And Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah. Hezekiah was Judah's greatest king since David; Manasseh was its worst — a reign of child sacrifice and idolatry so severe that 2 Kings 21:11–15 attributes the coming Babylonian exile to it. The royal line descends through the most catastrophic of Judah's kings without the covenant breaking. The genealogy demonstrates what Paul will later articulate in Romans 5:20: where sin increased, grace increased all the more. The Messiah's lineage does not require exemplary ancestors; it requires only that the line continue, and God ensures that it does.

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