The Unbreakable Thread: God's Arithmetic in a Cursed Line Text: 1 Chronicles 3:17-24
Introduction: The Gold in the Grape Nuts
There are portions of Scripture that many modern Christians treat like the nutritional information on the side of a cereal box. We know it's there, we assume it's important for some reason, but we rarely study it with any real appetite. The genealogies, particularly the long, winding lists in a book like 1 Chronicles, often fall into this category. They can feel like biblical Grape Nuts, dry, dense, and hard to chew.
But we are commanded to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Tota Scriptura. And this means that what God has given to us to secure our faith should not be the occasion for us to let our faith wobble. These lists of names are not filler. They are not the inspired equivalent of "begat, begat, begat, yawn." No, these genealogies are vast and intimidating mountain ranges, to be sure, but they contain rich veins of gold. They are the inspired, inerrant, and meticulous record of God's covenant faithfulness down through the generations. They are the mathematics of providence. They are the unbreakable thread of redemption, woven through the messy, tangled, and often sinful fabric of human history, leading directly and inexorably to the Lord Jesus Christ.
The passage before us today is one of the most potent examples of this. It picks up the royal line of David after the lights have seemingly gone out in Judah. The kingdom has been shattered, the temple destroyed, and the king, Jeconiah, is a prisoner in Babylon. A divine curse hangs over his head, a curse that seems to sever the line of David permanently from the throne. From a human perspective, the promise God made to David is dead and buried in the dust of Mesopotamia. But God's promises are not subject to human circumstances. God's covenant is not fragile. And in this dense list of names, in the careful counting of sons, God is showing us that He is still at work, meticulously, patiently, and sovereignly, to bring forth the King of kings from a line that the world, and the devil, had written off for dead.
This is not just a list of forgotten men. This is a trumpet blast of defiance against despair. It is a declaration that God keeps His books with perfect accuracy, and that His arithmetic always adds up to Jesus Christ.
The Text
The sons of Jeconiah, the prisoner, were Shealtiel his son, and Malchiram, Pedaiah, Shenazzar, Jekamiah, Hoshama, and Nedabiah. The sons of Pedaiah were Zerubbabel and Shimei. And the sons of Zerubbabel were Meshullam and Hananiah, and Shelomith was their sister; and Hashubah, Ohel, Berechiah, Hasadiah, and Jushab-hesed, five. The sons of Hananiaiah were Pelatiah and Jeshaiah, the sons of Rephaiah, the sons of Arnan, the sons of Obadiah, the sons of Shecaniah. The sons of Shecaniah were Shemaiah, and the sons of Shemaiah: Hattush, Igal, Bariah, Neariah, and Shaphat, six. The sons of Neariah were Elioenai, Hizkiah, and Azrikam, three. The sons of Elioenai were Hodaviah, Eliashib, Pelaiah, Akkub, Johanan, Delaiah, and Anani, seven.
(1 Chronicles 3:17-24 LSB)
A Cursed King and a Sovereign God (v. 17-18)
We begin with the central problem, the knot that only God can untangle.
"The sons of Jeconiah, the prisoner, were Shealtiel his son, and Malchiram, Pedaiah, Shenazzar, Jekamiah, Hoshama, and Nedabiah." (1 Chronicles 3:17-18)
The Chronicler makes a point of telling us that Jeconiah, also called Coniah or Jehoiachin, is "the prisoner." His reign was a brief, three-month disaster before Nebuchadnezzar hauled him off to Babylon. He is the symbol of the failed monarchy. But his status as a prisoner is not his biggest problem. His biggest problem is a divine curse, recorded by the prophet Jeremiah.
"Thus says the LORD, 'Write this man down childless, a man who will not prosper in his days; for no man of his seed will prosper sitting on the throne of David or ruling again in Judah.'" (Jeremiah 22:30). Now, this is what you call a covenantal crisis. God promised David an everlasting dynasty, and now He curses the heir apparent, declaring him "childless" and barring any of his descendants from the throne. How can both of these things be true? The critic of the Bible rubs his hands together with glee. "Aha! A flat contradiction!" But the believer knows that our God is a precise God, and His Word is perfect. The apparent problem is the very place where God displays His intricate wisdom.
The curse says to write him down "childless." This does not mean he would have no biological children. Our very text lists seven sons. The curse was legal and royal. It meant that none of his biological issue would have a legal right to the throne. The line was royally terminated. So how does God preserve the line of David? He does it through a glorious, sovereign workaround that honors the curse while simultaneously upholding the promise. Matthew's genealogy tells us that "Jeconiah became the father of Shealtiel" (Matt. 1:12). But Luke's genealogy says that Shealtiel was the "son of Neri" (Luke 3:27). Again, the scoffer cries foul. But 1 Chronicles here provides the key. Jeconiah is the prisoner. He has sons, but they are under a curse. Neri, from the line of David through Nathan (not Solomon), has a son, Shealtiel. It is most likely that Jeconiah, having no legal heir, adopted Shealtiel. By this act of adoption, the royal line was grafted onto a different branch of the Davidic tree, bypassing the curse on Jeconiah's seed. Shealtiel becomes Jeconiah's son legally, but not biologically, thus fulfilling both the curse and the covenant.
This is not some desperate attempt to patch a hole in the Bible. This is God showing us from the beginning that our salvation, our inclusion in His family, comes through adoption. The bloodline of the covenant is thicker than water, but it is a line drawn by grace, not just genetics. God is in absolute control of every detail of history, weaving it all together to make plain that the Messiah of Israel was none other than Jesus of Nazareth.
The Puzzling Father of a Famous Son (v. 19)
The plot thickens with the very next verse, centering on one of the great heroes of the return from exile.
"The sons of Pedaiah were Zerubbabel and Shimei." (1 Chronicles 3:19)
Now wait a minute. Everyone who knows their Bible knows that Zerubbabel, the governor who led the first wave of exiles back to Jerusalem and laid the foundation of the second temple, was the son of Shealtiel. Ezra says so (Ezra 3:2). Haggai says so (Hag. 1:1). Matthew and Luke both say so. But here, the Chronicler, in the official record, says he was the son of Pedaiah, Shealtiel's brother. Is this another contradiction?
Not at all. This is another beautiful display of God's provision through His own law. What we almost certainly have here is an instance of levirate marriage, as prescribed in Deuteronomy 25. If a man died without a son, his brother was to take his wife and raise up an heir for him. The firstborn son of that union would be the legal son of the deceased brother, carrying on his name and his inheritance. The most likely scenario is that Shealtiel died without a son, and his brother Pedaiah did his duty. He married Shealtiel's widow, and the first son born was Zerubbabel. Biologically, Zerubbabel was the son of Pedaiah. Legally, and for the purposes of the covenant line, he was the son of Shealtiel.
Think of what God is doing here. The royal line is preserved first through adoption, and then through levirate marriage. The two great figures who bridge the exile, Shealtiel and Zerubbabel, are both brought into the line through extraordinary, legal, covenantal means. God is shouting to us across the centuries that the line of the Messiah is not a matter of mere biology, but of His sovereign, legal, and gracious decree. He is the one who sets the solitary in families. He is the one who raises up seed for the childless. He is the one who keeps the unbreakable thread from snapping.
God's Careful Accounting (v. 20-24)
The rest of the passage continues this meticulous record, and we should pay attention to the details.
"...and Hashubah, Ohel, Berechiah, Hasadiah, and Jushab-hesed, five. The sons of Hananiah... The sons of Shecaniah... and the sons of Shemaiah: Hattush, Igal, Bariah, Neariah, and Shaphat, six. The sons of Neariah... three. The sons of Elioenai... seven." (1 Chronicles 3:20-24)
After the high drama of Jeconiah's curse and Zerubbabel's birth, the list continues, generation after generation. And notice the Chronicler's habit. He lists the sons of Zerubbabel and then says, "five." He lists the sons of Shemaiah and says, "six." The sons of Neariah, "three." The sons of Elioenai, "seven." Why? This is not just a space-saving technique. This is the Holy Spirit emphasizing the precision of the record. This is God's accounting. He is not losing track. Not a single link in this chain is missing or unaccounted for. Every individual here, most of whom are completely unknown to us, played a necessary part in God's plan of redemption. They were born, they lived, they had sons, and they carried the seed of the promise, the DNA of the Messiah, forward to the next generation.
This is a profound comfort. We live in an age that worships celebrity and despises obscurity. But in God's economy, faithfulness in obscurity is the norm. These men were not kings on a throne in Jerusalem. They were exiles, and then returnees, living in a diminished and difficult world. But they were faithful in their generation to do the one thing God required of them for this plan: to get married and have sons. And God recorded their names, and counted their children, in His eternal book.
Your name may not be known to history. You may feel like a Hattush or a Jushab-hesed, a minor character in someone else's story. But if you are in Christ, you are part of this story. You are a link in the covenant chain. God knows your name. He counts your children. He sees your faithfulness, and He has written you into His family tree, the one that culminates not just in the first coming of Jesus, but in His glorious return.
Conclusion: The God of the Living
So what do we take from this dense passage of Scripture? We see a God who is utterly sovereign over curses and kings. We see a God whose covenant promises cannot be thwarted by sin, by exile, or even by death. We see a God who works through legal arrangements like adoption and levirate marriage to accomplish His purposes, showing us that the family of God has always been built on more than just blood.
We see a God who is meticulous. He counts the sons. He keeps the records. He is a God of order, not chaos. History is not a random series of unfortunate events. It is His story, and He is writing it with perfect, unerring precision.
And finally, we see the absolute necessity of Jesus Christ. This entire lineage, preserved so miraculously, was for one purpose: to bring forth "great David's greater Son." Jesus is the true Son of David who bypassed the curse on Jeconiah because He was not Jeconiah's biological seed. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. He was Joseph's legal son, giving Him the legal claim to the throne, but He did not have Joseph's fallen blood. He is the perfect King who fulfills the promise to David in a way no mere son of Adam ever could.
This genealogy is not a list of the dead. God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. This is the living, breathing, active story of our salvation. It is the record of how our God, with painstaking care and infinite wisdom, kept His promise through centuries of turmoil and darkness, so that at the perfect time, He could send His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem us. This list is our family history. And it all points to Him.