1. The eighteenth year. In ancient times almost every nation had its own calendar, and recorded the dates relating to foreign countries in terms of its own methods of reckoning. Even today we express all ancient dates, originally recorded in various calendars, in terms of our own modern calendar and the scale of years. In the period of the Hebrew monarchies years were not numbered in a continuous series (as the year 1954 represents the 1954th year of the Christian Era), they were numbered for each king’s reign. Thus in Judah the year in which Abijam began to reign was called the 18th of Jeroboam, king of Israel. This is the first of many time statements showing the relationship between the reigns of the two Hebrews kingdoms. It seems evident from these relationships that the books of Kings record any dates connected with the accession of a king of Judah according to the system of reckoning used in Judah, and those concerning a king of Israel by the Israelite system. Since the statement in this verse is a record concerning the reign of a king of Judah, the mention of the 18th year of Jeroboam in this connection would mean the 18th year of his reign as reckoned in Judah, and not necessarily the 18th year as Jeroboam himself reckoned it (see 148).