Charles Ellicott Commentary Luke 3:3

"And he came into all the region round about the Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance unto remission of sins;" — Luke 3:3 (ASV)

And he came into all the country . . .—The words paint the mission-work of John somewhat more vividly than those of St. Matthew and St. Mark, who represent the people flocking to Him from Jerusalem and Judea. The two facts together complete the picture.

The baptism of repentance.—See Notes on Matthew 3:1-11, and Mark 1:4-6. In his description of the Baptism, St. Luke agrees verbally with the latter.

There is, in the appearance in St. Matthew’s list of Jeconias (as in 1 Chronicles 3:17), and in St. Luke’s of Neri as the father of Salathiel, a problem to be solved; but an adequate, though necessarily conjectural, solution is not difficult to find. To assume that the Salathiel of the one list is not identical with that in the other is to cut the knot instead of disentangling it.

But it may be noticed that in the earlier records connected with the name of the historical Salathiel, father of Zerubbabel who was the leader of the Jews on their return from Babylon, there is an obvious complication. In 1 Chronicles 3:19, Zerubbabel is the son of Pedaiah, Salathiel's brother. The language in Jeremiah 22:30 at least suggests that Jeconiah died without an heir.

Therefore, what seems probable is that the royal line descended from Solomon and expired in Jeconiah, and that Salathiel, the son of Neri, the representative of the line of Nathan, took his place in the line of inheritance. It is not without significance that in the contemporary prophecy of Zechariah, the house of Nathan appears for the first time in the history of Judah as invested with a special preeminence (Zechariah 12:12). The difference in the number of the names can be explained in the same way as before.