Abijah, son of Jeroboam

From BibleWiki

A son of Jeroboam, the first king of Israel.

On account of his severe illness when a youth, his mother was sent in disguise by his father to consult the prophet Ahijah to inquire as to the prospects of his recovery.

The prophet, though blind with old age, recognized the wife of Jeroboam as soon as she approached, and announced to her that inasmuch as in Abijah alone of all the house of Jeroboam there was found "some good thing toward the Lord," he only would come to his grave in peace. As his mother crossed the threshold of the door on her return, the youth died, and "all Israel mourned for him" (1 Kg 14:1).

The narrative in the accepted text associates all national disasters with the religious apostasy of Jeroboam. The Septuagint (Vatican and Lucian) has a briefer narrative; and critics have pointed out that this simpler, and presumably earlier, form of the story deals with a stage in Jeroboam's life antecedent to his public career, to which it makes no reference whatever (see H. Winckler, "Alttestamentliche Untersuchungen," pp. 12 et seq.).

In Rabbinical Literature

The passage, 1 Kg 14:13, in which there is a reference to "some good thing [found in him] toward the Lord God of Israel," is interpreted (M. Ḳ. 28b) as an allusion to Abijah's courageous and pious act in removing the sentinels placed by his father on the frontier between Israel and Judah to prevent pilgrimages to Jerusalem. Some assert that he himself undertook a pilgrimage.