Was Shealtiel the son of Jechoniah or of Neri?

Matthew and Luke are probably speaking of the same man, as most commentators hold, though some think otherwise (see below). Both name a Shealtiel with a son Zerubbabel, at about the same distance from David (fifteen generations in Matthew’s shortened list, twenty-one in Luke’s), and Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel was the well-known leader of the return from Babylon (Ezra 3:2; Haggai 1:1). If so, Shealtiel had one father by birth and another in law, something Hebrew genealogies record without comment. A man could be counted as the son of his father-in-law, or of his mother’s father, when that family had no son to carry on its name. Sheshan “had no sons, but daughters”, yet his line continued through his daughter’s son (1 Chronicles 2:34–36), and a priest who married a daughter of Barzillai “was called after their name” (Ezra 2:61).

Keil and Delitzsch suggest how this happened here. Jeremiah had said that Jeconiah would be written “childless”, in the sense that none of his offspring would reign (Jeremiah 22:30). On their reading, Jeconiah’s son Assir (1 Chronicles 3:17) left only a daughter, who married Neri of Nathan’s line, as the law for heiresses required (Numbers 27:8; 36:8). Shealtiel, their son, was then Neri’s son by birth, as Luke says, and also Jeconiah’s heir, so that Matthew and Chronicles count him as Jeconiah’s son. Adam Clarke put it the other way round: Shealtiel was Jeconiah’s son by birth and Neri’s son-in-law. Either way, each Gospel records a real relationship: Matthew follows the royal line, Luke the line of Nathan.

Two different men

Some, among them the bible.ca answer to Shabir Ally (see further reading), hold that Luke’s Shealtiel and Zerubbabel are different men from Matthew’s, with the same common names, as there were two men called Joseph son of Jacob centuries apart. Then there is nothing to reconcile. Against this, both pairs come at about the same point in the history, which is why most commentators identify them.

‘The captive’

The Hebrew ʾassir in 1 Chronicles 3:17 may be a description rather than a name: “Jeconiah the captive” (WEB, BSB). Then Shealtiel is named directly as Jeconiah’s son, and either Clarke’s son-in-law explanation fits, or the suggestion in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia that Shealtiel was ‘the legal heir or adopted son’ of the ‘childless’ king. Keil and Delitzsch held that the word, lacking the article, must be a name.

Scripture does not say which of Shealtiel’s two fathers was his father by birth, and the explanations above are reasoned suggestions. The question is tied to the larger one of how Matthew’s and Luke’s genealogies relate (see the question on Jesus’ two family trees).