Page:Commentaries of Ishodad of Merv, volume 1.djvu/55

Rh wicked Jezebel; and Joash, because he, too, was her son's son; Amazia, again, because his race was also descended from thence. And we say against them, that if he left these out on account of their wickedness, then why does he mention those wicked people, Ahaz, and Manasseh, etc.? and if it were thus, it would have been right first not to mention Joram, because he took the wicked wife; it was in his power not to take [her]; whereas those people had no means of not being born of such. However the Interpreter says that it was an error of a careless scribe, and it was not the Evangelist who left it out, because the similarity and proximity of the name caused him to put instead of Ahazia, Uzzia, because there is no ain nor any heth in Greek, but instead of both of them he wrote alif  for they are both equal in the number of letters and in form. Nor did he do this in order to measure the number of fourteen generations from David until the carrying away to Babylon, for behold while from the carrying away to Babylon until the Christ there were thirteen generations, it does not prevent him from saying that there were fourteen, as it was not about the sum of the numbers that it mattered to him in the division of the generations into three parts, but they say it  was an error of the scribe; whilst others say that the Evangelist, forsooth, wished to leave them out, and it is clear that unless the Evangelist left them out, he would not say at the conclusion that from David to the carrying away to Babylon were fourteen generations, but rather eighteen; for behold also in the last part, between Salathiel and Zorobabel he leaves out  one, that is to say, Nedabia, that he may fix the number of fourteen with Mary and the Christ, because that Mary has come into the generations instead of her father. And it is clear also that the Evangelist left them out, from this, that his book was in existence in Caesarea of Palestine, and everyone acknowledges that he wrote it with his hands in Hebrew ; and these names are not in it; and we say also, that Athalia was not the daughter of Jezebel, but the daughter of Omri. And because the Evangelist knew what a wrong idea there was among the people about these names, because of that he left them out. Nevertheless that idea of the Interpreter the whole school receives. Let us say now, why Matthew said that Josia begat Jeconia and his brethren. But Josia did not beget Jeconia, but Jehoahaz, him that was called Shaleem, and Eliakim, him that was called Jehoiakim, and Mathia, who was called by Nebuchadnezzar Zedekia. And Jeconia was the son of Eliakim, and he called his uncles his brethren as is the custom of the Scriptures, and son's sons [he called]