(6) And there was war.--In this verse (omitted in the Vatican MS. of the LXX.) the repetition of the notice of Rehoboam, in spite of some artificial explanations, seems inexplicable. Probably there is error in the text.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 6. - And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life. [Practically identical with 1 Kings 14:30, where see note. Thenius thinks the insertion of the words were due to the carelessness of some copyist, and Bahr admits that our present text is possibly not the original one. For Rehoboam, some MSS., with the Syriac and Arabic, read Abijah, but this is clearly an emendation, which in turn begets another repetition (ver. 7), and there is really no need either to alter or suspect the text. Such repetitions are quite in accordance with Eastern usage, and Rehoboam here stands for the house of Rehoboam, or the cause and kingdom which Rehoboam represented. The object of mentioning his name can hardly be "to remind the reader that Abijam inherited this war from his father" (Rawlinson), for it was only on Rehoboam's death that the slumbering hostility blazed out into actual war. That there was warfare between Abi-jam and Jeroboam we know not only from ver. 7, but from 2 Chronicles 13:3-20 also.

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 there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life. Not the days of Rehoboam, though that was true, and is observed, 1 Kings 14:30, but all the days of Abijam, before he came to the throne, and in which, when a young man, he was concerned, and which still continued between him and Jeroboam; though some think he is called by his father's name, as Rehoboam is called David, 1 Kings 12:16.

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