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2 Chronicles 13:1

in 2 Chronicles 13

In the eighteenth year of Jeroboam’s reign, Abijah became king of Judah,

BSB

The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾

ASV

In the eighteenth year of king Jeroboam began Abijah to reign over Judah.

KJV

Now in the eighteenth year of king Jeroboam began Abijah to reign over Judah.

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This verse in 2 Chronicles 13

Commentary

3 notes on this verse
The history of Abijah’s reign is here related far more fully than in Kings (marginal reference), especially as regards his war with Jeroboam.

This site's exposition

began Abijah to reign over Judah

on 2 Chronicles 13:1-3

Kings dismisses this reign in three verses as Abijam, a king who walked in his father's sins; Chronicles spends the whole chapter on him, calls him Abijah, and gives him a sermon and a covenant kept, the two portraits standing together with neither displacing the other. The armies mustered here, four hundred thousand against eight hundred thousand, are Chronicles' own report, unparalleled in Kings, and Barnes ties the disparity to the emigration from the north Chronicles already recorded at 11:13-17. Jeroboam's number, twice Abijah's, reflects the ten tribes he draws from against Judah's two.

The record, by era

The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice

Now in the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam began Abijah to reign over Judah.; see Gill on 1Ki 15:1.

How the passage was read

What the Jewish commentators add

In the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam, Abijah became king. We do not know why his assumption of the kingship was delayed one year.
Radak: Provence, 1160–1235 · Radak on II Chronicles 13:1:1, via Sefaria, The Commentary of Radak to Chronicles: A Translation with Introduction and Supercommentary, by Yitzhak Berger, Brown University, 2007
1 more on this passage, in their own words ▾
Three years he reigned in Jerusalem and no more, as is proven in I Kings (15:9): “And in the twentieth year of Jeroboam, king of Israel, Asa reigned over Judah.” We find that he did not reign even three whole years.
Rashi: France, 1040–1105 · Rashi on II Chronicles 13:2:1, via Sefaria, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg

This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.

Texts and citation data: Sefaria; each excerpt follows its version’s licence. 4 further sources are cited on this chapter that carry no English text this site may quote or only restate the verse.

The words behind it

9 Hebrew words

Every Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.

  • בִּשְׁנַ֛תin year

    bishnatH8141 →877 times

  • שְׁמוֹנֶ֥הeight-

    shemonehH8083 →109 times

  • עֶשְׂרֵ֖הteen

    ʾesrehH6240 →338 times

  • לַמֶּ֣לֶךְof the king

    lamelekhH4428 →2525 times

  • יָרָבְעָ֑םJeroboam

    yaraveamH3379 →104 times

  • וַיִּמְלֹ֥ךְand he became king

    vaiyimlokhH4427 →348 times

  • אֲבִיָּ֖הAbijah

    ʾaviyahH29 →25 times

  • עַל־over

    ʾal-H5921 →5755 times

  • יְהוּדָֽה׃Judah

    yehudahH3063 →819 times

A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.

Related verses

3 in all, six open

The walk

4 stops

Each card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.

  • Through

    2 Chronicles 12:16

    And Rehoboam rested with his fathers and was buried in the City of David. And his son Abijah reigned in his place.

    it leads to

    • Matthew 1:7

      Solomon the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asa.

    • 1 Chronicles 3:10

      Solomon’s son was Rehoboam:

    • 1 Kings 14:29–31

      As for the rest of the acts of Rehoboam, along with all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

    • 2 Chronicles 11:20

      After her, he married Maacah daughter of Absalom, and she bore to him Abijah, Attai, Ziza, and Shelomith.

About 2 Chronicles

Solomon Receives the Queen of Sheba, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain.
Solomon Receives the Queen of Sheba, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain.
2 Chronicles: the study guide →Read 2 Chronicles 13 →

This page draws on Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament and John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763).

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