20. Maacah] Perhaps the grand-daughter of Absalom, since she is called the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah in xiii. 2 (where, with LXX., read “Maacah” for “Michaiah”; and see the note there). According to 2 Samuel xviii. 18 Absalom had “no son to keep his name in remembrance” but he may have had a daughter who married Uriel and became the mother of this Maacah; and further in 2 Samuel xiv. 27 it is said that Absalom had three sons and a daughter named Tamar. These sons may all have died young, but perhaps xiv. 27 is another tradition differing from xviii. 18.
Abijah] Called “Abijam” 1 Kings xv. 1.
²³And he dealt wisely, and dispersed of all his sons throughout all the lands of Judah and Benjamin, unto every fenced city: and he gave them victual in abundance. And he sought for them many wives[¹].
[¹] Or, sought a multitude of wives.
23. all the lands] i.e. the territory of Judah; compare 1 Chronicles xiii. 2 (margin).
And he sought for them many wives] More exactly, as margin, And he sought a multitude of wives. It is difficult to say whether or not the Chronicler has Deuteronomy xvii. 17 in his mind and is implicitly blaming the king. In any case he goes on in the next verse to say that Rehoboam forsook the law of the Lord. It is however probable that there is a slight error in the Hebrew and that the text ran originally thus, And he took for them (i.e. for his sons) a multitude of wives. Rehoboam’s own conjugal affairs have been already described in verse 21.
Chapter XII.
1–12 (compare 1 Kings xiv. 22, 25–28).
The Invasion of Shishak.
¹And it came to pass, when the kingdom of Rehoboam was established, and he was strong, that he forsook the law of the Lord, and all Israel with him.