1. Matthieu 1:1–25 (NEG79)
  2. Explication du texte

Why does Matthew’s genealogy skip only one generation between Josiah and Jechoniah?

Matthieu 1:11 (NEG79)

11 Josias engendra Jéconias et ses frères, au temps de la déportation à Babylone.

En bref

The skipping of one generation between Josiah and Jechoniah may simply be following the practice of other genealogies, as in Ezra 1:32 in the Septuagint. It could also just be a translation error.

Between Josiah and Jechoniah only one generation is skipped, namely that of Jehoiakim (see 1 Chronicles 3:15–16). Skipping this specific generation in genealogies had by then already become common practice (see 1 Ezra 1:32 in the Septuagint,  LXX, the Greek translation of the Old Testament). Some argue, however, that Matthew 1:11 originally mentioned Jehoiakim and in Matthew 1:12 Jehoiachin (meaning, Jechoniah, 2 Kings 24:6) and that a translator confused the two. This had, after all, already occurred in the Septuagint in which Jechoniah is also called Joakim.1