Abijah of Judah

Family

Abijam is reported in the books of Kings and Chronicles as being related to Maacah, Micaiah, and King Asa of Judah. Scholars have found the biblical accounts of Abijam's family to be contradictory. While a number of theories have been suggested, no explanation can accommodate all available sources or has proved definitively compelling. Abijah married fourteen wives, and had 22 sons and 16 daughters.

Abijah in the Hebrew Bible

Reign of Abijah

Following the death of Rehoboam, his son Abijah succeeded the throne as King of Judah. He began his three-year reign (2 Chr. 12:16; 13:1, 2) with a strenuous but unsuccessful effort to bring back the ten tribes of the northern Kingdom of Israel to their allegiance.

Following Abijah's ascension to the throne in the 18th year of King Jeroboam I of Israel, he marched north with the purpose of winning Israel back to the Davidic kingdom. Jeroboam surrounded Abijah's army, engaging in the battle of Mount Zemaraim. Abijiah captured the Israelite cities of Jeshanah, Ephron (et-Taiyibeh) and Bethel.

Commentaries

According to the Deuteronomist, "God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem by raising up a son to succeed him" (1 Kings 15:4). Thus the unconditional covenant blessing of Yahweh, guaranteed his promise to King David to stabilize the Kingdom of David despite its ruler. The Chronicler also emphasizes Yahweh's promise as seen by Abijah's success against every effort by Jeroboam to defeat him. "Judah prevailed because they relied upon the Lord God of their fathers." (2 Chr. 13:18) God gave the Kingdom to David and his descendants (1 Chr. 17:14) by a covenant of salt, meaning, of permanence (cf. Lev. 2:13).

Yahweh decreed that the entire apostate dynasty of King Jeroboam was to be executed. He also ordered that Abijah be given a decent burial because “Something good toward Jehovah the God of Israel has been found in him” (1 Kin. 14:1, 10-13).

Chronological discrepancies

According to 2 Chronicles 13:1-2, Abijah became king of Judah in the 18th year of the reign of Jeroboam, and reigned for three years.

William F. Albright has dated his reign to 915–913 BCE.

E. R. Thiele offers the dates 914/913 – 911/910 BCE. As explained in the Rehoboam article, Thiele's chronology for the first kings of Judah contained an internal inconsistency that later scholars corrected by dating these kings one year earlier, so that Abijah's dates are taken as 915/914 to 912/911 BCE in the present article.

The calendars for reckoning the years of kings in Judah and Israel were offset by six months, that of Judah starting in Tishri (in the fall) and that of Israel in Nisan (in the spring). Cross-synchronizations between the two kingdoms therefore often allow narrowing of the beginning and/or ending dates of a king to within a six-month range. For Abijam, the Scriptural data allow the narrowing of his accession to some time between 1 Nisan 914 BCE and the day before 1 Tishri of that year. For calculation purposes, this should be taken as the Judean year beginning in Tishri of 915/914 BC, or more simply 915 BCE. His death occurred at some time between 1 Tishri 912 BCE and 1 Nisan 911 BCE, i.e. in 912 (912/911) BCE. These dates are one year earlier than those given in the third edition of Thiele's Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, thereby correcting an internal consistency that Thiele never resolved, as explained in the Rehoboam article.

Works cited