The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Kings — Section 334

EXPOSITION. CHAPTER XV. 1-24. tion. I venture to suggest tha.t Michajahu TH.E BEIGNS 01!' AllIJill .um ASA, IIIN&S was the signi.fica.D.t form-the word means 01!' JUDill. "Who is like Jehovah? "-which the name Tiu Reign of .A.lnjam. Maa.chah, "oppression," borne by the Geshu- rite princess who married David (2 Sam. iii. Ver. 1. - Now 1n the eighteenth year 3) assumed when she joined the LOTd's peo- of king Jeroboam, the son of Neba.t, ple, and embraced, as no doubt she would do, reigned Abijam [see note on eh. xiv. the religion of Jehovah. Such a change 31. It is implied in 2 Chron. :x:i. 20-22 would be quite in accordance with the that he was not the first-bom among genius and traditions of the Semitic races Reh.Jboam's twenty.eight soD.B, but the (Gen. xvii. 5, 15 ; xx:x. passim; xxxii. 28 ; eldest son of the favourite wife. As he left xli. 45 ; Exod. vi. 3, &c. Of. 2 Kings xxili. behind him thirty-eight children (2 Chron. 34 ; x:xiv. 17; Hosea. i. 4, 6), and there xiii. 21) at his decease, some three years may well have been special reasons in this later, he must have been of considerable case, ape.rt from the piety of David, why it age at his accession. This consideration should be made. For the name llfoacha.h rather favours the idea that Rehobos.m wa.s appears to have been taken from the town "forty and one years old when he began to and district of that name near Geshur- reign" (ib., xii 13)] over Judah. e. part of Syria. was called Syria Maachah Ver. 2.-Three years [The Alex. LXX. (1 Chron. x:ix. 6; cf. 2 Sam. x. 6-8). In 2 says ou:ih(, suteen. The " three yea.re" a.re Sam. u. 14, 15 we read of a district of not to be interpreted strictly. As he as- Beth Maachah-a.nd it not improbably wit- cended the throne in the eighteenth and nessed to unhappy memories. How nature.I died in the twentieth year of Jeroboam's it would be that David's bride should take a reign, he cannot have completed three years. name of better omen and of a religious import, But it does not follow that" he cannot have and how natural that the grand-daughter reigned much more than two years" (Raw- who bore her name should be called by that lirlson, and similarly Keil). He may have name in both its forms. Since writing the reigned all but three] reigned he 1n Jeru- above, I find that a somewhat similar idea salem. And hJs mother's name was Maa- has occurred long since to others. Doth chab. [in 2 Chron. xiii 2 called Michaiah, Kimchi and Jo.rchi hold that she had two Heb. Michajahu. That the same person is names. It is supposed by some that she meant is proved as well by the context as assumed the name Michaiah, as more digni- by 2 Chron. xi. 21, where the name is fied, on becoming queen. Wordsworth thinka given as here. Keil (cf. Diet. Bib. ii. 162) that Michaiah was her real name, and that ascribes the discrepancy to an error of the it was degraded into Mae.chah when she was copyist; but the names a.re BO unlike in the deposed for idolatry. This latter view dove- origmal as to discountenance this a.Hump- tails with the one suggested above. It CJB, XV, 1-24.) THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS. 889