Abijah

Abijah (Heb. av-yah, my father is the LORD) is one of the more common Hebrew names in scripture — borne by eight distinct individuals across the Old Testament, spread from the wilderness to the post-exile, including kings, priests, and women. The Greek New Testament transliterates the name as *Abia.*

**1. Son of Becher, of the tribe of Benjamin (1 Chronicles 7:8).** Named in the Benjamite genealogy as one of the nine sons of Becher; nothing else recorded.

**2. Second son of Samuel (1 Samuel 8:2; 1 Chronicles 6:28).** With his older brother Joel, Abijah was appointed judge by the aging Samuel at Beersheba. Both brothers turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment — failures the elders of Israel then used as their justification for demanding a king like all the nations, setting in motion the monarchy under Saul.

**3. Head of the eighth of David's twenty-four priestly courses (1 Chronicles 24:10).** Under David's organization of the priesthood, Abijah's house drew the lot for the eighth of twenty-four rotating service weeks. The course persisted for a thousand years: Zechariah, father of John the Baptist, served of the course of Abia when the angel met him in the temple (Luke 1:5).

**4. Son of Jeroboam I (1 Kings 14:1-18).** When this Abijah fell sick, Jeroboam — who had led the northern kingdom into calf-worship — sent his wife in disguise to the prophet Ahijah at Shiloh to ask whether the child would recover. The blind old prophet announced judgment on Jeroboam's house but said the boy alone would be buried, because in him there is found some good thing toward the LORD God of Israel. He died as his mother entered the door.

**5. King of Judah, son of Rehoboam (1 Kings 14:31–15:8; 2 Chronicles 13).* Also called Abijam* in 1 Kings. He reigned three years (c. 913–910 BC) over the southern kingdom and is most remembered for the speech he gave to Jeroboam I across the battlefield (2 Chronicles 13:4-12) — a sermon on the legitimacy of the temple priesthood and the LORD's covenant with David, delivered as Israel's eight hundred thousand soldiers prepared to attack his four hundred thousand. Judah won; 1 Kings notes that his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, but the LORD's covenant with David held.

**6. Wife of Hezron (1 Chronicles 2:24).** Mentioned in a textually difficult verse — some manuscripts and translations restructure the relationship. In the most common reading, she was Hezron's wife and the mother of Ashur, *the father of Tekoa.*

**7. Mother of King Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:2; 2 Chronicles 29:1).* Daughter of Zechariah; wife of the wicked King Ahaz; mother of one of Judah's most reforming kings. 2 Kings calls her by the shortened form Abi.*

**8. Post-exilic priest (Nehemiah 10:7; 12:4, 17).** One of the priestly heads who signed Nehemiah's covenant of return, and named in the list of priests who came up with Zerubbabel a generation earlier.