Matthew 1:11

In verse 11 we come to the end of the second group of 'begats':

Ιωσίας δε εγέννησεν τον Ιεχονίαν και τους αδελφούς αυτού
επί της μετοικεσίας Βαβυλώνος.

Word-for-word this reads:

Josiah and/_ fathered the Jechoniah and the brothers of him
upon (at the time of) the carrying off of Babylon.

We've seen the word 'αδελφούς' before (v. 2): it means 'brothers', in the accusative case. The word 'αυτού' after 'αδελφούς' also means the same as it did in verse 2: it is a genitive, possessive form of a pronoun, meaning 'of him', i.e., 'of Jechoniah.'

The word 'μετοικεσίας' is new; the only meaning given in my Greek New Testament (the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece) is 'carrying off', but it has also been translated as 'deportation'. (from 'μετα' with the sense of change, and 'οίκος', house). This word is in the genitive case, although here the reason is not to denote possession, but because it follows the preposition 'επί' ('on, upon, at the time off').

Actually, επί has a slew of meanings, which you can see in any dictionary of koine Greek. Some prepositions can only be followed by nouns in one case (e.g., 'εκ', 'out of', can only be followed by the genitive, whereas 'εις', 'in, into', can only be followed by the accusative).

But 'επί' can be followed by the genitive, dative, or accusative. In this case, being followed by the genitive, the meaning will be something like 'upon', or 'at the time of'. According to Zerwick and Grosvenor's A Grammatical Analysis of the Greek New Testament (see Amazon gadget on this blog) this is the only instance in the New Testament where επί has a temporal use (that is, a use relating to time as opposed to position).

Χαίρετε!