Smoodock's Blog

Earlier in my study of the Gospel of Matthew, I highlighted the death of the royal line of David, when Jeconiah was exiled to Babylon. King Jeconiah/Coniah had been made a eunuch after he came to Babylon, together with his sons (2Kings 20:18). Moreover, the problem of continuing the line after him through adoption couldn’t fully address the problem. Just as Abraham couldn’t **help** God give him an heir by taking Hagar as his concubine and siring Ishmael, so Jeconiah couldn’t breathe life into the royal line by adopting Neri’s sons: Pedaiah and Shealtiel/Salathiel (1Chronicles 3:17; cp. Luke 3:27). With the royal line through Solomon effectively dead, no matter how one interprets what was done after the exile, Jesus inherits a dead royal line.

Furthermore, no matter how one interprets Jesus as the son of David, he cannot reign on his throne, because the line was cursed by God just prior to the Babylonian Exile (Jeremiah 22:28-30). So, if the Jeconiah problem is to be solved at all, it must be solved by God, who cursed the line. So, how does God solve the problem he, himself, created by cursing the royal line?

In Matthew 1:18 we come to the birth of Jesus, and Matthew explains that Mary, Jesus’ mother, was found pregnant, prior to her wedding ceremony with Joseph and before the two took part in sexual intercourse. How Mary became pregnant is a matter that Matthew explains, saying it was through the power of the Holy Spirit. However, what does he mean, and how does it relate to the Jeconiah curse?

Mary’s espoused husband, Joseph, (Matthew 1:16, 19)[1] found out she was pregnant, but he was a good man and didn’t want to bring trouble upon her that would arise from a public divorcement. Therefore, he wished to break the union privately. It seems that Joseph was of the royal line leading to Jeconiah through his adopted son Shealtiel (Matthew 1:12). Mary’s line in Luke chapter three, which Joseph would assume after the wedding ceremony, had ended with her father, Heli, having no sons. It appears that Mary’s arranged marriage to Joseph was to be a levirate marriage to raise up a son for Heli’s line (Luke 3:23).

Nevertheless, before he was able to act on the matter, Joseph had a dream in which an angel appeared to him, informing him that Mary’s pregnancy was the work of the Holy Spirit, and he should not be afraid to take her as his wife. He revealed that the babe should be called JESUS (savior), because he would save his people from their sins (Matthew 1:20-21).

When Moses was bringing Israel to the Promised Land, he changed the name of Oshea to Joshua (Numbers 13:16; savior) and later anointed him to bring Israel into the land (Numbers 27:18-23). Jesus is the Greek form of Joshua, so in the dream (Matthew 1:20), the angel was telling Joseph by taking Jesus as his son, he would save his people from the sins they sinned that cast them out of the land, and this would bring them out of exile (verse-21). Matthew was implying that by Joseph going through with the levirate marriage with Mary to raise up a son for her line (Deuteronomy 25:5-6), he would be embracing the Lord’s plan to become the royal line’s Kinsman Redeemer.

In Lamentations 1:1-8 the city of Jerusalem is described as a widow who has been left childless, because her husband, the king has been slain, and her children are desolate and exiled to a foreign land (Lamentations 1:16). Jerusalem had become the barren widow, but she is to rejoice, because the Lord gives her hope (Isaiah 54:1-4). How does this hope come? The Lord, himself, will become her Kinsman Redeemer through a levirate marriage (Isaiah 54:5). In other words, by Joseph going through with the levirate marriage with Mary, he permits the Lord to end the Jeconiah curse. Nevertheless, this will not be so in the life of Jesus. He must die in order to atone for the sins that brought Israel into exile (Isaiah 53:4-12). Moreover, he will die childless (Isaiah 53:8), just as Jeconiah and the royal line died childless (Jeremiah 22:30).

Nevertheless, Jesus would not be left in the grave, because he didn’t do anything to deserve death (Isaiah 53:9; 2Corinthians 5:21). All others, Abraham, Moses, Job etc. all have sinned (Romans 5:12) and are able to atone for their sins only with their own deaths. Any hope of life they had lay in another, not themselves, and certainly not a mere man, because it is appointed to all men to die once (Hebrews 9:27; cp. 2Samuel 14:14). Notice that Jesus in death (generation #41) was taken from prison and judgment (Isaiah 53:8), which is what the exile is called. Although childless, yet he will see is seed, and although dead, the Lord will prolong his days (Isaiah 53:10), vis-à-vis he will rise from the dead as Mashiach/Christ – generation #42 in Matthew’s list.

In other words, Jesus inherited a dead royal line coming from Jeconiah, the last descendant of Solomon who reigned on the throne, and Jesus died also, never having reigned on David’s throne. However, this is not the end of Matthew’s introduction of Jesus, because the Lord raised Jesus from the dead—on that day, the day of the resurrection, the Lord claims he had begotten his Son (Psalm 2:7; Acts 13:33), thus removing the Jeconiah curse from the royal line.

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[1] In ancient Israel the marriage contract occurred in two stages. First, there came the arrangement of the marriage, which we might view as being engaged, but in ancient times the contract was stronger and, if one of the two wished to dissolve the contract, he or she had to give the other a legal “bill of divorcement” to break the contract. During this time sexual intercourse was forbidden. The second and final part of the marriage contract was the wedding ceremony, whereby the two could and would enter into a sexual union.