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1Ki_15:13
King Abijah reigned but three years; but his son Asa, who succeeded him, reigned forty-one years, and beheld the close of the reign of Jeroboam in Israel, and the commencement of that of Ahab—so that this one reign in the house of David covered the entire reigns of five, and parts of the reigns of two, kings in Israel—seven in all, including four different families or dynasties. Note: Jeroboam was on the throne of Israel when Asa succeeded to that of Judah. His son Nadab then became king; and in the second year of his reign was put to death, with all his father’s house, by Baasha of Issachar, who then mounted the throne, and reigned twenty-four years. He fixed his residence at Tirzah, and was succeeded by him son Elah, who, in the second year of his reign, was murdered, with all his family, by Zimri. On hearing this, the army elected their general, Omri, as king, and marched to Tirzah against Zimri, who had there assumed the crown. He made no resistance, but fled to the harem, which he set on fire, and perished in the flames. In the mean time, some of the people had made Tibni king: but this party was at length put down, and Omri was generally recognized as king. He built Samaria, which henceforth became the capital of Israel; and, after a reign of twelve years, left the throne to his son Ahab, whose reign fills a large portion of sacred history, and will require considerable attention from us. The contrast is striking; and there can be no doubt that this long, and, upon the whole, prosperous and meritorious reign, while Israel was torn by internal factions and revolutions, and stained with the blood of fallen princes, massacred by the successful competitors for the perilous crown, tended much to consolidate the strength of Judah, and to raise it to that equality with the rival kingdom, which might not in the first instance have appeared feasible when the great disproportion of territory is considered.
The mention of royal wives, in connection with this reign, may remind us of the remarkable fact, that it is in this reign the word translated queen first occurs, as applied to one not a reigning sovereign, as the queen of Sheba appears to have been.
If the reader reflects a little, he will see that the practice of polygamy is incompatible with the existence of the rank of queen-consort. Where there are many wives—some of them of equal or nearly equal rank—how can any one of them be queen? Hence David, Solomon, Rehoboam, and Abijah, who had many wives, could have had no “queen,” in the European sense of the word, which is that of female-king. So it is still in the polygamous courts of the East; and hence the court of the anti-penultimate king of Persia, Futteh Ali Shah, was greatly perplexed when a British ambassador appeared with a letter from queen Charlotte, addressed to “the queen of Persia,” and bearing presents for her. However, that the presents might not be lost for the want of a lady to receive them, and that the “king of kings,” known to be the husband of many wives and the father of many children, might not appear to be destitute of that which the princes of Europe appeared to consider so necessary to him as a queen, the favorite lady of the day was instructed to take the part—to receive the presents and the letter—the latter being also answered in her name.
The fact is, that there can be no queen-consort where there is more than one wife; and, in the East, when there is no more than one, she is not a queen—she has no recognized public position in the state—she is simply the zan-i-shah, “the king’s wife”—that is all. There is, however, in most cases, some one in the harem who, on one account or another, is recognized as the chief lady. This position is seldom fixed by the king’s mere arbitrary will or personal liking, but is determined by circumstances which usage compels him to respect. Hence the favorite wife or concubine is not always, or even generally, the chief lady. The circumstances which usually fix that position are either high birth, priority of marriage, or giving birth to the heir of the throne; and if these three conditions, or the first and the last, concur in the same person, the superiority over the others becomes clear and indisputable; and, in any case, the fact of becoming mother of the future king over-rides every other consideration, and renders the happy woman so privileged the chief lady, even though she be not a favorite wife.
Now, to apply this. It is likely that the one of David’s wives who was recognized as the chief, was the mother of his eldest son, Amnon, although, perhaps, Absalom’s mother, by virtue of her high rank as the daughter of a king, asserted her claim to scarcely less consideration, and had a separate establishment of her own; and when, by the death of Amnon, her son became the heir, and these two high claims were united in her person, her pre-eminence must have been beyond question or dispute. When Absalom was slain, she necessarily lost the maternal part of her pre-eminence, but retained that which her high birth conferred. So, when Solomon became the acknowledged heir to the crown, his mother became the chief lady of the harem—though, perhaps, at first, Haggith, the mother of Adonijah—really the elder son, made some pretensions to that enviable station. Amid these changes, arising from births and deaths of sons, the fixed position which her rank gave to king Talmai’s daughter may have seemed not the least enviable, but for this—that the one who was chief lady by virtue of her maternity, had to look forward to the still higher state which she might expect to enjoy when her son reached the throne.
Solomon had among his thousand wives one of the most exalted rank, being no other than the king of Egypt’s daughter. She was treated with great distinction, and had a separate palace for herself; and the only claim to be regarded as the chief wife that could at all interfere with hers, was that of the mother of Rehoboam, the heir to the throne. As, however, the rank is not one of public or official recognition, and as Pharaoh’s daughter had a separate establishment, there is no likelihood that their claims came into conflict.
There was in fact one whose claim to be chief lady of “queen,” was superior to either of theirs, and to which both could not but submit—and this was that of the mother of the king. The chief wife claimed that distinction as mother of the future king; but the chief lady was the mother of the king himself. This is in conformity with the prevalent usage of the East, which assigns the first rank in every household, not to the wife of the master, but his mother, to whom the wife merely becomes another daughter. Thus, so far as there was any woman who could be called “queen” in the time of Solomon, it was Bathsheba who enjoyed that distinction. We see a trace of this in the ceremonious respect with which she is received by her son, who rose to meet her, bowed himself to her, and caused a seat to be set for “the king’s mother” on his right hand. It was this rank, that of “the king’s mother,” which really constituted the distinction, making the nearest approach to the rank and dignity of a non-regnant queen.
So, now, we come to the remarkable fact by which these observations have been suggested. We have already had occasion to mention, that Rehoboam’s favored wife was Maachah, the grand-daughter of Absalom. On the accession of her son Abijah, she of course became, as “the king’s mother,” the chief lady in the land, or “queen;” and it appears that she would have retained it under her grandson Asa, but for a cause which is thus stated—“And also concerning Maachah, the mother (grandmother) of Asa the king, he removed her from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove.” The rights which she enjoyed as the king’s mother were not lessened, but rather strengthened, by her becoming the king’s grandmother—the maternal head of the royal house. But she might lose the conventional pre-eminence and state rights (if any) which this position conferred upon her, by her misconduct; and doubtless Asa, by this decided act, intended to express, and was understood to express, in the strongest possible manner, his abomination of idolatry, and his determination to put it down. The rank of which she was thus deprived, doubtless then devolved on the king’s own mother.
The most striking analogy to this is found in the high rank, eminent privileges, and even political influence, to which the mother of the sovereign of the Turkish empire succeeds when her son ascends the throne. We hear little or nothing in Turkish history of any woman except the validé sultan—of empress-dowager—but of her often, and under various circumstances, which indicate her exalted position and high influence. It was much the same in ancient Persia, where the king’s mother enjoyed a peculiar rank and title, corresponding to that of the validé sultan, and with privileges much higher than those of his wife. As the true distinction lay in being the king’s mother, the mother of his father probably retained that title whenever—which the course of nature rendered unusual—she continued to enjoy the rank and privileges of the chief lady under her grandson, as in the case before us. It is, however, so common in Scripture for a grandmother to be called a mother, that perhaps even this explanation is scarcely necessary to account for Maachah being called the mother of king Asa.