1 Chronicles 3:10 - Meaning and Application

David had nineteen sons, so we may assume that many noble families in Israel came from him, even though Scripture does not tell us about them. But here it gives us only the line of Solomon and the line of Nathan (Luke 3). The rest had the honor of being David’s sons, but these two lines had the special honor of being connected with the Messiah. Nathan’s descendants were his ancestors as a man, while Solomon’s descendants were his royal successors as king.

Here we have, first, the famous names that trace David’s line down to the captivity, the kings of Judah in direct succession. We have already seen their history at length in the books of Kings, and we will meet them again in 2 Chronicles. It is rare for a crown to pass straight from father to son for seventeen generations, as it did here. This was God’s reward for David’s devotion to him. Near the time of the captivity, that direct line was broken, and the crown passed from brother to brother, and from nephew to uncle. That was a sign that the glory of that house was fading.

Second, we have the less known names, most of them obscure, from the house of David after the captivity. The only well-known man from that family at the return from exile was Zerubbabel, who is called elsewhere the son of Shealtiel, but here appears as his grandson (1 Chronicles 3:17-19), which is common in Scripture. Belshazzar is called Nebuchadnezzar’s son, though he was his grandson. Shealtiel is called the son of Jeconiah because Jeconiah may have adopted him, and because, as some think, he succeeded Jeconiah in the rank to which he was restored by Evil-merodach.

Otherwise, Jeconiah was counted as childless. He was the signet ring God pulled from his right hand (Jeremiah 22:24), and in his place Zerubbabel was set, so God says to him, “I will make you like a signet ring” (Haggai 2:23). The descendants of Zerubbabel here do not have the same names they do in the genealogies in Matthew 1 or Luke 3, but those lists were probably taken from the official records, the public family registers kept by the priests, especially for David’s line.

The last person named in this chapter is Anani. Bishop Patrick says that the Targum adds these words, “He is the king Messiah, who is to be revealed.” Some Jewish writers give the reason that this name is linked to Daniel 7:13, where “the son of man came with the clouds of heaven.” That reason is very strained and unlikely, but that learned writer thinks it may still show that their minds were always full of thoughts about the Messiah, and that they expected his coming not long after the days of Zerubbabel.