the same results he had had against the Edomites, not realizing the Source of his power had become his adversary. And apparently, he never learned his lesson, disenchanting his nobles until they decided to rid themselves of him.

We could compare him to the man in Jesus' parable (Luke 14:28-30), who began to build, seemingly well. However, his early success went to his head, and like a piece of overripe fruit, he began to turn rotten. He dropped the true God for idols. Like the man in the parable, he did not have what it took to finish what he had started.

Unsteady in character and conduct, he was a semi-religious man who only wanted what faithfulness could get him. He was sufficiently pious early in life, but that early piety did not justify his later pride and self-indulgence.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Three Missing Kings (Part Two)

2 Chronicles 25:5

Amaziah was preparing to go to war; he was putting a fighting machine together. So he took a census, and this is what he found.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Why Three Kings Are Missing From Matthew 1

2 Chronicles 25:27-28

Most of us have probably seen a Western in which a man gets shot out the wilderness somewhere, and someone ties his body onto the horse, draped over the top, stomach to the saddle, with his hands tied to his feet underneath. That is what they did to Amaziah, just tied him to a horse and sent him back to Jerusalem. What an ignominious ending for the royal seed!

Let us evaluate his character. What we see in him is vacillating instability. He was a great deal like Joash, but Amaziah wanted the best of both worlds. We could compare his life to the parable Jesus gave of a man who began to build yet was not able to finish. Amaziah started off well. He listened to the prophet of God and repented. When he changed his ways, God gave him a great victory, but then he began to turn. He was a man who was semi-religious and unsteady in character and conduct. He had the right kind of piety and godliness early in his life, but early piety and godliness is no excuse for self-indulgence later on.

The flaw we see beginning to develop is that these three kings (Joash, Amaziah, and Uzziah) all began well, but they did not finish well.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Why Three Kings Are Missing From Matthew 1

2 Chronicles 26:4

The chronicler does not even compare Uzziah to David but to his father, Amaziah, whose life did not end well, though he started fine.

Uzziah seems to have followed in Joash's footsteps: “He sought God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding in the visions of God; and as long as he sought the LORD, God made him prosper” (II Chronicles 26:5). Joash sought God while Jehoiada the priest lived. Now another strong priest, who, as the margin says, understood the fear of God, steered Uzziah in the right direction. As long as Uzziah had this righteous guidance, God helped him with victories over surrounding nations, bringing him fame and prosperity (II Chronicles 26:9-11). The record of his early reign concludes, “So his fame spread far and wide, for he was marvelously helped till he became strong” (verse 15).

However, upon reaching the zenith of power and fame, he plunges toward his nadir; the butterfly turns into a worm: “But when he was strong his heart was lifted up, to his destruction, for he transgressed against the LORD his God by entering the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense” (II Chronicles 26:16). Uzziah presumptuously disregarded God's Word, for it says that only the priests could perform this responsibility.

Success after success spoiled his character. He became arrogant, filled with inordinate self-esteem. In his pride, he tried to emulate the despotic Oriental kings around him, who were their nations' high priests as well. But God had purposely separated the two offices within Israel. What was the result of his flagrant presumption?

First, the priests tried to stop him from his foolish act (II Chronicles 26:17-18). In his overweening pride, Uzziah's reaction was rage. The priests had challenged his authority! Was he not the mighty king of Judah? It appears he felt that he had become infallible and invincible. The chronicler relates the disastrous ending of the tale:

Then Uzziah became furious; and he had a censer in his hand to burn incense. And while he was angry with the priests, leprosy broke out on his forehead, before the priests in the house of the LORD, beside the incense altar. And Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked at him, and there, on his forehead, he was leprous; so they thrust him out of that place. Indeed he also hurried to get out, because the LORD had struck him. King Uzziah was a leper until the day of his death. He dwelt in an isolated house, because he was a leper; for he was cut off from the house of the LORD. Then Jotham his son was over the king's house, judging the people of the land. (II Chronicles 26:19-21)

Josephus adds an interesting postscript to the story, though it is not clear if he is correct or not. He writes that the earthquake the prophet Amos mentions in Amos 1:1 occurred when Uzziah invaded the Holy Place. Moreover, he says that the shaking tore the sanctuary's roof, and a ray of sunlight pierced the Temple, striking Uzziah in his forehead. When the sunbeam disappeared, leprosy remained. Tradition says this was the hand of God, showing His displeasure with Uzziah's presumptuous pride.

We see a king who started marvelously but faltered and failed along the way. Like Amaziah, when confronted with the truth of his sin, he refused to repent, doubling down with anger and threats. God humbled him for the rest of his life. He had sought glory and fame, and he had to live with shame and loneliness for about another decade before he died. II Chronicles 26:23 records that he was buried with his fathers but separated from them in the field because “they said, 'He is a leper.'”

John W. Ritenbaugh
Three Missing Kings (Part Two)

2 Chronicles 33:1-9

Manasseh was the son of Hezekiah, probably the third best king that Judah ever had. In my mind, the four best kings of Judah were David—the standard who stands in a class of his own as Scripture compares every king to him, even the good ones—Josiah, Hezekiah, and Jehoshaphat, in that order. The Bible compares only these last three kings favorably to David. Manasseh, then, grew up under one of the best kings, Hezekiah.

Judah became worse under this wicked man than all of the pagan peoples whom God had sent Israel into the land to destroy—the Canaanites, the Hivites, the Hittites, etc. Manasseh seduced Judah using astrology, spiritism, witchcraft, human sacrifice, pagan altars, and idol groves. He destroyed all of Hezekiah's good works. Most surprising of all, he repented in captivity! Apparently, because of his former evils, he was not buried with the kings of Judah.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Three Missing Kings (Part One)

2 Chronicles 33:2-9

Under this wicked king, Judah became worse than all of those whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel—the Canaanites, the Hivites, the Hittites. He seduced Judah into brazen idolatry and destroyed all of Hezekiah's good works. He used astrology, spiritism, wizardry, human sacrifice, erection of idol groves—and yet he repented in captivity. But apparently, he was not allowed to be buried with the kings. Despite all of his wickedness, he, too, is on the list of Jesus' ancestors in Matthew 1.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Why Three Kings Are Missing From Matthew 1

Matthew 1:7-11

I Chronicles 3 contains a counterpart to Matthew's list, at least his middle section covering the kings of Judah, that is, the family of David:

Solomon's son was Rehoboam; Abijah was his son, Asa his son, Jehoshaphat his son, Joram his son, Ahaziah his son, Joash his son, Amaziah his son, Azariah his son, Jotham his son, Ahaz his son, Hezekiah his son, Manasseh his son, Amon his son, Josiah his son. The sons of Josiah were Johanan the firstborn, the second Jehoiakim, the third Zedekiah, and the fourth Shallum. The sons of Jehoiakim were Jeconiah his son and Zedekiah his son. (I Chronicles 3:10-16)

From David to Zedekiah, twenty-one kings reigned in Judah. But in Matthew's list, only the names of fifteen kings appear. Three of the six left out, the three who followed Josiah (Shallum/Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Zedekiah), were of the same generation, brothers—blood relatives, of the same family line. However, two of them, Shallum and Zedekiah, are not direct ancestors of Jesus and so are not included, providing a logical reason for their absence. Matthew further disparages this generation by skipping over Jehoiakim and naming his son, Jehoiachin or Jeconiah, as Josiah's son (his literal grandson).

In addition, a renegade queen, Athaliah, is not on either list. She was the granddaughter of Omri, king of Israel (II Chronicles 22:2), and a truly evil woman. She usurped the throne following her son Ahaziah's death by killing all his heirs. She deserves exclusion, yet some of the most evil kings of Judah are on the list as part of Christ's ancestry.

Another three kings whose names appear in the king list in I Chronicles 3 fail to appear in Matthew's list. Which three kings they are is not entirely clear because of a confusion of names. There are two possibilities.

The kings in question appear in I Chronicles 3:11-12: “Joram his son, Ahaziah his son, Joash his son, Amaziah his son, Azariah his son, Jotham his son.” The first possibility is that Matthew excluded Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah from his list because of their connection to Athaliah.

The second possibility is that he left Joash, Amaziah, and Azariah off his list. The last of these kings is better known as Uzziah. Why did Matthew drop them from Jesus' family tree? Rather than excluding them due to their connection to Athaliah, he may have omitted them to draw attention to a disastrous flaw these three men had in common.

God does not tell us which is the correct answer. Either of the two possibilities would be a good enough reason for their absence from Matthew's list. The second, however, has greater application to Christians living and growing today. We are not descended from or have any direct connections to Athaliah, but we may well have a similar spiritual problem to what Joash, Amaziah, and Uzziah had.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Three Missing Kings (Part One)

Matthew 1:8

Who is this man, Uzziah? The King James Version reads “Ozias,” which is closer to the Greek version of the name. To answer this question makes things very interesting.

We will pick up the trail of these names in the reign of Jehoram:

And they [an army of Philistines and Arabians] came up into Judah and invaded it, and carried away all the possessions that were found in the king's house, and also his sons and his wives, so that there was not a son left to him [Jehoram] except Jehoahaz, the youngest of his sons. (II Chronicles 21:17)

This invasion was devastating for Jehoram. He lost all his wives and sons except the youngest, Jehoahaz. In II Chronicles 22:1, after the ignominious burial of Jehoram, the people of Judah crowned a new king: “Then the inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahaziah his youngest son king in his place.”

Just four verses earlier, the chronicler names Jehoram's youngest son “Jehoahaz,” and here he calls him “Ahaziah.” Are these two different men or the same man with two names? The latter is the correct answer since, in both cases, he is identified as the youngest son. Over a couple of years, his name changed from Jehoahaz to Ahaziah. It is most likely that his birth name was “Jehoahaz,” but he took “Ahaziah” when he ascended the throne. (In my lifetime, Britain's Prince Albert, Duke of York, took the regnal name of George VI. His given name was “Albert Frederick Arthur George,” and before his ascension to the throne, he was always known as “Albert” or called by his nickname, “Bertie.”)

This king's name becomes more complicated in II Chronicles 22:6:

Then he returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds he had received at Ramah, when he fought against Hazael king of Syria. And Azariah the son of Jehoram, king of Judah, went down to see Jehoram the son of Ahab in Jezreel, because he was sick.

Beyond the fact that the king of Israel is also named “Jehoram” as Ahaziah's father was, the text calls the king of Judah “Azariah”! This person cannot be a different king of Judah because no other sons of Jehoram remained alive. This king obviously has three names: Jehoahaz, Ahaziah, and Azariah.

And the confusion continues! In II Chronicles 25:27, another name crops up: “After the time that Amaziah turned away from following the LORD, they made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem, and he fled to Lachish; but they sent after him to Lachish and killed him there.” This verse recounts the death of Amaziah. When a king dies, a new king ascends to the throne, and II Chronicles 26:1 relates who followed Amaziah: “Now all the people of Judah took Uzziah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king instead of his father, Amaziah.”

Amaziah's son, Uzziah, now sits on David's throne. II Kings 15:1 contains a parallel account of this event: “In the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam, king of Israel, Azariah the son of Amaziah, king of Judah, became king.” Amaziah's son is here called “Azariah.” This Azariah is the same man as Uzziah, the son of Amaziah, in II Chronicles 26. Other details in both accounts verify this (he ascended the throne at sixteen, and his mother was Jecholiah of Jerusalem).

The book of Matthew, written in Greek, uses the Greek equivalents of these Hebrew names. In ancient Hebrew, the vowels are not written. This omission of vowels can easily lead to confusion when the consonants of names in lists like Matthew's genealogy are similar.

This confusion of names sets up an intriguing situation. If the “Uzziah” or “Ozias” of Matthew 1:8 is the king variously called “Jehoahaz,” “Azariah,” or “Ahaziah,” and not the “Azariah” or “Uzziah” of II Kings 15:1 and II Chronicles 26:1, it means three kings in a row have been left off Matthew's list.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Three Missing Kings (Part One)

Luke 3:23-38

Christ's genealogy in Luke uses the words “son of” rather than “begot,” as in Matthew. These words more correctly imply the idea of “descendant,” not necessarily a literal son of the man in question. The “son” named may not be a son but a grandson, great-grandson, or even more distant descendant. In this particular list, all of the people named are related by blood, and this bloodline ends in Jesus Christ, demonstrating its importance.

Confusing things even more, Scripture will occasionally call someone a son of somebody or something—for example, “a son of Belial”—not to indicate a relationship by descent but as a descriptor. In this way, the Bible's authors reveal that a person “shows the characteristics of” the one named. In this case, Belial means “foolishness.” So, a son of Belial demonstrates the characteristics of a fool.

Matthew organizes Jesus' genealogy into three groups of fourteen names: Abraham to David, Solomon to Jeconiah (the son of Josiah), and Shealtiel to Jesus Christ. It covers three distinct historical periods: God's calling of Abram to the establishment of the Davidic Monarchy, Israel's height of power to its ignominious downfall, and the Babylonian Exile to the ministry of Jesus.

Luke's list runs in the opposite direction, beginning with Christ and ending with Adam, whom he calls “the son of God.” Interestingly, Matthew includes four women in his record of Jesus' line: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. His list contains 42 men and four women, all of whom are ancestors of Jesus.

Like all humans, they varied considerably in personality, spirituality, and experience. Some, like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and Ruth, were heroes of faith. Tamar and Rahab, on the other hand, had shadier reputations, and a few, like Abijah, Manasseh, and Amon, were downright evil. Many of them were ordinary personalities; we know only their names as they appear just in these kinds of lists!

Of the women, two—Rahab and Ruth—were definitely Gentiles, and another, Tamar, was probably a Gentile as her name is not Israelitish. The fourth, Bathsheba, married a Gentile, Uriah the Hittite, and as a result, the Israelites may have considered her to be Gentile. These women in Christ's family tree make an interesting study all by themselves.

God is showing us here that human imperfections do not limit Him. He can work through anybody to carry out His will, even the disreputable characters in the ancestry of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Three Missing Kings (Part One)

2 Timothy 3:16-17

All Scripture is profitable, but we tend to overlook or maybe even altogether neglect parts of it. Usually, these neglected parts appear in the Old Testament. Often, they are “the begats,” where passage after passage relates who begot whom for many generations, for instance, I Chronicles 1-8; Ezra 2 and 10; Nehemiah 7, 10, and 12. In most peoples' Bibles, those chapters are in mint condition because they have never been read!

However, God through Paul says that the whole Bible is profitable. It is a practical and helpful tool for teachers and students alike. Scripture stands as the standard for testing everything that claims to be true. In that way, it is also our safeguard against false teaching, sounding a warning when we hear it. If we study it diligently, God's Word is a source of guidance in the right path, training us to understand how to live and do Christ's work in this world.

The apostle's words in II Timothy 3:16 tell us that we need all Scripture to function properly—even “the begats”! God put them in the Book for some good reason. By combining Scripture, the Holy Spirit, and experiences in this life, God brings a person to spiritual maturity and holiness.

When “the begats” show up in the New Testament (Matthew 1; Luke 3), as in the Old, we pay scant attention to them. We must often force ourselves to read and study those chapters. But they are there and inspired by God. He made them a part of His Word for our edification. We dare not skip over them.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Three Missing Kings (Part One)


 




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