Abi is a name found in the King James Bible, appearing 1 time in the text.
Who This Was
Abi was the mother of King Hezekiah of Judah and the daughter of Zechariah. She is named in the opening verse of the account of Hezekiah’s reign, where the writer of 2 Kings records the standard regnal formula for the kings of Judah: the age of the king at his accession, the length of his reign, the name of his mother, and her father’s name. In that single verse, Scripture tells us that Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, that he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem, and that his mother’s name was Abi, the daughter of Zechariah.
This brief notice places Abi in one of the most significant turning points in Judah’s history. Her son Hezekiah became king after the reign of his father Ahaz, a king whose idolatry and unfaithfulness are described at length in the same book. Hezekiah, by contrast, is remembered as a reformer who trusted the Lord and removed the high places and idols from Judah. Abi is named at the head of that account, in the very verse that introduces the reign of the son who would reverse so much of what had come before.
Beyond this single verse, Scripture says nothing further about Abi. We are not told of her upbringing, her character, her length of life, or her influence on her son. She appears once, in a genealogical and historical notice, and then the narrative moves on to the deeds of the king. What the text gives us is her name, her father’s name, and her place as the mother of a king of Judah. That is the whole of the biblical record concerning her.
The Name
The name Abi is a shortened form of a longer Hebrew name, and shortened names of this kind are common in the Old Testament. The element *abi* means “my father” in Hebrew, and it appears in numerous Israelite names, often as part of a compound honoring God, such as Abijah (“my father is the LORD”) or Abimelech (“my father is king”). Because the text gives only the shortened form, the full name behind it is not stated, and so its precise meaning cannot be recovered with certainty. What can be said is that the name contains the Hebrew word for “father,” but the specific sense of Abi as a complete name is not clearly established from the text itself.
A Closing Thought
Abi is one of the many people in Scripture who appear in a single verse and then vanish from the record. Yet her one verse places her at the threshold of a reign that brought reform and renewal to Judah. We are not told whether she shaped her son’s faith, but every child who grows up to honor God has been shaped by someone. Her brief mention is a quiet reminder that God remembers the people whose names we pass over quickly, and that faithfulness in hidden places is not lost to Him, even when it is not written into the story.
At a Glance
- Gender: Male
- Testament: Old
- Mentions in the KJV: 1
Where It Appears in Scripture
- 2 Kings 18:2 — Twenty and five years old was he when he began to reign; and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name also was Abi, the daughter of Zachariah.