1 Kings 15:6-7
war <04421> [there was war.]
Instead of Rehoboam fourteen MSS., the Arabic, and some copies of the Targum, read Abijam. The Syriac has "Abia, the son of Rehoboam;" and the Editio Princeps of the Vulgate has Abia. This is doubtless the true reading, as otherwise it would be an unnecessary repetition of ch. 14:30, and a repetition which interrupts the history of Abijah: (see 2 Ch 13:3, etc.)
rest <03499> [the rest.]
war <04421> [there was war.]
1 Kings 15:32
war <04421> [A.M. 3051-3074. B.C. 953-930. there was war.]
That is, there was a constant spirit of hostility kept up between the two kingdoms, and no doubt frequent skirmishing between the bordering parties; but there was no open war till Baasha king of Israel began to build Ramah, which was, according to 2 Ch 15:19; 16:1, in the thirty-sixth year of Asa; but according to ch. 16:8, 9, his son was killed by Zimri in the twenty-sixth year of Asa, and consequently he could not make war upon him in the thirty-sixth year of his reign. Chronologers endeavour to reconcile this, by saying that the years should be reckoned, not from the beginning of Asa's reign, but from the separation of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. We must either adopt this mode of solution, or admit that there is a mistake in some of the numbers, probably in the parallel places in Chronicles, but which we have no direct means of correcting.
