What could be reason for omitting three kings of Judah in Matthew's geneology?

Question

Matthew's genealogy

Matthew 1:7-11 (NIV)

David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife,

7 Solomon the father of Rehoboam,

Rehoboam the father of Abijah,

Abijah the father of Asa,

8 Asa the father of Jehoshaphat,

Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram

Jehoram the father of Uzziah,

9 Uzziah the father of Jotham,

Jotham the father of Ahaz,

Ahaz the father of Hezekiah,

10 Hezekiah the father of Manasseh,

Manasseh the father of Amon,

Amon the father of Josiah,

11 and Josiah the father of Jeconiah[c] and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.

Three kings are ommitted from the geneology of Christ,

What could be the reason?

Answer 1

I believe you might also call attention to Jehoiakim, who should have appeared between Josiah and Jeconiah.

The words "the father of" or "was the father of" never appear in the Greek text. The Greek word that actually appears is ἐγέννησε (or in some variants, ἐγέννησεν) - a past (aorist) tense of γεννάω (gennaō).

Gennaō does not necessarily always mean something like "fathered". It can also take on the broader meaning of "engender" (i.e. cause to exist/happen) - a word that comes directly from the Greek word.

The KJV translators opted to translate gennaō as "beget". According to the Oxford English Dictionary, one of the meanings of "beget" at the time the KJV was published (and even today) was to "call into being, give rise to; to produce, occasion."

Answer 2

Although the account of Queen Athaliah’s six year reign, and her deeds, are recorded in II Kings 11:1-4 and 13-21, her name is expunged in the Chronicles record, I Chronicles 3:11.

Since it is written :

I, the Lord thy God am a jealous God, Exodus 20:5, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me,

I take it that either the Jews later, in their extra-scriptural documentation, removed the three generations following Athaliah, namely Ahaziah, Joash and Amaziah; or else Matthew himself removes them in his own record.