Moses in this passage so clearly refers to Joshua (see Joshua i. 1-9), who was to take his place as leader of the Israelites, that any other construction is entirely shut out. The assertion that Jesus of Nazareth, despised by his countrymen, homeless, and poor (even if he had been the son of the Eternal in disguise), in any way resembled Moses the successful warrior and lawgiver, was well put into the mouth of the rash-spoken Peter. (f1.) _Claim of Jesus to be the "Son of David"_ To establish the descent of Jesus from David, two different detailed genealogies are given by Matthew and Luke. 1. Matthew (i. 1-17) traces the descent of Joseph, the reputed father of Jesus, from Abraham, through David and Solomon, down to Salathiel and Zorobabel, and from them to Joseph, and states that there were fourteen generations from Abraham to David, the same number from David to the captivity, and the same number from the captivity to Jesus. The fourteen names given, from Abraham to David inclusive, agree with the Hebrew Chronicles; but to reduce to fourteen the names from Solomon to Jechonias, king of the first captivity, inclusive, no fewer than four persons, to wit, Ahaziah; Joash, and Amaziah, the sixth, seventh, and eighth from Solomon, and Jehoiakim, the father of Jechonias, are omitted, (1 Chron. iii.) See, for the utterly puerile fancy of breaking up Christ's descent into three equal periods of fourteen generations, how the compiler scruples not to mutilate a genealogy, the whole of which must have been before him; for it cannot be supposed that he was unacquainted with the books of Kings and Chronicles in the Old Testament! The fourteen names from Jechonias to Jesus there is no means of ascertaining from whom Matthew received. Joseph, being of the house and lineage of David, may have had a record of his descent, and Matthew may have received it either from Joseph or from one of the brothers of Jesus, or the mutilator of the second set of fourteen may readily have found the third.