dekiah, but only to be reserved until he should come whose right it was—and to him it should be restored. This person was doubtless Christ-and his right, as entitled to the crown of Israel, must be as derived from David. For this reason St. Matthew has traced up his descent through the line of Solomon, because the promise of the temporal kingdom was originally assured to David, in the person of Solomon. The right, conveyed by that promise, and transmitted through the descendants of Solomon, was now centred in Joseph-and through Joseph became vested in Christ-a result which would be the same, in whatever sense our Saviour were considered the son, provided he was only the npwróτoxos, of Joseph. Nor is it any objection that the temporal kingdom has not yet been actually restored to the descendants of David, in the person of Christ. It may be restored hereafter-and that is sufficient for the end in view. But the genealogy of St. Luke, which beginning with Jesus proceeds up to Adam, can have no object except to represent Christ as the promised seed of the woman, in whom all the nations of the earth should be interested alike. It is such a genealogy, therefore, as was to be expected from a Gospel, written expressly for Gentiles, and not for Jews. I shall now pass to a few observations on each of the nealogies in particular. ge First, The descent of the Messias having been gradually restricted, from Abraham downwards, to the line of Isaac, and afterwards of Jacob, became fixed at last to one tribe in the line of Judah, and to one family in the line of David. From the time of David, then, the line of the Messias was necessarily to be deduced through the posterity of Davidamong whom, if the promise of his birth was ever confined to any in particular, it was so to the children of David and Bathsheba 9. The most eminent of this number was unquestionably Solomon. But the promise of the Messias, according to the flesh, is no where restricted to the line of ↑ 1 Chron. xxii. 7-10. Psalm lxxii. lxxxix. 3. 4. 20-37. cxxxii. 11-end. Solomon: and, among the children of David and Bathsheba, Nathan is mentioned as well as her. St. Luke's genealogy is derived from Nathan: St. Matthew's from Solomon. If, indeed, the tradition which is mentioned by Africanus s-that Matthan, the father of Jacob, and Melchi, the father of Eli, were both at different times married to the same wife, whom he calls Estha-were true, then Jacob and Eli, as he supposes, would be brothers: and, if Estha herself was descended from David, Jacob might also be related to Nathan, or Eli might also be related to Solomon: in which case the same things would be true of Joseph the son of Jacob, and of Mary the daughter of Eli. I confess there appears to me some reason for this tradition, partly because it specifies the name of Estha, and partly because it brings the connection between Joseph and Mary still closer than before: for they would thus be the children of brothers by the same mother, but not the same father; and, consequently, cousins of each other. Again; It is probable that neither genealogy stands exactly as it came from the writer of the Gospel; and, in the mere transcription of names, errors of excess or of defect are things of too common occurrence, and too often exemplified in other instances, to create any surprise here. The number of kings in direct descent from David to Jeconiah, the last king of Judah but one, including them both, is nineteen in St. Matthew it is but fifteen-and it is evident that, between Joram and Uzzias, in his account, are omitted three names in succession, Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah-and between Josias and Jechonias, the intermediate name of Jehoiakim, the father of Jechonias. The certainty of omissions in this first half, between David and Jechonias, may be presumptively proof of omissions in the last half, between Zerubbabel and Joseph. St. Luke's genealogy contains at present, from Jesus to God, seventy-seven names; and it contained the same number in the time of Jerome ". Yet there is authority from Africanus to expunge two, between Eli and Melchi, viz. Matthat and Levi, (for he writes in this order, Toũ 'Iwσre, τοῦ Ἠλι, τοῦ Μελχί,) which reduces the number to seventyfive; and another, in the second Cainan, which also he does not recognise, between Salah and Arphaxad w, which reduces it to seventy-four. In the time of Irenæus, however, more ancient than the time of Africanus, the whole number was only seventy-two. We must reduce it, therefore, by two more; which two, I should conjecture, are the second τοῦ Ματθὰτ, τοῦ Λευῒ, in verse 29. coming between τοῦ Ἰωρεὶμ, and Too Zuμewv. With these five omissions the number of degrees is exactly seventy-two: and there is this further reason for the last omission, that without the two names, To Ματθὰτ, τοῦ Λευΐ, the number of steps from David to Neri in St. Luke, inclusive of both, is exactly nineteen; the number of steps also from David to Jechonias in St. Mat-. thew. Now Neri and Jechonias must have been contemporaries; for Salathiel stands in the same relation of son to both and it is not unlikely that, between each of them and David, the common founder of either line, the number of generations should be equal. The same thing is asserted by Josephus of the number of the high-priests, from the highpriest contemporary with Solomon, who was Zadok, to Jozadak, contemporary with Jechonias y. This number was eighteen-which, beginning at Solomon, answers to nineteen, beginning at David. From the birth of Solomon 2, which the Bible Chronology places B. C. 1033. to the birth of Jechoniasa, eighteen years before his captivity, B. C. 599. are 416 years; which, divided by seventeen, the number of descents between Solomon and Jechonias, is about twenty-four for the average interval between each step. A similar interval is reckoned by Josephus, for the succession of eighteen high-priests, at 466 years y, which is an average of twenty-five or twenty-six. Most of the kings of Judah had children early. It admits ▾ Loc. cit. y Ant. Jud. xx. x. w Rel. Sacræ. ii. 130. of proof that Solomon was only seventeen at the birth of Rehoboam--Joram only eighteen at the birth of Ahaziah -Ahaziah and Joash only twenty-two at the birth of Joash, and of Amaziah, respectively-Jotham only twentyone at the birth of Ahaz-Ahaz only twelve at the birth of Hezekiah-Amon only sixteen at the birth of Josiah—Josiah only fourteen at the birth of Jehoiakim—and Jehoiakim only eighteen at the birth of Jeconiah. In the remaining instances the interval is much greater. Jehoshaphat was twenty-eight at the birth of Joram-Amaziah was thirty-eight at the birth of Uzziah-Uzziah was forty-three at the birth of Jotham-Hezekiah was forty-two at the birth of Manasseh-Manasseh was forty-five at the birth of Amon. St. Matthew asserts that Jechonias begat Salathiel after, or during, the removal to Babylon. Jechonias was but eighteen years old when he went into captivity b; and though his wives are mentioned as carried into captivity along with him, his sons, or his children, are not c—whence we may conclude he had no children then. Yet, Jer. xxii. 28. a prophecy, which it appears from verse 11. was spoken after he was gone into captivity, an allusion occurs to his seed; that is, to his seed begotten in captivity. Compare also verse 30. Accordingly it appears he must have had eight sons, the eldest Assir, and the next to him Salathiel. In the thirty-seventh year of his captivity, that is, B. C. 563. and in the fifty-fifth of his age, Evil-Merodach released him from confinemente. But though he might not be too old to have children even after that, Salathiel in particular could not have been of that number; for in that case Salathiel himself could not have been more than twenty-six, B. C. 536. the last year of the Babylonish captivity—the return from which was conducted by his son Zerubbabel-if Zerubbabel, at least, was his son-which St. Matthew's expression éyévnσe, and Ezra iii. 2. Nehem. xii. 1. Haggai i. 1. 12. ii. 1. &c. must place beyond a doubt. b 2 Chron. xxxvi. 9. 10. Jer. xxix. 2. xxii. 26. 2 Kings xxiv. 8—16. d Chron. iii. 17. 18. < 2 Kings xxiv. 15. • 2 Kings xxv. 27. Both in Josephus also, and in the Seventy, Salathiel is but another form for Shealtiel. Salathiel, then, was not born before B. C. 599. nor after B. C. 563: and B. C. 536. had a son arrived at man's estate, and able to conduct the return of his countrymen. He must have been born, then, soon after B. C. 599. In one place of his Antiquities Josephus asserts that David reigned and bequeathed the sovereignty to his children, for twenty-one generations 5; in another, that the kings of the race of David, from the first to the last, were twenty-one in number h. Between David and Zedekiah there were certainly twenty-one kings, inclusive of them both; but between David and Zedekiah, even though we reckon in both, there were only nineteen generations. Josephus, therefore, has either spoken inaccurately here, intending this assertion as equivalent to the other, or, if he is to be literally understood, he included in the number of generations Salathiel and Zerubbabel both-and this would be an important conclusion-for it would prove that he considered them both to be lineally descended (and through Jechonias) from David. Nor would it make much difficulty that he talks of the supremacy, as still surviving with his posterity, in them; for Zerubbabel, as the chief of the Jews who returned from captivity, did still retain in some sense the dignity, though no longer the title, of their king. But there is no proof in Scripture that any descendant of Zerubbabel succeeded to his father's place, or that the revived supremacy, such as it was, did not strictly expire with him. As the two lines begin together from David, so they meet together in Salathiel; whence we may infer that Neri was contemporary with Jechonias. But, if Salathiel was the lineal descendant of Jechonias, he could not be the lineal descendant of Neri. The same supposition, then, is necessary here, as in the case of Joseph and Eli-viz. that Salathiel was the son of Neri in the civil, and of Jechonias in the natural, sense: and this would be the effect, if he |