The numbers · 04 of 08 · Matthew 1:17
Fourteen generations
Matthew says fourteen, three times. David stands in two of the groups. Four kings he left out are still named in Chronicles.
So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations.
Where it shows up
01He says the number
Fourteen from Abraham to David. Fourteen from David to the exile. Fourteen from the exile to the Christ. The number is the verse. You do not have to decode the list to find it.
02Abraham to David
The first group, counting both ends, is Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Perez, Hezron, Ram, Amminadab, Nahshon, Salmon, Boaz, Obed, Jesse, and David. That is fourteen.
03David the king
Jesse is the father of David the king, and David the king is the father of Solomon. David closes the first fourteen and opens the second. If he is counted only once, a group falls short.
04Three kings left out
Chronicles lists Joram, then Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah, then Azariah. Matthew jumps from Joram to Uzziah, which is Azariah. The three kings are not lost. They are in the other book.
05Jehoiakim left out
Josiah’s sons include Jehoiakim, and Jehoiakim’s son is Jeconiah. Matthew says Josiah was the father of Jeconiah, about the time of the exile. One generation is skipped so the brackets can close.
06After the exile
Jeconiah opens the last group: Shealtiel, Zerubbabel, and the names after them, through Joseph, and then Jesus. With Jesus included, the group is fourteen.
07Born of Mary
Jacob is the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born. In the Greek, “of whom” is feminine. The birth is Mary’s. Joseph is named as her husband.
08No man of his seed
Jeremiah says to write Coniah childless, for no man of his seed will prosper sitting on the throne of David. Matthew still writes Jeconiah in Joseph’s line, and then writes a birth that is not Joseph’s. The seam is the point. The number is not.
09Nathan, not Solomon
Luke never says fourteen. He calls Jesus the supposed son of Joseph, son of Heli, and later he reaches David through Nathan. Matthew reaches David through Solomon. The Gospels leave both lists on the page.
10Whose son is Zerubbabel
Ezra and Matthew call Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel. Chronicles names him among the sons of Pedaiah. The page has both. This room does not pick a father the books refuse to agree on.
The post
Three hidden fourteens, and a name that adds up.
This page
Matthew says fourteen, three times. David is counted on both sides of the seam.
Read it this way
Matthew does not whisper the number. He finishes the names and then says it. From Abraham to David there are fourteen generations. From David to the exile in Babylon there are fourteen. From the exile to the Christ there are fourteen.
Count the names the way those three sentences draw the lines. Abraham to David, with both men included, is fourteen: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Perez, Hezron, Ram, Amminadab, Nahshon, Salmon, Boaz, Obed, Jesse, David. Start again at David and stop at Josiah, and the middle list is fourteen: David, Solomon, Rehoboam, Abijah, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Joram, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon, Josiah. Begin the last list at Jeconiah and end it at Jesus, and it is fourteen: Jeconiah, Shealtiel, Zerubbabel, Abiud, Eliakim, Azor, Zadok, Achim, Eliud, Eleazar, Matthan, Jacob, Joseph, and Jesus. The King James spells several of them the older way, Jechonias, Salathiel, and Ozias. They are the same men.
The fourteen holds only if David is allowed to stand in two groups, and if Jesus is counted as the last generation. Leave David in only one group and one of the lists comes out to thirteen. Matthew’s fourteen is an arrangement. It is not a raw headcount of every man once.
The longer royal list is still in the Bible. 1 Chronicles 3 puts Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah between Joram and Azariah, who is Uzziah. It puts Jehoiakim between Josiah and Jeconiah. Matthew leaves those four kings out. He tells you the shape he wanted, and then he tells you the number.
Two other seams stay on the page. Chronicles says Zerubbabel was the son of Pedaiah. Matthew and Ezra call him the son of Shealtiel. The books do not tidy that, and this room will not tidy it either. Luke’s genealogy does not say fourteen at all. It calls Jesus the supposed son of Joseph, names Heli next, and later reaches David through Nathan, not through Solomon. The two lists do not match. The Gospels do not add a sentence that forces them to.
People add the letters of David’s name. The short spelling, dalet, vav, dalet, comes to fourteen. The spelling with a yod comes to twenty-four. Matthew wrote in Greek. He did not hide fourteen inside a sum. He wrote the word fourteen, three times. Three fourteens are forty-two names only when David is counted twice. That is still his brackets. Revelation’s forty-two months are a different sentence. They do not belong stapled to this list.
The list also names Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and the wife of Uriah before it names Mary. That is not a fifth number. It is who Matthew refused to leave out.
What the chapter is for sits in the next verses, not in the arithmetic. Jacob is the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born. In the Greek, the words “of whom” are feminine. They point at Mary. Jeremiah had already said of Jeconiah, who is Coniah, that no man of his seed would prosper sitting on the throne of David. Matthew still writes Jeconiah in Joseph’s line, and then writes a birth that is not Joseph’s. That is a seam. It is not a riddle with a prize for the person who notices the number first.
Some sayThree fourteens are a secret code. David’s name adds up to the same number, so the list proves itself.
Fourteen is a sentence Matthew wrote. The kings he skipped are still in Chronicles. The child is born of Mary.