1 Chronicles 3:16 MEANING

(16) Jeconiah (Iah establish !)= Jehoiachin (Iahweh establisheth) = Coniah (Jeremiah 22:24; Jeremiah 22:28--an abbreviation of Jeconiah), was carried captive to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kings 24:15), and Zedekiah his father's brother, became king in his stead. Hence the supposition that "Zedekiah his son" means "Zedekiah his successor" on the throne. (Comp. margin.) But (1) the phrase "his son" has its natural sense throughout the preceding list; and (2) there really is nothing against the apparent statement of the text that Jeconiah the king had a son named Zedekiah, after his great-uncle. As, like Johanan (1 Chronicles 3:15), he did not come to the throne, this younger Zedekiah is not mentioned elsewhere. (See 1 Chronicles 3:17, Note.)

Verse 16. - Of the above four brothers, sons of Josiah, the second, Jehoiakim, or Eliakim, had a son called Jeconiah, or Jehoiachin - essentially the same word. He was eighteen years of age when he succeeded his father (2 Kings 24:8). A touching glimpse is given of him in Jeremiah 52:31. His name is shortened to Coniah in Jeremiah 22:24 and Jeremiah 37:1, though elsewhere in the same prophet, Jeconiah, and in one place (Jeremiah 52:31), Jehoiachin. The name of Zedekiah occasions difficulty in this verse. In the first instance, following the examples of vers. 10-14, we should presume that this Zedekiah is set forth as a son of Jeconiah, and as it is not said that he reigned after Jeconiah (for it was undoubtedly Jeconiah's uncle Zedekiah who reigned after him), we need only have read it as a statement of one of his sons. Against this, however, there are two tolerably decisive considerations; for, first, the verse opens confessedly by offering us sons of Jehoiakim, and these two, Jeconiah and Zedekiah, will fulfil the promise of that plural; and again, the seventeenth verse enters upon the formal enumeration of sons to Jeconiah. The question, therefore, returns - Who was this Zedekiah, son of Jehoiakim? Some consider him identical with the Zedekiah of the previous verse, and that "his son" means here "his successor." This undoes fewer difficulties than it makes. If the text be not corrupt, the likeliest solution is to suppose that this Zedekiah of ver. 16 is an otherwise unknown brother of Jeconiah, and son of Jehoiakim.

3:1-24 Genealogies. - Of all the families of Israel, none were so illustrious as the family of David: here we have a full account of it. From this family, as concerning the flesh, Christ came. The attentive observer will perceive that the children of the righteous enjoy many advantages.And the sons of Jehoiakim; Jeconiah his son, Zedekiah his son. This is not the Zedekiah mentioned in the preceding verse; for he was not the son but the uncle of Jeconiah, unless he should be called his son because he succeeded him in the kingdom; but he seems to be another of that name, nowhere else mentioned, and not the son of Jeconiah in any sense; he is not reckoned among them in the following verses, but of Jehoiakim.