Smith's Bible Dictionary.pdf - Online Christian Library

Smith's Bible Dictionary
conclusion it may be that all who are called “sons” of such or such a patriarch or chief father must
necessarily be his very children. Of any one family or house became extinct, some other would
succeed to its place, called after its own chief father. Hence of course a census of any tribe drawn
up at a later period would exhibit different divisions from one drawn up at an earlier. The same
principle must be borne in mind in interpreting any particular genealogy Again, when a pedigree
was abbreviated, it would naturally specify such generations as would indicates from what chief
houses the person descended. Females are named in genealogies when there is anything remarkable
about them, or when any right or property is transmitted through them. See (Genesis 11:29; 22:23;
25:1-4; 35:22-26; Exodus 6:23; Numbers 26:33)
Genealogy Of Jesus Christ
The New Testament gives us the genealogy of but one person, that of our Saviour. This is given
because it was important to prove that Jesus fulfilled the prophecies spoken of him. Only as the
son and heir of David should he be the Messiah. The following propositions will explain the true
construction of these genealogies:—
•They are both the genealogies of Joseph, i.e. of Jesus Christ as the reputed and legal son of Joseph
and Mary.
•The genealogy of St. Matthew is Joseph’s genealogy as legal successor to the throne of David.
St. Luke’s is Joseph’s private Genealogy, exhibiting his real birth as David’s son, and thus showing
why he was heir to Solomon’s crown. The simple principle that one evangelist exhibits that
genealogy which contained the successive heir to David’s and Solomon’s throne, while the other
exhibits the paternal stem of him who was the heir, explains all the anomalies of the two pedigrees,
their agreements as well as their discrepancies, and the circumstance of there being two at all.
•Mary, the mother of Jesus, was in all probability the daughter of Jacob, and first cousin to Joseph
her husband. Thus: Matthan or Matthat Father of Jacob, Heli Jacob Father of Mary = Jacob’e heir
was (Joseph) Heli Father of Joseph JESUS, called Christ. (Godet, Lange and many others take
the ground that Luke gives the genealogy of Mary, rendering (Luke 3:23) thus: Jesus “being (as
was suppposed) the son of Joseph, (but in reality) the son of Heli.” In this case Mary, as declared
in the Targums, was the daughter of Heli, and Heli was the grandfather of Jesus. Mary’s name
was omitted because “ancient sentiment did not comport with the mention of the mother as the
genealogical link.” So we often find in the Old Testament the grandson called the son. This view
has this greatly in its favor, that it shows that Jesus was not merely the legal but the actual
descendant of David; and it would be very strange that in the gospel accounts, where so much is
made of Jesus being the son and heir of David and of his kingdom his real descent from David
should not be given.—ED.)
Generation
In the long-lived patriarchal age a generation seems to have been computed at 100 years,
(Genesis 15:16) comp. Genesis15:13 and Eccl 12:40 But subsequently the reckoning was the same
which has been adopted by modern civilized nations, viz. from thirty to forty years (Job 42:16)
(Generation is also used to signify the men of an age or time, as contemporaries, (Genesis 6:9;
Isaiah 53:8) posterity, especially in legal formulae, (Leviticus 3:17) etc.; fathers, or ancestors.
(Psalms 49:19)
Genesis
(origin), the first book of the law or Pentateuch, so called from its title ia the Septuagint, that
is, Creation . Its author was Moses. The date of writing was probably during the forty-years
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William Smith