Abijah

“ Chapter 13 1 In the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam, Abijah became king over Judah. 2 Three years he was king in Judah. His mother's name was Micaiah daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam. 3 And Abijah set an army of soldiers in array for battle, four hundred thousand choice young men. 4 And Abijah stood on Mt. Zemaraim, which is in the hill-country of Ephraim, and said, Hear me, Jeroboam and all Israel. 5 Do you not know that Yahweh, the god of Israel, gave David kingship over Israel forever, to him and his sons, by a covenant of salt? ”

“ Yet such was the strange syncretism of religion in Jerusalem, of which Solomon had set the fatal example, that (as we learn quite incidentally) Abijah seems to have dedicated certain vessels—part of his warlike spoils—to the service of the Temple. [543] They were perhaps intended to supply the gaps left by the plundering raid of Shishak.
After this brief and perplexing, but apparently eventful reign, Abijah was succeeded by his son Asa, whose long reign of forty-one years was contemporary with the reigns of no less than seven kings of Israel—Nadab, Baasha, Elah, Zimri, Omri, Tibni, and Ahab. ”

“ The Lord, who usually brings forth the rod before he lifts the axe, sent sickness into his house: his son Abijah was sore sick. Then the parents bethought them of an old prophet of God, and desired to know through him what would happen to the child. Fearful lest the prophet should denounce plagues upon him and his child if he knew that the enquirer was the wife of Jeroboam, the king begged the Egyptian princess whom he had married to disguise herself as a farmer's wife, and so get from the man of God a more favorable answer. ”

“ And Rehoboam appointed Abijah the son of Maacah to be chief, the prince among his brethren: for he intended to make him king. And he dealt wisely, and scattered all his sons throughout all the lands of Judah and Benjamin, unto every fenced city. ”

“ What a character Abijah gives himself!
Let us remember that we are dealing with an ideal man, and not with the real personality.
Take this, however, as an ideal representation, and how perfect it is in every line! “The Lord is our God.” We have a sound and vital theology; we have a clear upward look, and no cloud conceals the face divine; no idols have we—no images of wood, no pillars, no groves, no high places where idolatry may be performed as an entertainment. ”

“ Abijah was going to the camp-meeting for two reasons. One, of course, was to make money; and the other was to know whether his favorite preacher, Elder Stringfellow, handled the doctrine of election according to his views; for Abijah had a turn for theology, and could number off the five points of Calvinism on his five long fingers with unfailing accuracy.
It is stated in the Scriptures that the devils believe and tremble. The principal difference between their belief and Abijah's was, that he believed and did not tremble. ”

“ Oh the sinfulness of that heart which finds no comfort in the salvation of the soul of a dying child!
This morning we are going to look into the little that we know of the young prince Abijah. We know nothing more of him than the text tells us. His name was a suitable one. A good name may belong to a very bad man ”

“ Abijah has a great cause to serve, and he addresses himself to it not only with the skill of a rhetorician but with the piety of a mind that never tenanted a worldly thought. God knows the whole character—how bright we are in points, how dark in many places; how lofty, how low. Knowing all, He judges correctly, and His mercy is His delight. Neither God nor man is to be judged by one aspect, or one attribute, or one quality. We must comprehend, so far as we may be able, the whole circuit of character and purpose before we can come to a large and true conclusion. ”

“ He's destined to more shame by his father's sin.
Susac comes up, and under his command
A dreadful army from scorched Afric's sand,
As numberless as that: all is his prey;
The temple's sacred wealth they bear away;
Adrazar's shields and golden loss they take;
Even David in his dream does sweat and shake.
Thus fails this wretched prince; his loins appear
Of less weight now than Solomon's fingers were.
Abijah next seeks Israel to regain,
And wash in seas of blood his father's stain.
Ne'er saw the aged sun so cruel sight ”

“ A parley, it is probable, was agreed on, yet Jeroboam basely takes the advantage of it, and, while he was treating, laid his ambushment behind Judah, against all the laws of arms. What honour could be expected in a servant when he reigned? Abijah was for peace, but, when he spoke, they were for war, Ps. cxx. 7.
II. Abijah and his people, who trusted in their God, came off conquerors, notwithstanding the disproportion of their strength and numbers. ”

“ The accusation of Abijah was that Jeroboam had “gathered unto him vain men, the children of Belial.” For “vain men” read “sons of worthlessness”—empty fellows, who will join any mob that pays best; men who will cheer any speaker for a half-crown an hour, and put out anybody on any plea on any side for extra remuneration.
Where do these men come from? Whose language do they speak? Whose image and superscription do they bear?
They are in every country; they worship in the sanctuary of mischief and bow down at the altar of selfishness. They know not what they do. ”

“ No reliance can be placed on the high numbers of the opposing armies (verse 3) , on the pious speech ascribed to king Abijah which neatly and forcibly expresses the ecclesiastical view of schismatic Israel held by the Chronicler and his school (verses 4‒12) , or on the appalling carnage wrought in the Israelite army (verse 17) . The tale, in fact, is of a markedly midrashic character, i.e. a narrative intended to edify and not to be treated as serious history. ”

“ But the passage about Abijah has a unique preciousness, because it stands alone in Scripture as an expression of the truth that early death is no sign at all of the Divine anger, and that the length or brevity of life are matters of little significance to God, seeing [Pg 307] that, at the best, the longest life is but as one tick of the clock in the eternal silence. ”

“ Abijah then points out to his opponents the vanity of their trust in the great multitude of their warriors and their gods, while yet they had driven out the priests of Jahve. “And now ye say,” scil. in your heart, i.e., you think to show yourself strong before the kingdom of Jahve in the hands of the sons of David, i.e., against the kingdom of Jahve ruled over by the sons of David, by raising a great army in order to make war upon and to destroy this kingdom. רב המון ואתּם, and truly ye are a great multitude, and with you are the golden calves, which Jeroboam hath made to you for gods ”

“ For many years Abijah Witherpee had kept, in East Hampton, the largest country store for miles around, and by more than ordinary shrewdness had accumulated a snug little fortune, and with it the reputation among the country folk of being an immensely rich man. It is no trifle, as every one knows, in a small village, to be accounted its richest man, but that was the least of Abijah's honors. ”

“ We must read the account of Abijah which is given in the Book of Kings before we can correctly estimate the Abijah who talks in the Book of Chronicles.
It is, perhaps, encouraging that while men are upon the Earth they should not be so dazzlingly good as to blind their fellow men. Yet it is pitiful to observe how men can be religious for the occasion. ”

“ That he was young when he came to the throne, is evident from his consulting the young men that were brought up with him, [171] , [172] . They were young men then; and if he was brought up with them, he must have been young then also. Besides, Abijah, in his speech to Jeroboam, [173] , says that at the time Rehoboam came to the throne he was tender-hearted, and therefore could not withstand the children of Belial raised up against him by Jeroboam: but surely at that time no man could be reputed young and tender-hearted - quite devoid of experience, who was above forty years of age. ”

“ Numerous families are often neglected; and children by different women, must be yet in a worse state.
Verse 22
Made Abijah - the chief - Abijah certainly was not the first-born of Rehoboam; but as he loved Maachah more than any of his wives, so he preferred her son, probably through his mother's influence. In [164] , this sort of preference is forbidden; but Rehoboam had a sort of precedent in the preference shown by David to Solomon. ”

“ Abijah acts as croupier to Miss Sprague, who invites the young folks to seat themselves on the long benches on either hand. Some tact is needed to seat the damsels as they would wish, without requiring them to state their preferences more openly than befits a maidenly reserve. We are placed next to those bewildering blue eyes, that are, however, provokingly directed to her plate—dear angel, what an excellent appetite she has!—but she is not singular ”

“ His kingdom, moreover, was increased in power by the immigration of the priests and Levites, whom Jeroboam had expelled from the priesthood, and also of many God-fearing Israelites out of the ten tribes, to Judah (2Ch 11:13-17) . Rehoboam also set his family affairs in order, by nominating from among his many sons, whom his wives had borne to him, Abijah to be his successor on the throne, and making provision for the others in different parts of the country (2Ch 11:18-23) . ”

“ He named his son and destined successor Abijah ("Jehovah is my Father") . Rehoboam himself was a far worse offender than he was, so far as the sanction of idolatry was concerned.
And yet he sinned, and yet he made Israel to sin. It is true that he did not sin against the full extent of the light and knowledge vouchsafed to men in later days. The sin of which he was guilty was the sin of worldly policy. With professions of religion on his lips he pandered to the rude and sensuous instinct which makes materialism in worship so much more attractive to all weak minds than spirituality. ”

“ They serve two purposes: (1) compared with the somewhat smaller numbers assigned to Abijah (xiii. 3) and to Asa (xiv. 8) , they indicate that Jehoshaphat’s reign was even more prosperous; and (2) generally, they suggested to the men of the Chronicler’s own generation that in the eyes of all right-thinking men Jerusalem of old in its prosperous hours was not one whit less important and glorious than any huge and much-vaunted city of their own days. ”

“ The book of Chronicles enumerates several Judaean cities fortified by Rehoboam (not necessarily connected with Sheshonk's campaign) , and characteristically regards the invasion as a punishment (2 Chron. xi. 5 sqq., xii. 1–15; for the prophet Shemaiah see 1 Kings xii. 21–24) . Of Rehoboam's successor Abijah (or Abijam) little is known except a victory over jeroboam recorded in 2 Chron. xiii. See further Asa, Omri, and Jews (History) , §§ 7,9.
↑ The once popular view that “king of Judah” stands in no. 29 is untenable. See Petrie, Hist. of Egypt, ii. p. 235; L. B. Paton, Syria and Pal. p. ”

“ The business-like appearance of our regiment, its proud bearing, fine cadence and marching, its weather-beaten, tattered old battle flags all in strings from shot and shell, as well as the men's clothes, its splendid band, together with the evergreen sprig proudly worn by some of us, which always gains us recognition, captured the crowd, and the heartiness of our deserved ovation over all other regiments in line was very noticeable. ”

“ The long swaying lines of grey in perfect cadence with glistening guns and brasses, and above all the proudly borne but to us hated banner of the Confederacy with its stars and bars, was a spectacle rarely surpassed in the bright sunlight of a perfect summer day. ”

“ All that we are here told of Abijam is that "his heart was not perfect with Jehovah his God," and that "he walked in all the sins of his father"; though "for David's sake his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem"; [538] and that, after a brief reign of three years—i.e., of one year and parts of two others—he slept with his fathers. For "the rest of his acts and all that he did," the historian refers us to the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah: he does not trouble himself with military details. The chronicler, referring to the Commentary of Iddo, [539] adds a great deal more. ”

“ So, at our appointed hour our journey of exploration began—the first journey into the Big Cave—the first time Man had ever set eyes on its matchless wonders. How little we knew then that in the years that would follow millions of others would enter this cave to view the beauty and grandeur that Nature had been in the process of creating for countless centuries. ”

“ All sense of time and direction are lost in the myriad of decoration, light and shadow, gigantic, often grotesque formations, and the serenity of this underground heaven.
Passing quietly ahead the traveler pauses at the largest "living" stalagmite within the known part of the Caverns, the Crystal Spring Dome. Generally dry, this part of the Big Cave is moist, and water, dripping slowly from the ceiling above, is still depositing its minute quantities of calcium on the mighty Crystal Spring Dome as it has been doing for countless centuries. ”