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Mat_1:8. Ἰορὰμ … Ὀζίαν ] Three kings, Ahaziah, Joaz, and Amazia, are wanting between these (2Ki_8:24; 1Ch_3:11; 2Ch_22:1; 2Ch_22:11; 2Ch_24:27). The common opinion is that of Jerome, that the omission was made for the sake of obtaining an equal division of the names, in order not to go beyond the three Tesseradecades. Such omissions were nothing unusual: 1Ch_8:1; Gen_46:21. See Surenhusius, βιβλ . καταλλ . p. 97. Lightfoot, Hor. p. 181. On the same phenomenon in the Book of Enoch, see Ewald in the Kieler Monatschrift, 1852, p. 520 f. The evangelist accepted the genealogical list without alteration, just as he found it; and the cause of that omission cannot be pointed out, but probably was only, and that without special design, the similarity of those names, in which way the omission also which occurs in Mat_1:11 is to be explained. Ebrard and Riggenbach, erroneously introducing the point of view of theocratic illegality (comp. Lange), are of opinion that Matthew omitted the three kings for this reason, that Joram, on account of his marriage with the daughter of Jezebel, and of his conduct, had deserved that his posterity should be exterminated down to the fourth generation (so already some of the Fathers, Maldonatus, Spanheim, Lightfoot); that Matthew accordingly declared the descendants of the heathen Jezebel, down to the fourth generation, unworthy of succeeding to the theocratic throne. This breaks down at once before the simple ἐγέννησε . The omissions are generally not to be regarded as consciously made, otherwise they would conflict with Mat_1:17 ( πᾶσαι ), and would amount to a falsification.