Summary

Abi, also known as Abijah, emerges as a powerful yet often overlooked figure in the Old Testament, whose influence shaped her son, King Hezekiah, into one of the most righteous kings in Israel. Despite being married to the notoriously wicked King Ahaz, Abi's steadfast faith and guidance played a crucial role in steering Hezekiah away from his father's evil ways.

Tamara and Tiffany's discussion delves into the stark contrast between King Ahaz's actions and Hezekiah's righteous reign, highlighting how Abi's teachings and prayers were instrumental in this transformation. The episode emphasizes the profound impact a mother can have on her child's spiritual journey, especially in challenging circumstances. Listeners will be inspired by Abi's legacy and the reminder that, like her, women have the power to influence future generations through faith and example.

Show Notes

A compelling exploration of the life and legacy of Abi, also known as Abijah, unfolds in this episode, as hosts Tamara K. and Tiffany Fletcher delve into the remarkable juxtaposition between her marriage to the notoriously wicked King Ahaz and her nurturing of an exceptionally righteous son, King Hezekiah. The discussion begins with a vivid recounting of King Ahaz's reign, marked by idol worship, child sacrifice, and a blatant disregard for God's commandments, painting a grim picture of the spiritual decline in Israel. Despite the dark backdrop of her husband's actions, Abi emerges as a beacon of faith and resilience, instilling in her son the values and teachings that would later define his reign as one of the most righteous kings in Judah's history. The episode highlights the importance of maternal influence, illustrating how Abi's faith and guidance provided Hezekiah with the moral compass needed to navigate the treacherous waters of leadership, ultimately leading him to restore worship and righteousness in the kingdom.

Tamara and Tiffany engage in a thoughtful dialogue about the dynamics of faith, motherhood, and the spiritual legacy that can transcend even the most challenging familial circumstances. Tiffany emphasizes the profound impact of Abi's prayers and teachings on Hezekiah's life, suggesting that her unwavering commitment to God not only served as a protective shield against his father's wickedness but also equipped him with the tools to seek divine guidance in times of crisis. The conversation seamlessly weaves in scriptural references, illustrating how Hezekiah's reign was characterized by a strong reliance on prayer and prophetic counsel, notably from Isaiah, a connection fostered by Abi's own lineage and relationships. This rich narrative underscores the pivotal role of righteous women in shaping the destinies of their families and societies, encouraging listeners to reflect on their own influence and the power of faith in their lives.

As the episode draws to a close, the hosts inspire their audience to recognize the potential within themselves to effect change, regardless of their circumstances. Abi's story serves as a reminder that the spiritual education and examples set in the home can significantly alter the trajectory of future generations. The discussion reinforces the idea that every mother, every woman, has the ability to raise children who can rise above the challenges posed by their environments, drawing strength from faith and divine guidance. Listeners are left with a sense of hope and empowerment, encouraged to lead by example and instill in their children the values of prayer, scripture study, and reliance on God, echoing the timeless lessons learned from Abi and Hezekiah's remarkable story.

Takeaways

• Abi, the mother of King Hezekiah, exemplifies the profound influence a mother can have on her child's faith and character.
• Despite being married to one of the most wicked kings, Abi raised a son who became one of the most righteous kings of Israel.
• The importance of prayer and guidance in parenting is highlighted through Abi's influence on Hezekiah.
• Even in difficult circumstances, a mother's righteous example can lead to generational blessings and positive impact.
• Hezekiah's reliance on prayer and prophets demonstrates how vital spiritual counsel is for leadership.
• The podcast emphasizes that the power of a faithful and righteous mother can shape future leaders and influence generations.

Podcast Hosts & Guests

Tamara K. Anderson

Tamara, founder of Women Warriors of Light, is a dynamic speaker, award winning author, and a podcaster. She is driven by her Christian faith to inspire faith in Jesus Christ. Alongside her husband, Justin, she navigates the joys and challenges of parenting four children with autism, ADHD, and mental health hurdles. You can find out more about Tamara on her website: https://www.tamarakanderson.com/

Tiffany Fletcher

Tiffany is a member of our Women Warriors of Light advisory board. She is an author, wife, mother and an example of faith & courage. Through her life experiences she shares hope in coming from a place of darkness to light and love. You can find her on social media @tiffanyfletcher or on her blog: motherhadasecret.blogspot.com

Transcript

If you’d like to read the transcript of today’s episode, you can find it on our Women Warriors of Light website blog. https://www.womenwarriorsoflight.com/blog/Abijah%20and%20Hezekiah:%20A%20Mother%E2%80%99s%20Influence%20Against%20All%20Odds

Would you like to hear the story of a lesser known woman in the Old Testament who was married to one of the most wicked kings, but raised a son to be one of the most righteous kings in all of Israel? Stay tuned and we'll tell you a little bit more about this amazing woman.

Welcome to Bible women in Bathrobes, the podcast where faith meets comfort.

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Hello and welcome to another episode of Bible Women and Bathrobes. We're excited that you joined us today, and I'm your host, Tamara K. Anderson.

And joining me today is a member of our amazing Women warriors of Light advisory board, Tiffany Fletcher. Tiffany, thank you for joining us today.

Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm super happy to be here today.

Thank you so much for being here. And today we are going to talk about a woman in the Old Testament who we don't know very much about, but we do have her name, so we will take that.

We have her name, and her name is Abby, or she's also called Abijah. And her name means my father is Jehovah. And she was married to King Ahaz, who was twelve generations down from King David.

And King Ahaz was one of the most wicked kings in all of israelite history. Let me just tell you a little bit about King Ahaz, and this is from two chronicles. It says, he did not that which was right in the sight of God.

He made idols to Belim or Baal. He sacrificed his children to these evil and false gods. I mean, holy cow.

So we don't know if it was Abby's children that were sacrificed to these evil gods or if he had multiple wives. We don't know that. But we know that he was evil enough to sacrifice his children to these false gods. He closed up the temple.

He made a mockery of the holy things in the temple. He provoked the Lord God to anger. God was very, very angry with him.

And he was so wicked that when he died, the people of Jerusalem would not bury him with the rest of the kings of Israel. They were like, he does not deserve that honor. He is just bad to the bone.

And what is interesting is that after this super, super awful and evil king. We have King Hezekiah, and we're going to pick this story up in the second kings, chapter 18.

And I'm going to tell you a little bit about Hezekiah, but also it mentions Abbey here. This is one of the verses that mentions her in the Old Testament. So here I am in two kings, chapter 18, verse one.

Now, it came to pass in the third year of Hosea, son of Elah, king of Israel, that Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. 25 years old was he when he began to reign. And he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Abby, the daughter of Zechariah.

And he did that which was right in the sight of God according to all that David, his father, did. So it's been several hundred years since David was kingdom.

And we'll talk about what Hezekiah did, but I just want to pause right here and open this up to Tiffany. Any thoughts on what we've talked about so far?

Well, I just love that, first of all, he was only 25 years old when he took over for his evil father. And we'll get into the verses before, but it talks about how, what a righteous man he was.

And you think about this, you think about, obviously, that righteousness didn't come from his father. And so Abby was the one who directed him. She was the one. She had to have been the one to teach him in the ways of David. Otherwise, how would he know?

And I think it just goes to show the strength of this remarkable woman who was in a very tough situation with a really wicked husband and then trying to still raise a child up to the Lord without having that evil influence influence him.

So her faith and her ability to keep her child safe from that evil influence is profound to me because, as you said, the most wicked man, you know, king of Israel. And here she was, she was able to raise up a son who was one of the most righteous since David.

And that shows the depth of faith that this woman had to have and devotion to God to be able to do such a thing, you know, raise such a son in such trying circumstances.

She surely was amazing. We believe that her dad, it mentions him there at the end of verse two, second kings, 18 two. That abbey, or Abijah, was the daughter of Zechariah.

And Zechariah is, we believe, is the one who is mentioned in Isaiah, chapter two, eight two, where Isaiah took him as a witness when he got married. And so her dad was good friends with Isaiah. And we know that Hezekiah, her son, was strongly influenced by the prophet Isaiah.

So our guess is that she, her name meant my father is Jehovah. She named her son Hezekiah, or God strengthens, strengthened by Jehovah.

That there was that introduction to the prophet Isaiah, and that this is the way a kingdom should be run, you know, and teaching him about David and who he was and how he followed the Lord versus. Don't. Don't look at the example of your dad. He's awful, right? And the Lord is not very pleased with him.

And so let me just give you some of the examples of who Hezekiah was.

In verse four, it says, he removed the high places and break the images, being false gods, and cut down the groves and break in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made. For unto those days, the children of Israel did burn incense to it.

And then it says in verse five and six, this is how honored he was among the kings of Israel. He trusted in the Lord God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.

For he clave to the lord and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which the lord commanded Moses. Basically, they're saying he was one of the best kings ever, you know? And before him and after him, there was none greater.

So you have this worst king ever. And on the other hand, you have the best king ever. What is the difference? It's got to be the mother.

And of course, the son was willing to hearken to the prophet. Right?

And so I guess I thought I'd open this up to a discussion, Tiffany, into how do we as women, influence those around us for good, especially our children, those who we have maybe a stewardship over. Any thoughts there?

Well, I love in those verses how you said he trusted in the Lord. He clave to the Lord and departed not from following him, kept his commandments, which the lord commanded Moses. And the Lord was with him.

Like, those are really powerful things. I think, especially as we come into these last days of the world is crazy. And there's so much contention and crazy stuff going on in the world.

It's important that we help our children have that kind of a relationship with the Lord, right?

That they are willing to cleave to the Lord, to trust the Lord, and to allow the Lord to be with them, to live in such a way that the Lord can walk with them in their discipleship. I think that, I mean, if you read and we can get into it some more.

There's so many verses of Hezekiah praying to God, like, with so much faith that he was able to do some miraculous things with his prayers.

And I truly believe that as parents, especially as mothers, one of the things that we can do that is powerful is one pray for our children and help them. Pray for angels to protect them. Pray for Satan's influence to be cast away from them.

Pray for them to be strengthened in the Lord, and then teaching our children how to exercise their faith in their own personal prayers with their heavenly father, to strengthen their testimony and their relationship with God. I think that we underutilize prayer and the power that it has in our lives sometimes. And I think, especially as mothers, there is.

In my faith, in my religion, there is a leader that said, there are very few things in this life that are more powerful than the faithful prayer of a righteous mother.

And I truly believe that Abby was one of those righteous mothers, that her prayers were powerful, that they helped her protect her son, they helped her grow her son in faith. And I'm sure they gave her the hope that she needed to continue to live in the difficult situation that she was in.

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I spent a lot of time reading up on Abby as I was preparing for this, and I wish there were more that told us more of who she was.

And so I finally just said a prayer. I'm like, dear Lord, we are going on the assumption that she was a righteous woman and that she is the one that influenced her son.

And I just said a prayer and I said, help me to know what I should say about this woman on the podcast tomorrow. And the feeling I got was that she was and indeed a good woman.

I just felt it in my bones that Abby was a good woman, and she did have a powerful influence on her son. I love how you said that women can. And the power of a righteous woman praying.

I can only imagine that watching her husband go probably from bad to worse and from terrible decisions to even worse decisions and totally turning his back on God, that that must have broken her heart. And yet she knew that for her sake and for her son's sake and for the sake of their people, that if.

If they didn't have good leaders and repentance, that this nation was going to be destroyed. And it was shortly later they were. The kingdom of Judah was overrun after Hezekiah was. After Hezekiah died a couple generations later.

But the prayers, I think what it has taught me, if nothing else, is that women have such a powerful effect on the rising generation.

Now, it doesn't mean that they will always follow what they've been taught, because ultimately, it is up to them to choose which path they're going to follow. But we as women can rock the cradle, and we can influence generations to come.

And by our righteousness and our prayers, whether our children or our grandchildren are not, you know, if they're not doing what we've. We've been taught, we can still pray for them, you know, and miracles can still happen, that none is beyond God's saving grace. And so I just.

I love that image, and I also love how pertinent you brought it to be to our times, Tiffany, because I think there's a lot of women who feel this.

With the influence of Satan being so strong and social media being so blatant and pornography and all sorts of illicit drugs being available, it's a scary time to live. We can see signs of Christ coming, becoming more frequent.

And so just teaching our children and raising them, like you said here, to trust in the Lord, to keep his commandments, to cleave unto God, that's really the best we can do. Any other thoughts, Tiffany?

Well, I think so. In two chronicles 18. Oh, sorry. You go back to in the 19 he. Second chronicles 19 three. Sorry. Can we go there for a minute?

Yeah.

There he says, and they said unto him, thus Saith Hezekiah, this day is a day of trouble and rebuke and blasphemy, for the children are come to the birth, and there's not strength before. So this is Hezekiah. He's going to Isaiah, right?

Like you said before, he's going to Isaiah and he's seeking counsel because the Assyrians are coming, and he's so afraid that they're going to destroy him, right? And he goes to Isaiah and he's like, this is a day of trouble. I need your help.

And I love, like, why would he go to Isaiah, other than Abby had that, you know, probably relationship with him because of her father and that because of his. That relationship, he knew that the prophet had something important for him. Like, he had counsel for him. He had advice.

And so, like, that prayer, those prayers that he prayed were valuable and important. He also knew that the prophet could help him.

And I think that as mothers, like, yes, prayer is powerful, and prayer is going to help our children know how to move forward in their life. It's also important that we introduce them to righteous men, righteous men that can counsel them in this life.

I mean, you think back about Moses and you think about how his father in law was like Jethro. He was like, you need to find men that you can trust that can help you in this work.

And I think Hezekiah understand the weightiness of his calling, and he found righteous Mendez who could. Who were men of the Lord. Right. He could help give him the direction he needed in his life. And so I think Abby's influence was twofold in that.

One, prayer was powerful and taught him to pray, but also two, she taught him who to go to, who else he could go to for the help that he needed. And. And I think that in our children's lives, first of all, I hope that we're that person for one of those people, for children.

Like, it doesn't have to be like, just one person, right?

But hopefully, we could be someone who is carrying wise counsel for our children, someone who's connected to God and that they know they can come to us for wise counsel and that we can be unbiased towards them, you know, and not what we want, but what. What God would want in helping them, but also teaching them the value of good, surrounding themselves with good people.

And I think that that's important because obviously, at home, like, he had his mother, but his father not surrounding himself with the. I'm sure, evil people that were in his reign was challenging, but he knew where to go to find solace in the prophet and in our heavenly father.

So that those. I just, to me, is a remarkable, remarkable humility in his part. Willingness to say, I may be the king, but there's someone who knows more than I do.

And I think that that's because Abby must have been a very humble woman and taught him his place in the world.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for bringing that in. Let's wrap it up. I love her. I love her story. I love the amazing kingdom that Hezekiah was, despite who his dad was.

What are. What is the takeaway you think you can share with us from this story of Abby?

I just. I love, again, how her son was a man of prayer. I mean, he prayed for the Assyrians protection, and angels came and killed the army for him.

He didn't even have to kill the army. At the end of his life, when it was his time to go, he prayed to the Lord and said, hey, I really just want to stay. Can you please give me more time?

And God gave him 15 more years to reign and to serve and to bless people's lives.

When you look at his legacy, you can't help but feel the love of his mother in everything that he did the love of the Lord, which came from his mother, because it certainly didn't come from his father. And as women, like you said, we can't underestimate our ability to direct our children in a way that will bless them.

And whether we are reading the Bible and listening to the prophet's words and going to Isaiah for help and strength and understanding and knowing that sometimes we need to turn to the scriptures to help us and the prophets and in the scriptures to help us know and understand what direction we should go in life, you know, realizing that there's counsel there and there's counsel there for our children.

So teaching our children the value of scriptures, because that is God's word, and his prophets teaching us and also teaching them the value of prayer, that God and that prayer in the scriptures and his listening to those teachings that he has blessed us with and this life will give us the direction that we need, the direction that our children need to rise up and be the disciples that they need to be. And certainly, probably, I don't know, maybe someone listening to this has a son that's going to be a king one day.

But, I mean, our kids probably don't have the weighty weightiness of the kingdom on them, but at the same time, like, just one child, look at what Hezekiah did just as one child. He made a difference for so, so many. I was looking it up. He was like.

So it said in verse 26 of chronicles 30 that there was great joy in Jerusalem, and there hadn't been that kind of joy since the time of Solomon, that there was nothing like that in Jerusalem. There was nothing like him since the time of Solomon. That was literally 215 years. I looked it up.

215 years, two centuries worth of time where there was no one who was as wise and as good and as kind as he was. That is a reflection of his mother. She taught him to follow the prophets and the scriptures, to go to the source. She taught him to go to prayer.

And as mothers, if we can teach our children those two things, to read your scriptures, to say your prayers, those simple, simple answers, right? Like, it can do them so much good in their life. And as mothers, it will do us a lot of good, too, because, you know, we need to take that.

That example, and we need to do ourselves. And as we pray and as we read our scriptures, we will be guided to know how to guide our own children.

And hopefully they can turn out as well as Hezekiah in their discipleship and their walk in this journey of life.

I love that.

I think my takeaway is to lead by example because certainly she did that to share those spiritual moments that we have with God, share them with our children to talk about the traditions, the faith traditions of our family and maybe generations going back or maybe just extending to our own family, depending upon when your family has become converted to Jesus to talk about that because obviously that wasn't so with Ahaz, or maybe it was initially, but he certainly turned from it and still reminding the blessings of those faith traditions. And like you said, I'm sure she turned to the script to teach him what their faith traditions were as the tribe of Judah.

And obviously Jesus descended from the same line.

So just lead by example as women lead by example to be faithful followers of Jesus Christ and people will notice and it really that our little ripple effect can impact generations.

So all right guys, thanks for joining us today for this episode where we talk about this amazing woman who made a difference in the life of one of the most influential kings in Judah.

We're thankful for her kind example and hope that you can find hope that your little ripple effect can make an important difference in the lives of future generations as well.

Thanks for tuning in to Bible women and bathrobes hosted by women warriors of Light. We've loved exploring the stories of remarkable women or the teachings of the savior today with you.

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Just a friendly reminder, all opinions we share are entirely personal as we are trying to decipher and apply Bible teachings just like you are.

Until next time, stay faithful and may.

Your journey be blessed and illuminated by God's love.