shall he also reap." Men may, in one sense, mock God here, that is, they may scoff
and blaspheme: but finally their folly will be manifested (Ps. ii. 4)1.
246. M. In Matt. i. 11, we are told that Josiah was the father of Jeconiah. Now
in 1 Chron. iii. 15-17 it is stated that Jeconiah's father was not Josiah but Jehoiakim.
This is a contradiction.
C. Some MSS. read in Matt. i. 11, "Josias begat Joakim, and Joakim begat
Jechonias," &c., in accordance with 1 Chron. But this has not been admitted into
the text, because we are not quite sure that the additional words stood in the original
MS. In any case the supposition of a contradiction arises from ignorance of the fact that
it was the habit of the Jews to contract genealogies by passing over certain intermediate
generations when considered advisable. There can be no reason assigned to account for any
one deliberately corrupting the text, nor is a contradiction conceivable when 1 Chron. was
readily accessible.
247. M. How can you bring an accusation of cruelty against Muhammad for his
treatment of the Jews, when the Emperor Heraclius acted so ruthlessly towards them when he
recaptured Jerusalem from the Persians, and that too with the approval of the leading
Christian teachers of the time?
C. As one of our Church historians well says, such conduct on Heraclius's part
"resulted2 from