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.
So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away (or migration) into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into ('the migration of') Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations. That is, the whole may be conveniently divided into three fourteens, each embracing one marked era, and each ending with a notable event, in the Israelite annals. Such artificial aids to memory were familiar to the Jews, and much larger gaps than those here are found in some of the Old Testament genealogies. In Ezra 7:1-5 no fewer than six generations of the priesthood are omitted, as will appear by comparing it with 1 Chronicles 6:3-15. It will be observed that the last of the three divisions of fourteen appears to contain only thirteen distinct names, including Jesus as the last. Lange thinks that this was meant as a tacit hint that Mary was to be supplied, as the thirteenth link of this last chain, as it is impossible to conceive that the Evangelist could have made any mistake in the matter. But there is a simpler way of accounting for it. As the Evangelist himself (Matthew 1:17) reckons David twice-as the last of the first fourteen and the first of the second-so, if we reckon the second fourteen to end with Josiah, who was coeval with the "carrying away into captivity" (Matthew 1:11), and the third to begin with Jechoniah, it will be found that this last division, as well as the other two, embraces fourteen names, including that of our Lord.
Remarks:
(1) When superficial readers ask what can be the use of those long, dry catalogues of names which fill whole chapters of the Old Testament, they may be referred to this and the corresponding genealogy in Luke for one very sufficient answer. They enable us, in some measure, to trace the golden thread which connects our Lord with David, Abraham, and Adam, according to the flesh, and so make good one of His claims to the Messiahship. The links in the chain of those two genealogies which we can test by the corresponding tables of the Old Testament serve to verify those which must be received on their own sole authority. And that this is thoroughly reliable is manifest, both because these catalogues would not have been published at a time when, if inaccurate, they could easily have been refuted by reference to the well-known family and public registers; and because there is not a particle of evidence that they were ever questioned, much less invalidated.
(2) That there should be difficulty in these genealogies is not surprising, considering, first, the want of sufficient materials of comparison; second, the double or triple names given to the same persons; third, the intermediate names omitted; fourth, the name of sons given to those who were only in the direct line of descent, and of brothers to those who were only collaterally related; and, finally, the Levirate law, by which one is called the son, not of his actual, but of his Levirate father (see Deuteronomy 25:5-6; Luke 20:28). From these causes great perplexity and much discussion have arisen, nor is it possible to solve every difficulty. So much, however, is clear as to make it "evident that our Lord sprang out of Juda" (Hebrews 7:14), and was "the Seed of the woman" "who should bruise the Serpent's head." (For a beautiful remark of Olshausen's on this whole subject, see the note at Luke's genealogy, Luke 3:1-38, at the close.) To a Jewish Christian how delightful it must have been, and to any unprejudiced Jew how conciliatory, to find themselves, in the very first section of this Gospel, so entirely at home, and to see even the more external lines of their ancient economy converging upon Jesus of Nazareth as its proper goal; but this only to pave the way for the exhibition of that same Jesus, in the sequel of this Gospel, in a still deeper relation to the old economy-as the very "Travail of its soul, its Satisfaction!"