Josias (Josiah, Revised Version) begat Jechonias (Jechoniah, Revised Version). Here we come upon another omission. Josiah was the father of Jehoiakim, and he the father of Jechoniah (called also Jehoiachin); see 2 Kings 23:34; 2 Kings 24:6.
The omission is supplied in some few manuscripts; but it may be only the case of a marginal note in a previous copy having found its way into the text. There is, however, something to be said in favour of its acceptance.
The similarity between the names Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin is very great, especially in some of the Greek forms, so that they might easily be confused, and thus a verse be omitted in some very early text.
Then Jehoiachin (Jechonias) apparently had no brethren (but see 1 Chronicles 3:16), whereas Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, had two or three (1 Chronicles 3:15). To make the whole pedigree agree with the Old Testament records some addition in this form would appear necessary; Josiah begat [Jehoiakim and his brethren, and Jehoiakim begat] Jechoniah about the time, etc.
But manuscript evidence for this is extremely slight (vide Westcott and Hort, 'App.,' i,). Yet the supposition that the name of Jehoiakim has been omitted removes what has seemed to many another difficulty.
As the list now stands, to make up the fourteen in the third as well as in the second section of the genealogy it is necessary to count Jehoiachin—a king whose reign lasted only three mouths (2 Kings 24:8)—twice over.
He closes the second fourteen and begins the third. There is nothing like this found at the other division. To substitute Jehoiakim after Josiah would avoid this repetition of the name of such a very insignificant person, especially as the reign of Jehoiakim lasted eleven years (2 Kings 23:36).
And to mention Jehoiakim as the father of Jehoiachin "at the time of the carrying away to Babylon" would be very appropriate, whereas to say Josiah begat his children at that date is not so strictly correct.
It seems, then, probable that we have here some clerical error, which may have existed already in the list which St. Matthew used. About the time. The preposition in the Greek means rather, "at the time."
The Authorized Version, however, gives the sense, for the birth of Jehoiachin must have been some years before the commencement of the Babylonish conquest, which may be said to have begun with Nebuchadnezzar's invasion of the land in Jehoiakim's days (2 Kings 24:1).