Jeroboam's wife is a character in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Masoretic Text The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; ) is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (''Tanakh'') in Rabbinic Judaism. The Masoretic Text defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocaliz ...

, but according to the

Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

, she was an

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

ian princess called Ano: :''And

Sousakim Shishak, also spelled Shishaq or Susac (, Tiberian: , ), was, according to the Hebrew Bible, an Egyptian pharaoh who sacked Jerusalem in the 10th century BC. He is usually identified with the pharaoh Shoshenq I.Troy Leiland Sagrillo. 2015.Shoshen ...

gave to Jeroboam Ano the eldest sister of

Thekemina Tahpenes (; תַּחְפְּנֵיס/תַּחְפְּנֵס ''Taḥpənēs''; LXX Θεκεμιμας ''Thekemimas'', or Θεχεμινας ''Thekheminas''; possibly derived from Egyptian '' tꜣ ḥmt nswt'', meaning ''the wife of the king'', Lat ...

his wife, to him as wife; she was great among the king's daughters...''1 Kings 12:24e

New English Translation of the Septuagint The ''New English Translation of the Septuagint and the Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included under That Title'' (NETS) is a modern translation of the Septuagint (LXX), that is the scriptures used by Greek-speaking Christians and Jews ...

She is mentioned in

1 Kings 14 1 Kings 14 is the fourteenth chapter of the Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible or the First Book of Kings in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is a compilation of various annals recording the acts of the kings of Israel and Judah ...

, which describes how she visited the prophet

Ahijah the Shilonite Ahijah the Shilonite (; ) was a Levite prophet of Shiloh (biblical city), Shiloh in the days of Solomon, as mentioned in the Hebrew Bible's Books of Kings, First Books of Kings. Ahijah foretold to Jeroboam that he would become king (). The Hebre ...

. Her son

Abijah Abijah ( ') is a Biblical HebrewPetrovsky, p. 35 unisex nameSuperanskaya, p. 277 which means "my Father is Yah". The Hebrew form ' also occurs in the Bible. Old Testament characters Women * Abijah, who married King Ahaz of Judah. She is ...

was sick, and on her husband

Jeroboam Jeroboam I (; Hebrew language, Hebrew: ''Yārŏḇʿām''; ), frequently cited Jeroboam son of Nebat, was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the first king of the northern Kingdom of Israel (Samaria), Kingdom of Israel following a Jeroboam's Revol ...

's instructions she disguised herself and went to Ahijah. Although Ahijah was blind, God had told him that she was coming and had given him a message for her. This included the death of her son, who was to die as soon as Jeroboam's wife came back home to Tirzah. He would be the only one of Jeroboam's offspring who would be buried, "because something good was found in him, to

Yhwh The TetragrammatonPronounced ; ; also known as the Tetragram. is the four-letter Hebrew-language theonym (transliterated as YHWH or YHVH), the name of God in the Hebrew Bible. The four Hebrew letters, written and read from right to left, a ...

the God of Israel". According to 1 Kings 14:17, her son died as soon as she stepped over the threshold. In the Septuagint, the story is found in I Kings 12 after verse 24, and differs somewhat from the Masoretic text. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia the good that Abijah did: "Rabbinical Literature:The passage, I Kings, xiv. 13, in which there is a reference to "some good thing ound in himtoward the Lord God of Israel," is interpreted (M. Ḳ. 28b) as an allusion to Abijah's courageous and pious act in removing the sentinels placed by his father on the frontier between Israel and Judah to prevent pilgrimages to Jerusalem. Some assert that he himself undertook a pilgrimage." The wife of Jeroboam does not speak at all in the biblical narrative. Robin Gallaher Branch calls her "flat, vapid, and overwhelmingly sad", while

Adele Berlin Adele Berlin (born May 23, 1943 in Philadelphia) is an American biblical scholar and Hebraist. Before her retirement, she was Robert H. Smith Professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Maryland. Berlin is best known for 1994 work ''Poet ...

says that she is "intentionally not portrayed as a real individual in her own right", but that her characterization should be viewed as "the effective use of an anonymous character to fill an important literary function". Branch also argues that Jeroboam's wife was abused by her husband.Branch, ''Jeroboam's Wife'', p. 96.

References

{{reflist Queens consort of Israel and Judah House of Jeroboam Princesses of the Twenty-second Dynasty of Egypt Unnamed people of the Bible