Bible Synapse
Was Abijah’s mother Maachah daughter of Absalom, or Michaiah daughter of Uriel?
Hard question · Genealogies · raised by 3 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
Abijam reigns three years; his mother is Maachah, the daughter of Abishalom.
Now in the eighteenth year of king Jeroboam the son of Nebat reigned Abijam over Judah. Three years reigned he in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Maachah, the daughter of Abishalom.
Rehoboam marries Maachah the daughter of Absalom, who bears him Abijah, and he loves her above all his wives.
And after her he took Maachah the daughter of Absalom; which bare him Abijah, and Attai, and Ziza, and Shelomith. And Rehoboam loved Maachah the daughter of Absalom above all his wives and his concubines: (for he took eighteen wives, and threescore concubines; and begat twenty and eight sons, and threescore daughters.) And Rehoboam made Abijah the son of Maachah the chief, to be ruler among his brethren: for he thought to make him king.
Abijah reigns three years; his mother is Michaiah the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah.
Now in the eighteenth year of king Jeroboam began Abijah to reign over Judah. 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.
Absalom has three sons and one daughter, Tamar, a beautiful woman.
And unto Absalom there were born three sons, and one daughter, whose name was Tamar: she was a woman of a fair countenance.
The objection
Kings and Chronicles say that Abijah’s mother was Maachah, “the daughter of Absalom” (or Abishalom). But 2 Chronicles 13:2 calls her “Michaiah the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah”. She cannot have two different names and two different fathers.
The answer
In Hebrew, bat, ‘daughter’, like ben, ‘son’, can mean any female descendant, including a granddaughter. Absalom had only one daughter, Tamar (2 Samuel 14:27), and the simplest fit is that Tamar married Uriel of Gibeah and their daughter Maachah married King Rehoboam. She was then Uriel’s daughter and Absalom’s granddaughter, so 2 Chronicles 13:2 names her father, while 2 Chronicles 11:20–21 and 1 Kings 15:2 name her famous grandfather; Josephus also links Maachah to Absalom through Tamar.
The name Michaiah is most likely a copyist’s slip for Maachah: the Septuagint reads ‘Maacha’ in 2 Chronicles 13:2, and the two names share three of their Hebrew letters (see textual). Keil and Delitzsch took the passage in just this way, with Maachah as Absalom’s granddaughter and Michaiah as a slip of the pen. Abishalom is simply a longer spelling of Absalom. The original record is held to be without error.
Other answers Christians give
A second name
Some think Michaiah was a second name of the same woman. Keil and Delitzsch thought this unlikely, since there is no other sign of it.
Asa’s ‘mother’
1 Kings 15:10 also calls Maachah the ‘mother’ of Asa, Abijah’s son. Keil and Delitzsch explain that she kept the rank of queen mother as Asa’s grandmother until he removed her for her idolatry (1 Kings 15:13).
From the classic commentators
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 GibeahC. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Commentary on 2 Chronicles 13:2 (1866–1891)
Sources
- Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on 2 Chronicles 13, at HelloAO
- Brenton’s English Septuagint (1851): 2 Chronicles 13, at eBible.org
- Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book VIII, tr. William Whiston (1737), at CCEL