Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on 2 Chronicles 13:1
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
The commencement and duration of the reign, as in Kg1 15:1-2. Abijah's mother is here ( Ch2 13:2) called Michaiah instead of Maachah, as in Ch2 11:20 and Kg1 15:2, but it can hardly be a second name which Maachah had received for some unknown reason; probably מיכיהו is a mere orthographical error for מעכה. She is here called, not the daughter = granddaughter of Abishalom, but after her father, the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah; see on Ch2 11:20. (Note: Against this Bertheau remarks, after the example of Thenius: "When we consider that the wife of Abijah and mother of Asa was also called Maachah, Kg1 15:13; Ch2 15:16, and that in Kg1 15:2 this Maachah is again called the daughter of Abishalom, and that this latter statement is not met with in the Chronicle, we are led to conjecture that Maachah, the mother of Abijah, the daughter of Abishalom, has been confounded with Maachah the mother of Asa, the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah, and that in our passage Asa's mother is erroneously named instead of the mother of Abijah." This conjecture is a strange fabric of perverted facts and inconsequential reasoning. In Kg1 15:2 Abijam's mother is called Maachah the daughter of Abishalom, exactly as in Ch2 11:20 and Ch2 11:21; and in Kg1 15:13, in perfect agreement with Ch2 15:16, it is stated that Asa removed Maachah from the dignity of Gebira because she had made herself a statute of Asherah. This Maachah, deposed by Asa, is called in Kg1 15:10 the daughter of Abishalom, and only this latter remark is omitted from the Chronicle. How from these statements we must conclude that the mother of Abijah, Maachah the daughter of Abishalom, has been confounded with Maachah the mother of Asa, the daughter of Uriel, we cannot see. The author of the book of Kings knows only one Maachah, the daughter of Abishalom, whom in Ch2 15:2 he calls mother, i.e., גּבירה, i.e., Sultana Walide of Abijah, and in Ch2 15:10 makes to stand in the same relationship of mother to Asa. From this, however, the only natural and logically sound conclusion which can be drawn is that Abijam's mother, Rehoboam's wife, occupied the position of queen-mother, not merely during the three years' reign of Abijam, but also during the first years of the reign of his son Asa, as his grandmother, until Asa had deprived her of this dignity because of her idolatry. It is nowhere said in Scripture that this woman was Abijam's wife, but that is a conclusion drawn by Thenius and Bertheau only from her being called אמּו, his (Asa's) mother, as if אם could denote merely the actual mother, and not the grandmother. Finally, the omission in the Chronicle of the statement in Kg1 15:10, "The name of his mother was Maachah, the daughter of Abishalom," does not favour in the very least the conjecture that Asa's mother has been confounded with the mother of Abijah; for it is easily explained by the fact that at the accession of Asa no change was made in reference to the dignity of queen-mother, Abijah's mother still holding that position even under Asa.) 2 Chronicles 13:3
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