1 Kings 15:1–34 starts with the two reigns of the kings of Judah that followed Rehoboam’s reign. These are the last of the kings of Judah that we will see directly chronicled in 1 Kings. The first of these two, according to the version we are using, is Abijam. There has been some disagreement among scholars concerning his name. If unaltered from the standard Hebrew text, the name means either father of the sea
or father of the west.
To some, this name is perplexing because it is difficult to understand why he would be given this name, since Judah was not on the sea and one of the most eastern of nations in relation to the Great Sea (the Mediterranean). Some other scholars suggest the alteration of one Hebrew letter that would give the meaning father of my people,
while still others take an alternate reading that gives the name Abijah, meaning “my father is Yah" (short of Yahweh). When all is said, the differences are relatively unimportant.
1 Kings 15:1 fixes him as a later contemporary of Jeroboam, beginning to reign in the eighteenth year of that king’s twenty-two-year rule. 1 Kings 1:1–53 continues the somewhat formalized introduction. It tells us the length of his reign, three years, and the name of his mother, Maaacah the daughter of Abishalom. The reader will recognize the similarity between this name and Absalom, David’s rebellious son. Some have suggested that Abijam was indeed the grandson (or great-grandson) of Absalom, but this is unlikely.
1 Now in the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam the son of Nebat, Abijam began to reign over Judah.