Matthew Henry on 2 Chronicles 11:13–end
See here,
I. How Rehoboam was strengthened by the accession of the priests and Levites, and all the devout and pious Israelites, to him, even all that were true to their God and their religion.
1. Jeroboam cast them off, that is, he set up such a way of worship as he knew they could not in conscience comply with, which obliged them to withdraw from his altar, and at the same time he would not allow them to go up to Jerusalem to worship at the altar there; so that he totally cast them off from executing the priest's office, Ch2 11:14. And very willing he was that they should turn themselves out of their places, that room might be made for those mean and scandalous persons whom he ordained pri…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on 2 Chronicles 11:18
HIS WIVES AND CHILDREN. (Ch2 11:18-23)
Rehoboam took Mahalath--The names of her father and mother are given. Jerimoth, the father, must have been the son of one of David's concubines (Ch1 3:9). Abihail was, of course, his cousin, previous to their marriage.
Adam Clarke on 2 Chronicles 11:18
Took him Mahalath - By marrying thus in the family of David, he strengthened his right to the Jewish throne.
John Gill on 2 Chronicles 11:19
Which bare him children,.... Or, "and she bore him" (d); for it is said only of one of them, the other perhaps died without children; this may refer to the last mentioned, Abihail, whose children were
Jeush, and Shamariah, and Zaham; who perhaps all died in their father's lifetime, since the firstborn of a later wife succeeded him.
(d) "peperit", Pagninus, Montanus.
Tyndale Open Study Notes on 2 Chronicles 11:18-22
The numbers of Rehoboam’s wives and children are probably the total from his entire reign rather than those accumulated by his fifth year. Rehoboam loved his second wife more than his first, so he violated the right of primogeniture (inheritance belonging to the firstborn son, Deut 21:15-17) by making Abijah . . . the next king in what might have been co-regency. This action secured an orderly succession.
