1 Chronicles 3:17

And the sons of Jeconiah; Assir, Salathiel his son,

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

III.—The posterity of Jeconiah after the exile (1Chronicles 3:17-24). This section is peculiar to the chronicle.

(17) Assir.—This word means prisoner, captive; literally, bondman. It so occurs in Isaiah 10:2; Isaiah 24:22. Accordingly the verse may be rendered, “And the sons of Jeconiah when captive—Shealtiel (was) his son.” This translation (1) accords with the Masoretic punctuation, which connects the term assir with Jeconiah; and (2) accounts for the double reference to the offspring of Jeconiah, first in 1Chronicles 3:16, “Zedekiah his son,” and then again here. Zedekiah is thus separated from the sons born to Jeconiah in captivity. The strongest apparent objection against such a rendering is that the expression “the sons of Jeconiah the captive” would require the definite article to be prefixed to the word assir. No doubt it would; but then “the sons of Jeconiah the captive” is not what the chronicler intended to say. He has said what he meant—viz., “the sons of Jeconiah when in captivity” or “as a captive.” The Talmudic treatise, Sanhedrin, gives “Assir his son;” but another, the Sedw Olam, does not mention Assir, who is likewise wanting in the genealogy of our Lord (Matthew 1:12; see the Notes there).

Salathiel.—The form in the LXX., Σαλαθιήλ; and Matthew 1:12, Heb., Shealti-el (“request of God”): Haggai 1:12, Shalti-el.

Benson Commentary

1 Chronicles 3:17. The sons of Jeconiah, Assir — The word אסר, Assir, means captive, or prisoner, and does not appear to be a person’s name here, but to be added to signify that Jeconiah begat his son Salathiel when he was a captive in Babylon, according to Matthew 1:12.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

3:1-24 Genealogies. - Of all the families of Israel, none were so illustrious as the family of David: here we have a full account of it. From this family, as concerning the flesh, Christ came. The attentive observer will perceive that the children of the righteous enjoy many advantages.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Assir - Perhaps born in the captivity, and therefore so named, who either (died young, or was made a eunuch (Isaiah 39:7; compare Jeremiah 22:30). After Assir's decease, or mutilation, the line of Solomon became extinct, and according to the principles of the Jewish law Numbers 27:8-11 the inheritance passed to the next of kin, who were Salathiel and his brethren, descendants from David by the line of Nathan. Luke in calling Salathiel "the son of Neri" Luke 3:27, gives his real, or natural, descent; since no genealogy would assign to the true son and heir of a king any inferior and private parentage. Hence, "Malchiram," etc., i. e. not Salathiel only, but his brothers also were reckoned "sons" of Jeconiah.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

1Ch 3:17-24. Successors of Jeconiah.

17. the sons of Jeconiah; Assir—rather, "Jeconiah the prisoner," or "captive." This record of his condition was added to show that Salathiel was born during the captivity in Babylon (compare Mt 1:12). Jeconiah was written childless (Jer 22:30), a prediction which (as the words that follow explain) meant that this unfortunate monarch should have no son succeeding him on the throne.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Of Jeconiah; Assir, or, of Jeconiah the captive, or prisoner; which is added to show that he begat his son when he was captive in Babylon, as it is noted, Matthew 1:12, whither he was carried captive, 2 Kings 24:15.

Object. It is said of this Jeconiah, Jeremiah 22:30. Write this man childless.

Answ. So he is called, because he was an unhappy prince, and had no son that succeeded him in the throne, as the next words explain it. See more on that place.

Salathiel his son; either his legal or his natural son; of which See Poole "Jeremiah 22:30"; See Poole "Matthew 1:12"; See Poole "Luke 3:27".

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And the sons of Jeconiah,.... For though he was pronounced childless, Jeremiah 22:30, that respects not his having no children in any sense, but none to succeed him in the kingdom:

Assir; which signifies bound, or a prisoner, because, as Kimchi thinks, he was born in a prison, his father then being a captive in Babylon; but rather it refers to Jeconiah himself, and is an appellation of him, and to be rendered:

the sons of Jeconiah the captive: which agrees best with the Hebrew accents:

Salathiel his son; the same that is called Shealtiel, Haggai 1:1 who was both the proper son of Jeconiah, and who succeeded him, as some think, in the honour and dignity the king of Babylon raised him to.

Geneva Study Bible

And the sons of Jeconiah; Assir, Salathiel his son,

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

17. the sons of Jeconiah; Assir, Salathiel] R.V. the sons of Jeconiah, the captive (mg., Assir); Shealtiel. Assir is a significant name of Jeconiah given him after his removal to Babylon. Salathiel (cp. Luke 3:27 A.V.) is the Greek form of Shealtiel.

It should be noted that the fact that Jeconiah had sons is not at variance with Jeremiah’s denunciation of him (Jeremiah 22:30). That passage gives the answer to Jeconiah’s expectation of a speedy return to his kingdom (ib. Jeremiah 22:27); Jeremiah says that neither he nor any of his seed shall recover the lost throne: “Reckon him childless, for no son of his shall succeed him on his throne.”

17–19 a. The Davidic Line from Jeconiah to Zerubbabel

A difficulty arises from the fact that whereas Zerubbabel is here represented apparently as the son of Pedaiah and consequently nephew of Salathiel (= Shealtiel), he is elsewhere called the Song of Solomon of Shealtiel (Ezra 3:2; Haggai 1:1; Haggai 2:2; cp. Luke 3:27-31). The LXX. solves the difficulty by reading Salathiel (= Shealtiel) in 1 Chronicles 3:19. It may be however that the names given in 1 Chronicles 3:18 (including Pedaiah) are the names of the sons of Shealtiel. Another possible solution is that Zerubbabel was grand-son both to Shealtiel and Pedaiah, according to such a scheme as the following:—

Pedaiah  

  Shealtiel

"    "

a daughter  =  a son

  "  

  Zerubbabel.  

A minor difficulty arises from the fact that Salathiel (= Shealtiel) is here connected with David through Solomon, whereas in Luke 3:27-31 his descent is traced through Solomon’s brother Nathan. However, intermarriage at some point in the genealogy between the two Davidic families would explain the difficulty.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 17-24. - These verses contain a line of descent brought down to a point not merely posterior to the Exile, but possibly reaching to the time of Alexander. This line, however, through Solomon is lost so soon as the first name, that of Assir, is passed; Salathiel (Authorized Version)or Shealtiel, being descended from David, not through Solomon, but through Nathan, whole brother to Solomon. This Assir is not known from any parallel passage; and Luther, Starke, Bertheau, and others, followed by Zoekler (in Lange, 'Comm. O.T.') translate the name as captive, applying it to Jeconiah. Not all their reasons, however, for this, outweigh one which must be pronounced against it, viz. the absence of the article. The Septuagint and Vulgate versions agree with our own. The greater probability might be that Assir derived his name from being born after Jeconiah was in captivity, and such passages as Isaiah 39:7, Jeremiah 22:30, may throw some light upon the extinction of Solomon's line here, and the transfer of the succession (comp. Numbers 27:11, and see interesting note on the present place in 'Speaker's Commentary'). Salathiel is the Authorized Version incorrect rendering of the Hebrew Shealtiel. In Matthew 1:12 it is said, "And after they were brought to Babylon, Jechonias begat Salathiel;" and in Luke 3:27, "Salathiel, which was the son of Neri." Now, Neri was in the direct line of Nathan. There seems only one way of reconciling these statements - and the method removes similar difficulties in other places also - viz, to distinguish between the descent natural and the descent royal, and then acknowledge that the former was swallowed up, where necessary, of the latter. One as decisive instance of this kind as that before us is most useful to rule other cases. (For an important allusion to the house and family of Nathan's descendants, as well known at the time, see Zechariah 12:12 - a passage probably dating a few years previous to the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar.), 1 Chronicles 3:17

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The descendants of the captive and exiled Jeconiah, and other families. - 1 Chronicles 3:17. In the list of the son of Jeconiah it is doubtful if אסּר be the name of a son, or should be considered, as it is by Luther and others, an appellative, "prisoner," in apposition to יכניה, "the sons of Jeconiah, the captive, is Shealtiel" (A. V. Salathiel). The reasons which have been advanced in favour of this latter interpretation are: the lack of the conjunction with שׁאלתּיאל; the position of בּנו after שׁאלת, not after אסּר; and the circumstance that Assir is nowhere to be met with, either in Matthew 1:12 or in Seder olam zuta, as an intervening member of the family between Jeconiah and Shealtiel (Berth.). But none of these reasons is decisive. The want of the conjunction proves absolutely nothing, for in 1 Chronicles 3:18 also, the last three names are grouped together without a conjunction; and the position of בּנו after שׁאלת is just as strange, whether Shealtiel be the first named son or the second, for in 1 Chronicles 3:18 other sons of Jeconiah follow, and the peculiarity of it can only be accounted for on the supposition that the case of Shealtiel differs from that of the remaining sons. The omission of Assir in the genealogies in Matthew and the Seder olam also proves nothing, for in the genealogies intermediate members are often passed over. Against the appellative interpretation of the word, on the contrary, the want of the article is decisive; as apposition to יכניה, it should have the article. But besides this, according to the genealogy of Jesus in Luke 3:27, Shealtiel is a son of Neri, a descendant of David, of the lineage of Nathan, not of Solomon; and according to Haggai 1:1, Haggai 1:12; Ezra 3:2; Ezra 5:2, and Matthew 1:12, Zerubbabel is son of Shealtiel; while, according to 1 Chronicles 3:18 and 1 Chronicles 3:19 of our chapter, he is a son of Pedaiah, a brother of Shealtiel. These divergent statements may be reconciled by the following combination. The discrepancy in regard to the enumeration of Shealtiel among the sons of Jeconiah, a descendant of Solomon, and the statement that he was descended from Neri, a descendant of Nathan, Solomon's brother, is removed by the supposition that Jeconiah, besides the Zedekiah mentioned in 1 Chronicles 3:16, who died childless, had another son, viz., Assir, who left only a daughter, who then, according to the law as to heiresses (Numbers 27:8; Numbers 36:8.), married a man belonging to a family of her paternal tribe, viz., Neri, of the family of David, in the line of Nathan, and that from this marriage sprang Shealtiel, Malchiram, and the other sons (properly grandsons) of Jeconiah mentioned in 1 Chronicles 3:18. If we suppose the eldest of these, Shealtiel, to come into the inheritance of his maternal grandfather, he would be legally regarded as his legitimate son. In our genealogy, therefore, along with the childless Assir, Shealtiel is introduced as a descendant of Jeconiah, while in Luke he is called, according to his actual descent, a son of Neri. The other discrepancy in respect to the descendants of Zerubbabel is to be explained, as has been already shown on Haggai 1:1, by the law of Levirate marriage, and by the supposition that Shealtiel died without any male descendants, leaving his wife a widow. In such a case, according to the law (Deuteronomy 25:5-10, cf. Matthew 22:24-28), it became the duty of one of the brothers of the deceased to marry his brother's widow, that he might raise up seed, i.e., posterity, to the deceased brother; and the first son born of this marriage would be legally incorporated with the family of the deceased, and registered as his son. After Shealtiel's death, his second brother Pedaiah fulfilled this Levirate duty, and begat, in his marriage with his sister-in-law, Zerubbabel, who was now regarded, in all that related to laws of heritage, as Shealtiel's son, and propagated his race as his heir. According to this right of heritage, Zerubbabel is called in the passages quoted from Haggai and Ezra, as also in the genealogy in Matthew, the son of Shealtiel. The בּנו seems to hint at this peculiar position of Shealtiel with reference to the proper descendants of Jeconiah, helping to remind us that he was son of Jeconiah not by natural birth, but only because of his right of heritage only, on his mother's side. As to the orthography of the name שׁאלתיאל, see on Haggai 1:1. The six persons named in 1 Chronicles 3:18 are not sons of Shealtiel, as Kimchi, Hiller, and others, and latterly Hitzig also, on Haggai 1:1, believe, but his brothers, as the cop. ו before מלפּירם requires. The supposition just mentioned is only an attempt, irreconcilable with the words of the text, to form a series, thus: Shealtiel, Pedaiah his son, Zerubbabel his son, - so as to get rid of the differences between our verse and Haggai 1:1; Ezra 3:2. In 1 Chronicles 3:19 and 1 Chronicles 3:20, sons and grandsons of Pedaiah are registered. Nothing further is known of the Bne Jeconiah mentioned in 1 Chronicles 3:18. Pedaiah's son Zerubbabel is unquestionably the prince of Judah who returned to Jerusalem in the reign of Cyrus in the year 536, at the head of a great host of exiles, and superintended their settlement anew in the land of their fathers (Ezra 1-6). Of Shimei nothing further is known. In 1 Chronicles 3:19 and 1 Chronicles 3:20, the sons of Zerubbabel are mentioned, and in 1 Chronicles 3:21 two grandsons are named. Instead of the singular וּבן some MSS have וּבני, and the old versions also have the plural. This is correct according to the sense, although וּבן cannot be objected to on critical grounds, and may be explained by the writer's having had mainly in view the one son who continued the line of descendants. By the mention of their sister after the first two names, the sons of Zerubbabel are divided into two groups, probably as the descendants of different mothers. How Shelomith had gained such fame as to be received into the family register, we do not know. Those mentioned in 1 Chronicles 3:20 are brought together in one group by the number "five." חסד יוּשׁב, "grace is restored," is one name. The grandsons of Zerubbabel, Pelatiah and Jesaiah, were without doubt contemporaries of Ezra, who returned to Jerusalem from Babylon seventy-eight years after Zerubbabel.

After these grandsons of Zerubbabel, there are ranged in 1 Chronicles 3:21, without any copula whatever, four families, the sons of Rephaiah, the sons of Arnan, etc.; and of the last named of these, the sons of Shecaniah, four generations of descendants are enumerated in 1 Chronicles 3:22-24, without any hint as to the genealogical connection of Shecaniah with the grandsons of Zerubbabel. The assertion of more modern critics, Ewald, Bertheau, and others, that Shecaniah was a brother or a son of Pelatiah or Jesaiah, and that Zerubbabel's family is traced down through six generations, owes its origin to the wish to gain support for the opinion that the Chronicle was composed long after Ezra, and is without any foundation. The argument of Bertheau, that "since the sons of Rephaiah, etc., run parallel with the preceding names Pelatiah and Jesaiah, and since the continuation of the list in 1 Chronicles 3:22 is connected with the last mentioned Shecaniah, we cannot but believe that Pelatiah, Jesaiah, Rephaiah, Arnan, Obadiah, and Shecaniah are, without exception, sons of Hananiah," would be well founded if, and only if, the names Rephaiah, Arnan, etc., stood in our verse, instead of the sons of Rephaiah, the sons of Arnan, etc., for Pelatiah and Jesaiah are not parallel with the sons of Arnan. Pelatiah and Jesaiah may perhaps be sons of Hananiah, but not the sons of Rephaiah, Arnan, etc. These would be grandsons of Hananiah, on the assumption that Rephaiah, Arnan, etc., were brothers of Pelatiah and Jesaiah, and sons of Hananiah. But for this assumption there is no tenable ground; it would be justified only if our present Masoretic text could lay claim to infallibility. Only on the ground of a belief in this infallibility of the traditional text could we explain to ourselves, as Bertheau does, the ranging of the sons of Rephaiah, the sons of Arnan, etc., along with Pelatiah and Jesaiah, called sons of Hananiah, by supposing that Rephaiah, Arnan, Obadiah, and Shecaniah are not named as individuals, but are mentioned together with their families, because they were the progenitors of famous races, while Pelatiah and Jesaiah either had no descendants at all, or none at least who were at all renowned. The text, as we have it, in which the sons of Rephaiah, etc., follow the names of the grandsons of Zerubbabel without a conjunction, and in which the words שׁכניה וּבני, and a statement of the names of one of these בּנים and his further descendants, follow the immediately preceding שׁכניה בּני, has no meaning, and is clearly corrupt, as has been recognised by Heidegger, Vitringa, Carpzov, and others. Owing, however, to want of information from other sources regarding these families and their connection with the descendants of Zerubbabel, we have no means whatever of restoring the original text. The sons of Rephaiah, the sons of Arnan, etc., were, it may be supposed, branches of the family of David, whose descent or connection with Zerubbabel is for us unascertainable. The list from רפיה בּני, 1 Chronicles 3:21, to the end of the chapter, is a genealogical fragment, which has perhaps come into the text of the Chronicle at a later time.

(Note: Yet at a very early time, for the lxx had before them our present text, and sought to make sense of it by expressing the four times recurring בּני, 1 Chronicles 3:21, by the singular בּנו in every case, as follows: καὶ Ἰεσίας υἱὸς αὐτοῦ, Ῥαφὰλ υἱὸς αὐτοῦ, Ὀρνὰ υἱὸς αὐτοῦ, etc.; according to which, between Hananiah and Shecaniah seven consecutive generations would be enumerated, and Zerubbabel's family traced down through eleven generations. So also Vulg. and Syr.)

Many of the names which this fragment contains are met with singly in genealogies of other tribes, but nowhere in a connection from which we might drawn conclusions as to the origin of the families here enumerated, and the age in which they lived. Bertheau, indeed, thinks "we may in any case hold Hattush, 1 Chronicles 3:22, for the descendant of David of the same name mentioned in Ezra 8:2, who lived at the time of Ezra;" but he has apparently forgotten that, according to his interpretation of our verse, Hattush would be a great-grandson of Zerubbabel, who, even if he were then born, could not possibly have been a man and the head of a family at the time of his supposed return from Babylon with Ezra, seventy-eight years after the return of his great-grandfather to Palestine. Other men too, even priests, have borne the name Hattush; cf. Nehemiah 3:10; Nehemiah 10:5; Nehemiah 12:2. There returned, moreover, from Babylon with Ezra sons of Shecaniah (Ezra 8:3), who may as justly be identified with the sons of Shecaniah mentioned in 1 Chronicles 3:22 of our chapter as forefathers or ancestors of Hattush, as the Hattush here is identified with the Hattush of Ezra 8:2. But from the fact that, in the genealogy of Jesus, Matthew 1, not a single one of the names of descendants of Zerubbabel there enumerated coincides with the names given in our verses, we may conclude that the descendants of Shecaniah enumerated in 1 Chronicles 3:22-24 did not descend from Zerubbabel in a direct line. Intermediate members are, it is true, often omitted in genealogical lists; but who would maintain that in Matthew seven, or, according to the other interpretation of our verse, nine, consecutive members have been at one bound overleapt? This weighty consideration, which has been brought forward by Clericus, is passed over in silence by the defenders of the opinion that our verses contain a continuation of the genealogy of Zerubbabel. The only other remark to be made about this fragment is, that in 1 Chronicles 3:22 the number of the sons of Shecaniah is given as six, while only five names are mentioned, and that consequently a name must have fallen out by mistake in transcribing. Nothing further can be said of these families, as they are otherwise quite unknown.