Lives of Scripture

Maacah, daughter of Abishalom (also called Uriel of Gibeah, 2 Chronicles 13:2), was a wife of King Rehoboam and the mother of his heir Abijah, who succeeded him as king of Judah (1 Kings 15:2; 2 Chronicles 11:20-22). She retained the influential position of "queen mother" into the reign of her grandson Asa -- Scripture calls her his "mother" as well (1 Kings 15:10), likely reflecting that continued office rather than literal parentage. Maacah used her position to promote idolatry: she "had made a horrid image as an Asherah" (1 Kings 15:13), a wooden cult object associated with pagan fertility worship. When Asa undertook a sweeping religious reform, removing male shrine prostitutes and foreign altars from Judah, he did not spare his own grandmother -- he "also removed Maacah his mother from being queen mother, because she had made a horrid image for the Asherah. Asa cut down her horrid image, crushed it, and burned it at the brook Kidron" (15:13; 2 Chronicles 15:16). This is one of the more striking scenes of reform in the divided kingdom: a young king dismantling his own grandmother's power and destroying her idol without hesitation, even though "the high places were not removed" during his reign in every respect (1 Kings 15:14). Maacah's downfall stands as a warning about idolatry's reach into the highest levels of power, and Asa's response as a model of reform that does not exempt family from accountability to God.