Commentaria in III Regum
There are three. The first is by synecdoche, by which a part of a year, of a month, or of a day is put for a whole year, month or day. Thus Christ is said to have been three days in the sepulchre, because He was in the sepulchre for part of the first day and of the third, but remained in it for the whole of the second day only. The second is that sometimes the years are counted in which the son reigned with his father, and sometimes the years in which he reigned alone after his father.
The third.—The third is that sometimes an interregnum is joined to the years of the following king or judge, as I showed on Judges chapter 2, and sometimes not. Richard of St. Victor gives the same ways in his treatise On the Concordance of the Times of the Kings of Juda.
HIS MOTHER’S NAME WAS MAACHA, THE DAUGHTER OF ABESSALOM,—for Abessalom is the same as Absalom.
Hence it can hardly be doubted that this Absalom is the son of David, of whom frequent mention was made in the second book; for we read of no other Absalom. Therefore this Absalom is named here because he was well known to all Israel from the deeds recorded of him in the second book. Hence this “Maacha” is the same as “Thamar”: for Absalom begot this one daughter only, as is plain from 2 Kings 14:27. So think the Hebrews, Josephus, Lyranus, Cajetan, Sanchez and others. Abulensis and Salian therefore judge less correctly that this Absalom is another from Absalom the son of David.
You will say: in 2 Paralipomenon 13:2 this “Maacha” is called “Michaia, the daughter of Uriel of Gabaa.” Cajetan answers that Absalom had two names and was called by another name “Uriel,” perhaps because of his beauty, since he was so beautiful that he seemed an angel, and could be called “Uriel,” that is “the light and splendour of God.” Or else that Absalom was the natural father of Maacha, and Uriel her legal father; which is hard to conceive, since we read of no son of David called “Uriel,” for whom, as for a brother who had died childless, Absalom would have had to raise up seed.
It could be said more plainly that Maacha is called “daughter,” that is “granddaughter,” of Absalom, according to the custom of Scripture, in which grandsons are called “sons.” For it seems that Thamar, the only daughter of Absalom, married Uriel, and bore of him this Maacha, the wife of Roboam and mother of Abia. This is confirmed by various conjectures. For this Uriel was of Gabaa, which was a city in the tribe of Benjamin; he was therefore himself a Benjamite; therefore Uriel is not Absalom: for the latter was of the tribe of Juda, like David.
Second, because Thamar seems to have been at this time too advanced in years to marry Roboam. For she was easily born 12 or 13 years before the death of David (for her father Absalom was slain nine years before the death of David, as I said in the Chronology of David, near the end of the second book of Kings). Add the 40 years of Solomon’s reign, and you will have 52 years of Thamar’s life. Granted that Roboam seems to have married her before the death of Solomon: for by her he begot Abiam, who, dying after three years, left as his successor in the kingdom his son Asa. But Roboam reigned only 17 years: so Abia seems to have been begotten by Roboam before he began to reign, so that at Roboam’s death he would be more than 17 years old: for dying after three years he left his son Asa already grown and fit for the kingdom. Granted, I say, that this is so; yet he does not seem to have married her long before the death of Solomon, because he married her in the third place, as is clear from 2 Paralipomenon 11:20; for the sons of kings before their reign and before their father’s death were not accustomed to multiply wives.
Third, because she is always called “Maacha,” never Thamar; therefore she was not Thamar herself but Thamar’s daughter.
Fourth, because here in verse 10 the same is said of Asa the son of Abia as is said here of Abia, namely: “His mother’s name was Maacha, the daughter of Abessalom.” This Maacha therefore either was the same as Maacha the mother of Abia, so that she is called “mother,” that is “grandmother,” of Asa; or else she was her younger sister, says Cajetan, so that she could be taken as wife by Asa the son of Abia. Therefore Maacha was not Thamar, since Thamar had no sister, but was the only daughter of Absalom: therefore Maacha was the daughter of Thamar.
Fifth, Josephus expressly asserts this: having first called Maacha the daughter of Absalom, shortly after, in book 8, chapter 11, he calls her the granddaughter of Absalom, namely born of Uriel and Thamar.
3. AND HE WALKED IN ALL THE SINS OF HIS FATHER—by worshipping the idols of Roboam, by permitting the effeminate, etc.; these, together with the idols, his son Asa took away, as follows.
4. THE LORD HIS GOD GAVE HIM A LAMP (that is, glorious and royal offspring, namely) THAT HE MIGHT RAISE UP HIS SON AFTER HIM (that Asa his son might succeed him in the kingdom); AND (through him) ESTABLISH JERUSALEM,—by establishing it in the faith and worship of the true God, and so likewise establishing its peace, wealth and kingdom.
5. EXCEPT IN THE MATTER (that is, the deed, namely the murder) OF URIAS THE HETHITE.—You will say: David committed many other sins, as when out of pride he numbered the people, a sin which God punished with a plague and the death of 70 thousand men, 2 Kings 24:15; when he wished to kill Nabal and all his household, 1 Kings 25:21; when he took away from the innocent Miphiboseth half his property, 2 Kings 19:29. But these sins were neither so grave as the adultery and the murder of Urias, nor so certain and censured by the common people; nay, they had some veil and pretext of honesty and justice, at least among men, who therefore either excused them or did not esteem them. But this sin against Urias was held by all as unjust, enormous and infamous; and therefore God, who does not leave such great and scandalous sins unpunished, punished it sharply. For on account of it all the evils befell David, and it was said to him by God that the sword should never depart from his house; and that this so came to pass in fact he shows here, when he adds that between Roboam and Jeroboam, as also Abiam, there were perpetual wars, slaughters and plunderings. So Abulensis, Cajetan and others.
6. YET THERE WAS WAR BETWEEN ROBOAM AND JEROBOAM ALL THE DAYS OF HIS LIFE,—as if to say: God, for the merits of David, willed that a “lamp” should be given him, that is, a royal posterity, namely Solomon, Roboam and Abiam; but nevertheless, on account of their sins, especially of idolatry, He brought it about that they should have perpetual wars with Jeroboam.