2 Chronicles 11:18 - Exposition

The 'Speaker's Commentary' opportunely suggests the probability that we may be indebted here to Iddo's "genealogies" ( 2 Chronicles 12:15 ). The word daughter here is a correction of the Keri, the Chethiv having been "son," This Jerimoth is the seventh out of a list of eight men of the same name mentioned in the two books of Chronicles. He is not given as one of the children of David's proper wives in either 1 Chronicles 3:1-8 or 1 Chronicles 14:4-7 ; Jerome says it was the Jewish tradition that he was the son of a concubine of David. It is just possible that Jerimoth and Ithream were two names of the same person. Abihail was second cousin of Mahalath. It is not quite clear whether Abihail were wife of Jerimoth and mother of Mahalath, or a second wife now mentioned of Rehoboam. The contents of the next verse not differencing the children there mentioned, and assigning her own to each wife of Rehoboam, if these were two wives of his, favours the former supposition (our Hebrew text being "and she bare, " not "which bare"). When it is said that Abthail was the daughter of Eliab , the meaning probably is, as again in verse 20, granddaughter. (For Eiiab, see 1 Samuel 16:6 ; 1 Samuel 17:13 ; 1 Chronicles 2:13 .)