Abijam (; grc-x-biblical, Αβιού, Aviou; la, Abiam) was, according to the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' House of David and the second of the

Kingdom of Judah The Kingdom of Judah ( he, , ''Yəhūdā''; akk, 𒅀𒌑𒁕𒀀𒀀 ''Ya'údâ'' 'ia-ú-da-a-a'' arc, 𐤁𐤉𐤕𐤃𐤅𐤃 ''Bēyt Dāwīḏ'', " House of David") was an Israelite kingdom of the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. C ...

. He was the son of

Rehoboam Rehoboam (; , ; , ; la, Roboam, ) was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the last monarch of the United Kingdom of Israel and the first monarch of the Kingdom of Judah after the former's split. He was a son of and the successor to Solomon and a g ...

and the grandson of

Solomon Solomon (; , ),, ; ar, سُلَيْمَان, ', , ; el, Σολομών, ; la, Salomon also called Jedidiah (Hebrew language, Hebrew: , Modern Hebrew, Modern: , Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: ''Yăḏīḏăyāh'', "beloved of Yahweh, Yah"), ...

. The

Books of Chronicles The Book of Chronicles ( he, דִּבְרֵי־הַיָּמִים ) is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Chronicles) in the Christian Old Testament. Chronicles is the final book of the Hebrew Bible, concluding the third sec ...

refers to him as Abijah.; la, Abia

In the Hebrew Bible

Family

Abijam is reported in the books of

Kings Kings or King's may refer to: *Monarchs: The sovereign heads of states and/or nations, with the male being kings *One of several works known as the "Book of Kings": **The Books of Kings part of the Bible, divided into two parts **The ''Shahnameh'' ...

and

Chronicles Chronicles may refer to: * ''Books of Chronicles'', in the Bible * Chronicle, chronological histories * ''The Chronicles of Narnia'', a novel series by C. S. Lewis * ''Holinshed's Chronicles'', the collected works of Raphael Holinshed * '' The Idh ...

as being the son of

Maacah Maacah (or Maakah; he, ''Maʿăḵā'', "crushed"; Maacha in the Codex Alexandrinus, Maachah in the KJV) is a non-gender-specific personal name used in the Bible to refer to a number of people. *A child of Abraham's brother Nachor, evidently ...

or Micaiah, and father of King

Asa of Judah Asa (; el, Ασά; la, Asa) was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the third king of the Kingdom of Judah and the fifth king of the House of David. The Hebrew Bible gives the period of his reign between 40–41 years. His reign is dated betwee ...

. Some scholars believe the biblical accounts of Abijam's family to be

contradictory In traditional logic, a contradiction occurs when a proposition conflicts either with itself or established fact. It is often used as a tool to detect disingenuous beliefs and bias. Illustrating a general tendency in applied logic, Aristotle ...

; however, a study of Hebrew linguistics may remove any seeming contradictions. One of the alleged contradictions is that Maacah is sometimes described as the daughter of

Absalom Absalom ( he, ''ʾAḇšālōm'', "father of peace") was the third son of David, King of Israel with Maacah, daughter of Talmai, King of Geshur. 2 Samuel 14:25 describes him as the handsomest man in the kingdom. Absalom eventually rebelle ...

, and elsewhere the daughter of Uriel. Absalom is described as only having one daughter, Tamar. Apologists have countered by arguing that in Hebrew, "daughter" and "granddaughter" are the same word. Similarly, Maacah is initially described as Abijah's mother, but subsequently described as the mother of his son Asa. Apologists argue similarly for the ambiguity of the term "mother". Abijah married fourteen wives, and had 22 sons and 16 daughters. No attempted harmonization has found acceptance with scholars.

Reign

Following the death of

, his son Abijah succeeded the throne as

King of Judah The Kings of Judah were the monarchs who ruled over the ancient Kingdom of Judah. According to the biblical account, this kingdom was founded after the death of Saul, when the tribe of Judah elevated David to rule over it. After seven years, David ...

. 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 The Kingdom of Israel (), or the Kingdom of Samaria, was an Israelite kingdom in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. The kingdom controlled the areas of Samaria, Galilee and parts of Transjordan. Its capital, for the most part, was Sama ...

to their allegiance, a path which in his father had chosen not to follow. 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 The great Battle of Mount Zemaraim was reported in the Bible to have been fought in Mount Zemaraim, when the army of the Kingdom of Israel led by the king Jeroboam I encountered the army of the Kingdom of Judah led by the king Abijah I. About 500 ...

. There Abijah rallied his troops with a phrase which has since become famous: "God Himself is with us for a Captain". Abijah went on to capture the Israelite cities of

Jeshanah Jeshanah (Yeshana) was an ancient Biblical city. History Yeshana was one of three cities, along with Bethel and Ephraim, that were captured by Abijah of the Kingdom of Judah during his war with Jeroboam of the Kingdom of Israel (). Charles Simon C ...

, Ephron (''et-Taiyibeh'') and

Bethel Bethel ( he, בֵּית אֵל, translit=Bēṯ 'Ēl, "House of El" or "House of God",Bleeker and Widegren, 1988, p. 257. also transliterated ''Beth El'', ''Beth-El'', ''Beit El''; el, Βαιθήλ; la, Bethel) was an ancient Israelite sanc ...

Commentaries

Non-conformist minister

Alexander Maclaren Alexander Maclaren (11 February 1826 – 5 May 1910) was a Scottish Baptist minister. Biography Maclaren was born in Glasgow, Scotland, the son of David Maclaren, a merchant and Baptist lay preacher.Edwin Charles Dargan (1912) ''A History of ...

considers Abijah "a wiser and better man than his father". According to the

Deuteronomist The Deuteronomist, abbreviated as either Dtr or simply D, may refer either to the source document underlying the core chapters (12–26) of the Book of Deuteronomy, or to the broader "school" that produced all of Deuteronomy as well as the Deuter ...

, "God gave him a lamp in

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

by raising up a son to succeed him" (1 Kings 15:4). The wording in the

Septuagint The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond t ...

is "the Lord gave him a remnant". Thus the unconditional covenant blessing of

YHWH The Tetragrammaton (; ), or Tetragram, is the four-letter Hebrew theonym (transliterated as YHWH), the name of God in the Hebrew Bible. The four letters, written and read from right to left (in Hebrew), are ''yodh'', '' he'', '' waw'', and ...

guaranteed his promise to

King David David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...

, to stabilize the Kingdom of David despite its ruler. The

Chronicler A chronicle ( la, chronica, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and lo ...

also emphasizes YHWH'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 had given the Kingdom to David and his descendants (1 Chronicles 17:14) by a

covenant of salt The phrase covenant of salt appears twice in the Hebrew Bible: In the Book of Numbers, God's covenant with the Aaronic priesthood is said to be a covenant of salt. In the second book of Chronicles, God's covenant with the Davidic kings of Israel ...

, meaning, of permanence (cf. Leviticus 2:13).

Rabbinic literature

Although Abijah took up God's cause against Jeroboam, the idolatrous king of Israel, he was not permitted to enjoy the fruits of his victory over the latter for any considerable time, dying as he did shortly after his campaign (Josephus, "Ant." viii. 11, § 3). The rabbis recount many transgressions committed by Abijah against his fellow men, which resulted in drawing God's vengeance upon him more speedily than upon Jeroboam's idolatries. Thus it is stated that he mutilated the corpses of Jeroboam's soldiers, and even would not permit them to be interred until they had arrived at a state of putrefaction. Nor did Abijah show himself zealous in God's cause after all; for when, by the conquest of Bethel (II Chron. xiii. 19), the golden calves came into his possession, he did not destroy them as the law (Deut. vii. 25) enjoined. The rabbis also point out that it was improper for Abijah to accuse the whole of Israel of idolatry and to proclaim the appointment of Jeroboam as king to have been the work of "vain men, the children of Belial" (II Chron. xiii. 7), since in point of fact it was the prophet Ahijah, the Shilonite, who prophesied that Jeroboam would be king (I Kings, xi. 37). For these reasons Abijah's reign was a short one.Jewish encyclopedia Abijah

Chronological discrepancies

According to , Abijah became king of Judah in the 18th year of the reign of

Jeroboam Jeroboam I (; Hebrew: ''Yārŏḇə‘ām''; el, Ἱεροβοάμ, Hieroboám) was the first king of the northern Kingdom of Israel. The Hebrew Bible describes the reign of Jeroboam to have commenced following a revolt of the ten northern ...

, 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

article, Thiele's chronology for the first kings of Judah contained an internal inconsistency which 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.

Notes

References

Works cited

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