Matthew 1:8
And Asa begat Josaphat; and Josaphat begat Joram; and Joram begat Ozias;
And Asa begat Josaphat,.... Called Jehoshaphat,
1 Kings 15:24 whom Asa begat of Azubah, the daughter of Shilhi,
1 Kings 22:42. He also was a very good prince.
and Josaphat begat Joram; called Jehoram, 1 Kings 22:50 to whom his father gave the kingdom, because he was the firstborn, 2 Chronicles 21:3.
and Joram begat Ozias; called Uzziah, 2 Chronicles 26:1 and Azariah,
2 Kings 15:1. He was not the immediate son of Joram; there were three kings between them, Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah, which are here omitted; either because of the curse denounced on Ahab's family, into which Joram married, whose idolatry was punished to the third or fourth generation; or because these were princes of no good character; or because their names were not in the Jewish registers. Nor does this omission at all affect the design of the Evangelist, which is to show that Jesus, the true Messiah, is of the house of David; nor ought the Jews to complain of it, as they do {a} since such omissions are to be met with in the Old Testament, particularly in Ezra 7:2 where six generations are omitted at once; and which is taken notice of by one of their own genealogical writers, whose words are these {b};
"we see in the genealogy of Ezra that he hath skipped over seven generations (perhaps it should be w "six" and not z "seven", since six are only omitted) from Ahitub to Ahitub.''
Nor is it any objection that Joram is said to beget Ozias, which he may be said to do in the like sense, as has been before observed of Hezekiah, Isaiah 39:7.
{a} R. Isaac Chizzuk Emunab, par. 2. p. 390.
{b} Juchasin, fol. 10. 2.