And Solomon begat Roboam; and Roboam begat Abia; and Abia begat Asa;
Ver. 7. And Solomon begat Roboam] A child of forty years old, a soft spirited man; the Scripture notes him a פהי, easily drawn away by evil counsel. Green wood will, by nature warp. Of him it might be said, as once it was of a certain prince in Germany, Esset alias, si esset apud alios (Bucholcer). But a man would wonder, that by so many wives Solomon should have but one son, and him none the wisest either. Heroum filii noxae, He might (likely) bewail his own unhappiness in Rehoboam, Ecclesiastes 2:18,19, as he is thought to do in Jeroboam, Proverbs 20:21. His mother was an Ammonitess: the birth follows the belly: the conclusion follows the weaker proposition.
And Roboam begat Abia] A man not right, yet better than his father: and for this to be commended, that he held and pleaded the true worship and services of God as the beauty and bulwark of his kingdom: relying also upon God, he discomfited Jeroboam: Deo confisi, nunquam confusi.
And Abia begat Asa] A better son sprung of the seed of bad Abia, of the soil of worse Maachah, whom St Jerome makes to be a worshipper of that abominable idol Priapus, otherwise called Baalpeor, Numbers 25:5. For thus he translates that,1 Kings 15:13 : Insuper et Maachan matrem suam amovit, ne esset princeps in sacris Priapi, et in luco eius. Nos, pudore pulso, stamus sub Iove, coelis apertis, said the worshippers of Priapus. The people that came thereto (the sacrifice being ended) all stepped into a thicket, which was always planted near the altar of this god; Hos 4:13 and there, like brute beasts, they promiscuously satisfied their lusts; thereby, as they conceived, best pleasing their god (Hackwell's Apolog.). This villany Maachah may seem to have been guilty of, and was therefore worthily removed by her son Asa from being queen. Sedes prima, et vita ima, suit not well together. Dignitas in digno est ornamentum in luto, saith Salvian. Honour in a dishonest man is as a jewel of gold in a swine's snout.