Akim

The Greek repeats the verb in every clause: "Azor begot Zadok, and Zadok begot Achim..." For oral reading, the repeated verb has been reduced to the compact formula "X the father of Y," letting the list move at the pace of a recited genealogy. The connective δέ ("and, now") is likewise left untranslated, since English commas carry the same linking force when the line is read aloud. The names are given in the forms most familiar to English readers: Zadok reflects the well-known Hebrew name behind the Greek Σαδώκ, while Achim, Azor, and Eliud are simply transliterated from Greek, since no established Hebrew equivalents are certain.

The verb ἐγέννησεν is aorist active of γεννάω, "to beget, to father." Used of a man it denotes fathering a child; in the passive it means "to be born." The same root supplies the noun γενεά ("generation") and γένεσις in the heading of the chapter, tying the whole list together by wordplay. The Greek names here show typical Hellenized endings: Σαδώκ renders the Hebrew Ṣādôq, "righteous, just"; Ἀχίμ may be a shortened form of a name compounded with "brother" (ʾāḥ) or with the divine name; Ἐλιούδ appears to contain the element ʾēl, "God."

None of the three men named in this verse appears in the genealogical records of the Hebrew Scriptures. From Zerubbabel onward the list draws on family records preserved in the post-exilic period rather than on public archives, and such private registers were kept by Judean families to document lineage and, for some, priestly or Davidic descent. The name Zadok would have carried strong priestly associations from the high priest of David's time, though nothing suggests a priestly role for this man.

Greek manuscripts vary in the spelling of these obscure names: Ἀχίμ also appears as Ἀχείμ, and Ἐλιούδ as Ἐλιούτ in a few witnesses, with Ἀζώρ occasionally written Ἀζώρα. Such variation is expected in a chain of unfamiliar names copied by ear or by eye, and none of it affects the sequence or the sense.

That the line runs through generations of men otherwise unknown to Scripture is itself significant: the promise to David is carried forward not by famous kings but by ordinary, unremembered fathers and sons. The quiet stretch of the genealogy between the exile and the birth of the Messiah testifies that God's purpose continues through long periods when nothing visibly happens.

The Greek repeats the full phrase "generations fourteen" three times (γενεαὶ δεκατέσσαρες). Read aloud in English, that triple repetition sounds mechanical, so the word "generations" is stated once and then carried by the rhythm of the two following clauses: "fourteen from David... and fourteen from the exile." The drumbeat of "fourteen" is preserved, which is the point Matthew is making. "So... in all" renders the inferential οὖν together with πᾶσαι ("all"), signaling that this verse is the summing-up of the list just given. The phrase μετοικεσία Βαβυλῶνος is literally "the deportation to Babylon"; "the Babylonian exile" is the natural English equivalent, and the second occurrence is shortened simply to "the exile" for flow. "The Christ" keeps the definite article of τοῦ χριστοῦ and matches the wording of the previous verse; "the Messiah" would carry the same sense.

γενεά denotes a generation, the span or the set of people between one birth and the next; here it functions as a unit of measured time. μετοικεσία is an uncommon word, built from μετά ("change") and οἶκος ("house, dwelling"), so literally a "change of residence" — but in the Greek Old Testament it had become the technical term for the forced resettlement of Judah. The genitive Βαβυλῶνος is not possessive ("exile of Babylon") but directional/objective: the deportation to Babylon. The inferential particle οὖν binds this verse tightly to the list preceding it, marking it as Matthew's own editorial comment rather than part of the genealogy proper.

The number fourteen is almost certainly deliberate. In Hebrew, letters double as numerals, and the consonants of David's name (D-W-D: 4+6+4) total fourteen — a numerical signature stamped three times over the ancestry of Jesus, in a Gospel that repeatedly calls him "Son of David." The three-part shape also traces a theological arc: rise to the throne, loss of the throne in exile, and restoration of the throne in Christ. Strictly counted, the names in the list yield forty-one rather than forty-two, and the third group appears to have only thirteen links; various solutions have been proposed (David counted in both the first and second set, Jeconiah counted twice as end of one era and beginning of the next, or Jesus reckoned separately as "the Christ"). Matthew's arrangement is a patterned confession of faith rather than a registry, and he has openly compressed the record — several kings known from the Old Testament are passed over.

The three markers are the great hinges of Israel's story: Abraham, to whom the promise was given; David, with whom the covenant of kingship was made; and the Babylonian deportations (chiefly 597 and 586 BC, with the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple), which ended the monarchy. The return under Persian rule from 538 BC restored the land but never the throne — a longing that shaped Jewish messianic hope for centuries. Genealogies were carefully kept in this period, and descent could determine priestly service, land rights, and standing in the community, so a claim of Davidic ancestry was a public, checkable claim.

The text of this verse is remarkably stable across the manuscript tradition. The counting question, however, is affected by variants earlier in the list: some witnesses supply an additional name in verse 11 (Jehoiakim between Josiah and Jeconiah), which would fill out the second group and preserve a strict count of fourteen. Most scholars judge that reading a later harmonizing correction by scribes troubled by the arithmetic — which itself shows how early readers noticed the tension this verse creates.

As the conclusion of the genealogy, this verse is traditionally heard in the readings of the Christmas season and at services marking the ancestry of Christ, where the long recitation of names culminates in this summary and leads directly into the account of the Nativity that follows.