Jehoiachin (son of Jehoiakim)

The Greek verb ἐγέννησεν ("begot," "fathered") is rendered with the noun phrase "the father of," matching the clipped, chant-like rhythm used throughout the genealogy and keeping the list readable aloud. The name Ἰεχονίας is given as "Jechoniah" (also known as Jehoiachin or Coniah in the Hebrew Scriptures). The phrase ἐπὶ τῆς μετοικεσίας Βαβυλῶνος uses ἐπί with the genitive in a temporal sense, hence "at the time of the exile"; a more wooden rendering would be "in the days of the deportation of Babylon." The genitive Βαβυλῶνος is understood as directional ("to Babylon") rather than possessive, since the movement is toward Babylon, not from it; "the Babylonian exile" is an equally possible reading. "Deportation" or "removal" would be closer to the technical force of μετοικεσία, but "exile" is the familiar and more speakable term.

μετοικεσία is built from μετά ("change") and οἶκος ("house, home"), so literally "a change of dwelling, resettlement." It is not a common secular word; it entered Christian usage largely through the Greek Old Testament, where it renders the forced resettlement of Judah. The choice of a word about losing one's home, rather than a word for captivity or punishment, quietly frames the event as the nation being uprooted. Note also that the verse opens with δέ, the same connective linking each link of the chain; in English this is best carried by the simple "and" or left unrendered.

Comparison with the royal records shows a gap: Josiah was the father of Jehoiakim, who was the father of Jechoniah (see 2 Kings 23–24; 1 Chronicles 3:15–16). Ancient genealogies regularly telescope, and "father of" can mean "ancestor of." The omission also serves the evangelist's fourteen-generation pattern announced in verse 17. "His brothers" fits Jehoiakim, who had named brothers in the records, better than it fits Jechoniah, another sign that a generation has been compressed here.

Jechoniah (Jehoiachin) was taken to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BC after a reign of only three months, along with the royal household, court officials, and skilled workers. A second and more total deportation followed in 587/586 BC with the destruction of the temple. Babylonian administrative tablets have been found listing rations for "Yaukin, king of Judah," and his sons, confirming his survival in captivity, and the records report his eventual release from prison there.

Some manuscripts expand the verse to read "Josiah the father of Jehoiakim, and Jehoiakim the father of Jechoniah and his brothers," restoring the missing generation. This longer reading is generally judged a later correction by scribes who noticed the gap against the Old Testament record; the shorter text is better attested in the earliest witnesses and is harder to explain as a scribal creation. Adding the name would also break the count of fourteen generations that verse 17 requires.

The exile is the hinge of the whole genealogy: the line of kings ends in deportation, and what follows is a list of men without a throne. Naming Jechoniah is bold, since a prophetic oracle declared him childless and said none of his offspring would sit on David's throne (Jeremiah 22:24–30). The genealogy insists that the promise to David survived even that judgment, and that the Messiah comes through the broken and cursed line, not around it. The fact that Israel's disaster is written into the family record of Jesus is itself a statement about how God works.

This genealogy is traditionally read at services marking the nativity, where the recitation of names — including the exile — sets the birth of Jesus within the long, troubled history of God's people rather than apart from it.

The Greek verb ἐγέννησεν literally means "begot" or "fathered." The rendering "was the father of" keeps the sense while reading smoothly aloud. In the second half of the verse the Greek repeats the verb, but the English drops it ("Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel"), letting the ellipsis carry the pattern — a choice that preserves the chanting rhythm of the whole genealogy rather than adding a fourteenth identical verb. The names follow their familiar Hebrew-based English spellings (Shealtiel, Zerubbabel) instead of transliterating the Greek forms Salathiel and Zorobabel, so that readers hear the same men known from the earlier Scriptures. Greek μετοικεσία is rendered "exile"; it denotes a forced change of dwelling, so "deportation" or "removal to Babylon" are equally possible, while "captivity" is a looser traditional option.

μετοικεσία is built from μετά ("change") and οἶκος ("house, home") — literally a "re-housing," the uprooting of a household. The repetition of the phrase from verse 11 ("at the time of the exile" / "after the exile") frames the middle panel of the genealogy and marks the hinge between the kings and the post-exilic descendants. The name Shealtiel (Hebrew Shealtiel) means roughly "I have asked of God," and Zerubbabel is commonly explained as "seed/offspring of Babylon" or "begotten in Babylon" — a name that itself testifies to the exile.

Jechoniah (also called Jehoiachin or Coniah) was taken to Babylon in the deportation of 597 BC and later released from prison there. Zerubbabel, his descendant, led the first group of returning exiles and served as governor of Judah under Persian rule, overseeing the rebuilding of the temple around 520 BC. Thus this verse spans the whole exile: it begins in Babylon and ends with the man who brought the community home.

The list follows the line of Shealtiel to Zerubbabel as in the prophetic and post-exilic books; a parallel record traces Zerubbabel through Pedaiah, a brother of Shealtiel, which is often explained by levirate marriage, adoption, or the practice of naming the head of a family line. Zerubbabel carries strong messianic overtones: he is called God's chosen "signet ring," a sign that the promise to David survived the exile. That is significant here, since a prophetic oracle had declared that Jechoniah would be recorded as childless and that none of his offspring would sit on David's throne — yet the royal line continues, and the genealogy shows that the promise is fulfilled not by an unbroken monarchy but through Christ.

The Greek text of this verse is stable; the variation among manuscripts is limited to spelling of the names (for example Σαλαθιήλ / Σαλαθιέλ, Ζοροβαβέλ / Ζωροβαβέλ) and to the presence or absence of the connecting δέ, none of which affects the meaning.