Only if the Sun, Stars, and Moon are Remove

The answer to Bryan’s question, "Did GOD divorce Israel since HE gave her a certificate of divorce and sent her away? (Jer 3:8)" begins with a story.

There once was a king of Judah, a descendant of David named Josiah, who had a son. His name was "Jehoiakim," and he had a son named "Jehoiachin", also referred to in the Encyclopaedia Judiaca as "Jeconiah, Jechoniah, and Coniah", meaning "The LORD will establish" (2 Chron 36:8). Jehoiachin reigned for three months and 10 days and "did evil in the eyes of the LORD" (2 Chrn 36:9). This evil must have been far greater from other kings because the LORD chose to carry Jehoiachin off to Babylon (Est 2:6) and pronounced a curse on him...

"Is this man Jehoiachin a despised, broken pot, an object no one wants? Why will he and his children be hurled out, cast into a land they do not know? O land, land, land, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the LORD says: "Record this man as if childless, a man who will not prosper in his lifetime, for none of his offspring will prosper, none will sit on the throne of David or rule anymore in Judah." (Jer 22:28-30)

Jehoiachin was of the royal line of kings, but the curse did not permit a descendant of Jehoiachin to "sit on the throne of David." Yet, the scriptures tell us that LORD swore with an oath (Ps 132:11), "David will never fail to have a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel" (Jer 33:17)? So did the curse on Jehoiachin negate the previous promise to David?

Two genealogies are given in the Newer Testament for JESUS. The first is in Matthew (Matt 1:1-17) and the second in Luke (Luke 3:23-38). Because the names beyond David vary significantly, it has generally been accepted that the genealogy given by Matthew is for Joseph, while Luke’s account is for Mary. Women are generally not listed in Jewish genealogies since the "seed" comes from man. The genealogy of a woman was generally given by referencing the husband, such as JESUS "was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph" (Luke 3:24). All other references in Luke’s genealogy say "son of…" to distinguish from the reference to Joseph. Luke is telling us that JESUS was the son of Mary and a son of David.

Matthew’s genealogy contains all the great kings you would expect in the genealogy of JESUS and one you would not expect. Along with Solomon, Hezekiah, and Josiah is Jeconiah, also known as "Jehoiachin", the same king whom the LORD had cursed by saying, "none of his offspring will prosper, none will sit on the throne of David or rule anymore in Judah." Did Matthew get the genealogy wrong or did the LORD change HIS mind? Neither.

For all my life I thought the genealogy in Matthew was to demonstrate that JESUS was a descendant of David because I did not know the Older Testament. That is not the purpose of Mathew’s genealogy at all. Matthew gave the genealogy to demonstrate that Joseph could not be the father of JESUS the MESSIAH since Joseph descended from Jeconiah. Immediately after the genealogy, Matthew begins to explain the virgin birth… "This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about…" (Matt 1:18).

The genealogy of JESUS now takes on a different light that will take some time for me to consider in the future. Solomon and all the kings of Israel after David are no longer in the lineage of JESUS, but the Gentile woman before David remain. The Messianic promise to the line of Solomon had only been conditional… "if your sons keep my covenant and the statutes I teach them, then their sons will sit on your throne for ever and ever." (Ps 132:11-12). But Solomon did many detestable things, "So the LORD said to Solomon, "Since this is your attitude and you have not kept my covenant and my decrees, which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates." (1 Kings 11:11).

Solomon’s sin had been sufficient in history to divide the kingdom of Israel and it appears it was sufficient to disqualify him from the line of the MESSIAH. The account in Luke now places the lineage of JESUS through David’s son Nathan (2 Sam 5:14), meaning "GOD has given." I can find little spoken of Nathan in the Bible and nothing of his descendants after until we get to Luke. This may have been what caused the Hebrew writer to compare JESUS to Melchizedek, "Without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, like the Son of God he remains a priest forever" (Heb 7:3). The lineage of JESUS now becomes one of a relatively unknown and humble nature.

The LORD puts one more twist on the story. Joseph, who knew his heritage, understood that he descended from the "cursed" line and would never be associated with the MESSIAH. Mary, likewise, understood that she would not be the mother of the MESSIAH on the day she was pleged to be married to Joseph. Yet, GOD permitted he who descended from the curse and his wife to participate in the greatest story ever told because "Joseph…was a righteous man" (Matt 1:19) and "Mary…found favor with God" (Luke 1:30-31).

Now the sin of Solomon had been sufficiently great to divide the Kingdom of Israel, a division that continued until both the northern and southern kingdoms were conquered. Yet there was a time coming prophesized by Ezekiel, when the LORD would join the stick "in Ephraim's hand — and of the Israelite tribes associated with him, and join it to Judah's stick, making them a single stick of wood, and they will become one in my hand…I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. There will be one king over all of them and they will never again be two nations or be divided into two kingdoms." (Ezek 37:18-23). The promise is made to restore both halves of Israel into one, which includes both Israel (Ephraim) and Judah together. Midrashing a bit now, these two sticks can possibly be seen as the joining of the two aspects of the Rabbinic Messiah, bar Joseph (Ephraim), the suffering Messiah and bar David (Judah), the kingly Messiah.

I am typing too much so I need to wrap this up. The possible divorce of Israel (Jer 3:8) may have disqualified that generation of Jeremiah, but it did not disqualify future generations of the northern kingdom, just as the sin of Israel in the wilderness did not disqualify the children from entering the promise land and the sin of Jeconiah did not negate the promises given to David. The same prophet who spoke about the "certificate of divorce" would later write.

"This is what the LORD says, he who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar — the LORD Almighty is his name: 36 "Only if these decrees vanish from my sight,"declares the LORD,"will the descendants of Israel ever cease to be a nation before me." 37 This is what the LORD says: "Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I reject all the descendants of Israel because of all they have done," declares the LORD." (Jer 31:35-37)

Shema, Scott