His mother’s name also was Michaiah the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. — Kings reads for the names “Maachah the daughter of Abishalom”; and as the chronicler has himself already designated Abijah as son of Maachah, daughter of Absalom (2 Chronicles 11:20-22), there can be no doubt that this is correct, and that “Michaiah,” which is elsewhere a man’s name, is a corruption of Maachah. This is confirmed by the LXX., Syriac, and Arabic, which read Maachah. As we have already stated (2 Chronicles 11:20), Maachah was granddaughter to Absalom, being a daughter of Tamar the only daughter of Absalom. Uriel of Gibeah, then, must have been the husband of Tamar. (See on 2 Chronicles 15:16. Uriel of Gibeah is otherwise unknown.)
And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam. — Now war had arisen. See 1 Kings 15:6. “Now war had prevailed [same verb] between Abijam [common Hebrew text incorrectly has Rehoboam] and Jeroboam all the days of his life.” The chronicler modifies the sense by omitting the concluding phrase, and then proceeds to give a striking account of a campaign in which Abijah totally defeated his rival (2 Chronicles 13:3-20); of all which we find not a word in Kings.