HELI does not occur in this form in the A. V. of the O. T. According, however, to the Sept. and the Vulg., the well-known name of the aged high-priest ELI is the same word. His name, '63./ (similar in meaning to the Greek proper name Tp6 0,uos, a foster-child ;' or still more like Atorpecb*, yove nutritus [` malim certe alumnus your,' pro ;it* foste, rhild of yehovah,' Gesen. Thes. Io29]), is' 'rendered by the LXX. `Eac (Alex. 'FIXci) ; and by the Vulg. Heli, in no less than thirty passages (Dutripon, Conconlantie Bibl Sacr. Vulg. p. 600). This is, no doubt, a more correct rendering of the name than the A. V. Eli.
In the Apocryphal book 2 Esdras i. 2, HELI occurs as one of the ancestors of Esdras or Ezra. In the genealogy, however, of the canonical book, Ezra vii. 2, 3, the name is omitted, as-well as two others, between Ahitub and Amariah.
In Luke iii. 23, Heli occupies a prominent place in the ancestry of our Lord, owing to the discussion of the question, which the proximity of his name to that of JESUS has occasioned, how was he the grandfather of Christ ? According to the letter of the gospel in the A. V. version, Heti was the father of yoseph, the reputed father of the Saviour ; and this relationship has been stoutly defended of late in the learned writings of Lord A. Hervey on the Genealogy of Christ. It is impossible, however,
on a strict comparison of the originals of the two ancestral tables of Jesus Christ, as given in St. Matthew (ch. i.) and St. Luke (ch. iii.), to avoid the natural conclusion that Joseph the carpenter was the real son of Jacob, and the son-in-law of Heli, through his espoused wife, the Virgin Mary. The passages in the Greek Text are, (r) 'IaKeop Se eyeyila€ rdv 'later/70 ray ItySpaMaplas [Matt. i. 161 and (2) 'Itecrigb roti 'IlXi [Luke iii. 23]. The former passage, Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary,' plainly predicates a literal and natural paternity of Jacob to Mary's husband Joseph ; while the second on/y vaguely connects Joseph with Heli—' Joseph of Heli ;' so that on the simple assumption, which the entire nature of the case forces on us, that Heli was actually the virgin's father, we need only insert the phrasc son-in-law' betwcen the two names [q. d. Joseph, who was the son-in-law of Heli],' and the two passages will become compatible, and our Lord's natural descent from king David as the fruit of his loins' (Acts ii. 30) will be avouched to the satisfaction of so many prophecies and strong assertions of Holy Scripture. For a full discussion of the question the reader is referred to the article