1 Kings 15:1

Now in the eighteenth year of king Jeroboam the son of Nebat reigned Abijam over Judah.

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Word by word — the Hebrew

Word	Hebrew	Strong’s	Meaning
eighteenth	שְׁמֹנֶ֣ה she.mo.Neh	H8083	a cardinal number · noun, common both genders singular absolute
year	וּבִשְׁנַת֙ u.vish.Nat	H8141	a year (as a revolution of time) · conjunction + preposition + noun, common feminine singular construct
king	לַמֶּ֖לֶךְ la.Me.lekh	H4428	a king · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
Jeroboam	יָרָבְעָ֣ם ya.ra.ve.'Am	H3379	Jarobam · proper noun, a man's name
son	בֶּן ben-	H1121	a son (as a builder of the family name) · noun, common masculine singular construct
Nebat	נְבָ֑ט ne.Vat	H5028	Nebat · proper noun, a man's name
reigned	מָלַ֥ךְ ma.Lakh	H4427	to reign · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Abijam	אֲבִיָּ֖ם 'a.vi.Yam	H38	Abijam (or Abijah) · proper noun, a man's name
Judah	יְהוּדָֽה ye.hu.Dah	H3063	Jehudah (or Judah) · proper noun, a place name

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).

Cross-references

1 Kings 14:31 And Rehoboam slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David. And his mother’s name was Naamah an Ammonitess. A…
2 Chronicles 13:1-22 Now in the eighteenth year of king Jeroboam began Abijah to reign over Judah.

Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).

Commentary

Matthew Henry on 1 Kings 15:1-8

We have here a short account of the short reign of Abijam the son of Rehoboam king of Judah. He makes a better figure, 2 Chr. 13, where we have an account of his war with Jeroboam, the speech which he made before the armies engaged, and the wonderful victory he obtained by the help of God. There he is called Abijah - My father is the Lord, because no wickedness is there laid to his charge. But here, where we are told of his faults, Jah, the name of God, is, in disgrace to him, taken away from his name, and he is called Abijam. See Jer 22:24. I. Few particulars are related concerning him. 1. Here began his reign in the beginning of Jeroboam's eighteenth year; for Rehoboam reigned but seventee…

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Adam Clarke on 1 Kings 15:1

Reigned Abijam over Judah - Of this son of Rehoboam, of his brethren, and of Rehoboam's family in general, see 2 Chronicles 12, where many particulars are added.

John Gill on 1 Kings 15:1

Now in the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam the son of Nebat reigned Abijam over Judah. That is, began to reign; and by this it appears that Rehoboam was in the eighteenth year of his reign when he died, for he and Jeroboam began their reign at the same time.

Tyndale Open Study Notes on 1 Kings 15:1-8

The author of 1 & 2 Kings describes the reign of each king of Judah in a typical pattern: the date of his accession in chronological relationship to the current king of the other kingdom (15:1), the length of his reign, the name of his mother (15:2), a spiritual evaluation of his character (15:3-5), details of his reign (15:6-7), sources where further data about him could be found (15:7), where he was buried, and his successor’s name (15:8). 15:1 Abijam (see study note on 2 Chr 13:1) reigned from 913 to 910 BC.

Rashi on 1 Kings 15:1

In the eighteenth year [of the reign] of King Yerovom. One year after Rechovom’s death, in the twentieth year of Yerovom, Asa reigned. The third year of Nodov (Aviyam) is counted for King Asa as a year, and for him it is also counted.

The Church Fathers

"Now in the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam son of Nebat, Abijam began to reign over Judah," and under his rule the Jews obtained a magnificent victory over the Israelites in a battle, which was greater than all those fought before in their civil wars. It is said that after the two multitudes of soldiers were drawn up in fighting order, Abijam appeared to have four hundred thousand men, and Jeroboam eight hundred thousand. The Jews won, while the number of the Israelites who fell in action was larger than five hundred thousand, which is an extremely rare occurrence in history.
— Ephrem the Syrian, ON THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS 15:1

The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).

Dictionary and topics

Abijah — Father (i.e., “possessor or worshipper”) of Jehovah. (1.) 1 Chr. 7:8. (2.) 1 Chr. 2:24. (3.) The second son of Samuel (1 Sam. 8:2; 1 Chr. 6:28). His conduct, along with that of his brother, as a…
Abijam — Father of the sea; i.e., “seaman” the name always used in Kings of the king of Judah, the son of Rehoboam, elsewhere called Abijah (1 Kings 15:1, 7, 8). (See ABIJAH.)
Baasha — Bravery, the third king of the separate kingdom of Israel, and founder of its second dynasty (1 Kings 15; 16; 2 Chr. 16:1-6). He was the son of Ahijah of the tribe of Issachar. The city of Tirzah he…
Chronology — Is the arrangement of facts and events in the order of time. The writers of the Bible themselves do not adopt any standard era according to which they date events. Sometimes the years are reckoned,…
Abijam · King of — King of
Kings · Who reigned over Judah: Abijam or Abijah — Who reigned over Judah: Abijam or Abijah
Time · Eras from which, computed: Accession of kings — Eras from which, computed: Accession of kings

Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).