2 Chronicles 13:2

He reigned three years in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Michaiah the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(2) His mother’s name also was Michaiah the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah.—Kings reads for the names “Maachah the daughter of Abishalom”; and as the chronicler has himself already designated Abijah as son of Maachah, daughter of Absalom (2Chronicles 11:20-22), there can be no doubt that this is correct, and that “Michaiah,” which is elsewhere a man’s name, is a corruption of Maachah. This is confirmed by the LXX., Syriac, and Arabic, which read Maachah. As we have already stated (2Chronicles 11:20), Maachah was granddaughter to Absalom, being a daughter of Tamar the only daughter of Absalom. Uriel of Gibeah, then, must have been the husband of Tamar. (See on 2Chronicles 15:16. Uriel of Gibeah is otherwise unknown.)

And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam.—Now war had arisen. See 1Kings 15:6. “Now war had prevailed [same verb] between Abijam [common Hebrew text incorrectly has Rehoboam] and Jeroboam all the days of his life.” The chronicler modifies the sense by omitting the concluding phrase, and then proceeds to give a striking account of a campaign in which Abijah totally defeated his rival (2Chronicles 13:3-20); of all which we find not a word in Kings.

Benson Commentary

2 Chronicles 13:2. His mother’s name was Michaiah, the daughter of Uriel —

Called Maachah, the daughter of Absalom, 1 Kings 15:2. She might be daughter to one, and grand-daughter to the other: or the proper and natural daughter of the one, and the other’s daughter by adoption.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

13:1-22 Abijah overcomes Jeroboam. - Jeroboam and his people, by apostacy and idolatry, merited the severe punishment Abijah was permitted to execute upon them. It appears from the character of Abijah, 1Ki 15:3, that he was not himself truly religious, yet he encouraged himself from the religion of his people. It is common for those that deny the power of godliness, to boast of the form of it. Many that have little religion themselves, value it in others. But it was true that there were numbers of pious worshippers in Judah, and that theirs was the more righteous cause. In their distress, when danger was on every side, which way should they look for deliverance unless upward? It is an unspeakable comfort, that our way thither is always open. They cried unto the Lord. Earnest prayer is crying. To the cry of prayer they added the shout of faith, and became more than conquerors. Jeroboam escaped the sword of Abijah, but God struck him; there is no escaping his sword.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

See the 1 Kings 15:2 note.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

2. His mother's name also was Michaiah, the daughter of Uriel—the same as Maachah (see on [435]1Ki 15:2). She was "the daughter," that is, granddaughter of Absalom (1Ki 15:2; compare 2Sa 14:1-33), mother of Abijah, "mother," that is, grandmother (1Ki 15:10, Margin) of Asa.

of Gibeah—probably implies that Uriel was connected with the house of Saul.

there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam—The occasion of this war is not recorded (see 1Ki 15:6, 7), but it may be inferred from the tenor of Abijah's address that it arose from his youthful ambition to recover the full hereditary dominion of his ancestors. No prophet now forbade a war with Israel (2Ch 11:23) for Jeroboam had forfeited all claim to protection.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Michaiah the daughter of Uriel, called Maachah the daughter of Absalom, 1 Kings 15:2. She might be daughter to one, and granddaughter to the other; or the proper and natural daughter of the, one, and the other’s by adoption, of which there are instances in Scripture; or the same person might be called Uriel and Absalom: see 1 Kings 15:2.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

He reigned three years in Jerusalem,.... See Gill on 1 Kings 15:2,

his mother's name also was Michaiah the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah; see 2 Chronicles 11:20; see Gill on 1 Kings 15:2.

and there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam; and in this chapter is an account of a battle fought between them, not recorded in the book of Kings.

Geneva Study Bible

He reigned three years in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was {b} Michaiah the daughter of {c} Uriel of Gibeah. And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam.

(b) Or Maacah, 1Ki 15:2.

(c) Called also Absalom, for Absalom was her grandfather, 1Ki 15:2.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

2. Michaiah] Read with LXX., Maacah; cp. note on 2 Chronicles 11:20.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 2. - Michaiah the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. As before noted (2 Chronicles 11:20), and as in the parallel (1 Kings 15:2), this name is one with "Maachah, daughter of Absalom" (parallel, Abishalom). The different alphabetic characters may be attributed to error, and that error the error of transcription merely. As in our note (2 Chronicles 11:20), the word "daughter," as in many similar cases, stands for granddaughter. Thus the father of Maachah was Uriel of Gibeah, and her mother Tamar, daughter of Absalom. Josephus ('Ant.,' 8:10. § 1) proffers us this connecting link of explanation. On the other hand, Rabbi Joseph's Targum on Chronicles says that Uriel means Absalom, but was a name used to avoid the use of Absalom. We have no clue as to which out of many Gibeahs is here intended. The Hebrew word (גִבְעָח) signifies a hill with round top, and hence would easily give name to many places. The following are the chief places of the name (as classified by Dr. Smith's 'Bible Dictionary,' 1:689-691):

1. Gibeah in the mountain district of Judah (Joshua 15:57; 1 Chronicles 2:49).

2. Gibeath among the towns of Benjamin (Joshua 18:28).

3. The Gibeah (1 Samuel 7:1; 2 Samuel 6:3, 4).

4. Gibeah of Benjamin (Judges 19, 20.), between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. This should strictly be quoted either as "Gibeah belonging to Benjamin," or "Geba (גֶּבַע) of Benjamin" (see also 1 Samuel 13, 14; 2 Samuel 23:29; 1 Chronicles 11:31; Hosea 5:8; Hosea 9:9; Hosea 10:9).

5. Gibeah of Saul (1 Samuel 10:26; 1 Samuel 15:34; 2 Samuel 21:6). Josephus ('Bell, Jud.,' 5:2. § 1) states what helps to the identifying of the place as the modern Tuleil-el-ful, about thirty stadia from Jerusalem (see also Isaiah 10:28-32). The Gibeah of 1 Samuel 22:6; 1 Samuel 23:19; 1 Samuel 26:1, is this Gibeah of Saul.

6. Gibeah in the field (Judges 20:31). Lastly, our Authorized Version gives us seven other Gibeahs, only translating this word, e g. "The hill of the foreskins" (Joshua 5:3); "The hill of Phinehas" (Joshua 24:33); "The hill of Moreh" (Judges 7:1); "The hill of God" (1 Samuel 10:5); "The hill of Haehilah" (1 Samuel 23:19; 1 Samuel 26:1); "The hill of Ammah" (2 Samuel 2:24); "The hill Gareb" (Jeremiah 31:39). 2 Chronicles 13:2

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The commencement and duration of the reign, as in 1 Kings 15:1-2. Abijah's mother is here (2 Chronicles 13:2) called Michaiah instead of Maachah, as in 2 Chronicles 11:20 and 1 Kings 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 equals granddaughter of Abishalom, but after her father, the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah; see on 2 Chronicles 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, 1 Kings 15:13; 2 Chronicles 15:16, and that in 1 Kings 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 1 Kings 15:2 Abijam's mother is called Maachah the daughter of Abishalom, exactly as in 2 Chronicles 11:20 and 2 Chronicles 11:21; and in 1 Kings 15:13, in perfect agreement with 2 Chronicles 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 1 Kings 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 2 Chronicles 15:2 he calls mother, i.e., גּבירה, i.e., Sultana Walide of Abijah, and in 2 Chronicles 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 1 Kings 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.)