(3) Walked in all the sins of his father.--This adoption of the idolatries of Rehoboam did not prevent Abijam (see 2Chronicles 13:4-12) from representing himself as the champion of the Temple and the priesthood against the rival worship of Jeroboam, and dedicating treasures--perhaps the spoils of his victory--in the house of the Lord. From the qualified phrase "his heart was not perfect before God," however, it may be inferred that, like Solomon and Rehoboam, he professed to worship Jehovah only as the supreme God of his Pantheon; and it is a curious irony of circumstance that he should be recorded as inveighing against the degradation of His worship in Israel, while he himself countenanced or connived at the worse sin of the worship of rival gods in Judah.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 3. - And he walked in all the sins of his father, which he had done before him [sins, i.e., from the theocratic standpoint. See 1 Kings 14:22, 25. It does not appear that either Abijah or Rehoboam was a vicious man, and from his pious language on Mount Zemaraim (2 Chronicles 13:10-12) we should certainly have thought that Abijah was a god-fearing prince. But ver. 13 proves that he had sanctioned idolatry, and this was no doubt his principal sin, as the next words explain]: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord and his God, as the heart of David his father [the words used of Solomon. 1 Kings 2:4].

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

15:1-8 Abijam's heart was not perfect with the Lord his God; he wanted sincerity; he began well, but he fell off, and walked in all the sins of his father, following his bad example, though he had seen the bad consequences of it. David's family was continued as a lamp in Jerusalem, to maintain the true worship of God there, when the light of Divine truth was extinguished in all other places. The Lord has still taken care of his cause, while those who ought to have been serviceable thereto have lived and perished in their sins. The Son of David will still continue a light to his church, to establish it in truth and righteousness to the end of time. There are two kinds of fulfilling the law, one legal, the other by the gospel. Legal is, when men do all things required in the law, and that by themselves. None ever thus fulfilled the law but Christ, and Adam before his fall. The gospel manner of fulfilling the law is, to believe in Christ who fulfilled the law for us, and to endeavour in the whole man to obey God in all his precepts. And this is accepted of God, as to all those that are in Christ. Thus David and others are said to fulfil the law.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And he walked in all the sins of his father, which he had done before him,.... Having such bad examples as both parents to copy after; it chiefly respects idolatrous practices, see 1 Kings 14:23,

and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God; he did profess the true God, and worshipped him, but not wholly, and only, and sincerely; he worshipped other gods besides him: and so his heart was not

as the heart of David his father; who was a sole and sincere worshipper of God, never departed from him and his service.

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