Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Kings 21:1
And it came to pass after these things, [that] Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which [was] in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria.
Ch. 1Ki 21:1-16. Naboth the Jezreelite is stoned to death and Ahab takes possession of his vineyard (Not in Chronicles)
1. This chapter is placed by the LXX. before the preceding, and numbered 20. Josephus also adopts that order of the events. In consequence, the LXX. omits the words ‘after these things’ in 1Ki 21:1.
The LXX. ( Alex.) calls Naboth ‘an Israelite’. This of course he was. But Jezreel may easily, especially in ms., be mistaken for Israel . Both versions of the LXX. make the vineyard to be not near the palace, but near the threshingfloor of Ahab.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
A vineyard … in Jezreel – The name Jezreel is applied in Scripture, not merely to the town 1Ki 18:46, but also to the valley or plain which lies below it, between Mount Gilboa and Little Hermon (2Sa 2:9; 2Ki 9:10; Hos 1:5; etc.).
The palace of Ahab at Jezreel was on the eastern side of the city, looking toward the Jordan down the valley above described. It abutted on the town wall 2Ki 9:30-31. Immediately below it was a dry moat. Beyond, in the valley, either adjoining the moat, or at any rate at no great distance, was the plot of ground belonging to Naboth 2Ki 9:21.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
CHAPTER XXI
Ahab covets the vineyard of Naboth, and wishes to have it either
by purchase or exchange, 1, 2.
Naboth refuses to alienate it on any account, because it was his
inheritance from his fathers, 3.
Ahab becomes disconsolate, takes to his bed, and refuses to eat,
4.
Jezebel, finding out the cause, promises to give him the
vineyard, 5-7.
She writes to the nobles of Jezreel to proclaim a fast, to
accuse Naboth of blasphemy, carry him out, and stone him to
death; which is accordingly done, 8-14.
She then tells Ahab to go and take possession of the vineyard;
he goes, and is met by Elijah, who denounces on him the
heaviest judgments, 15-24.
Ahab’s abominable character, 25, 26.
He humbles himself; and God promises not to bring the threatened
public calamities in his days, but in the days of his son,
27-29.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXI
Verse 1. After these things] This and the twentieth chapter are transposed in the Septuagint; this preceding the account of the Syrian war with Ben-hadad. Josephus gives the history in the same order.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
In Jezreel; where one of Ahabs palaces was, as the other was in Samaria.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1-3. Naboth the Jezreelite had avineyard, which was in JezreelAhab was desirous, from itscontiguity to the palace, to possess it for a vegetable garden. Heproposed to Naboth to give him a better in exchange, or to obtain itby purchase; but the owner declined to part with it. In persisting inhis refusal, Naboth was not actuated by any feelings of disloyalty ordisrespect to the king, but solely from a conscientious regard to thedivine law, which, for important reasons, had prohibited the sale ofa paternal inheritance [Lev 25:23;Num 36:7]; or if, through extremepoverty or debt, an assignation of it to another was unavoidable, theconveyance was made on the condition of its being redeemable at anytime [Le 25:25-27]; atall events, of its reverting at the jubilee to the owner [Le25:28]. In short, it could not be alienated from the family, andit was on this ground that Naboth (1Ki21:3) refused to comply with the king’s demand. It was not,therefore, any rudeness or disrespect that made Ahab heavy anddispleased, but his sulky and pettish demeanor betrays a spirit ofselfishness that could not brook to be disappointed of a favoriteobject, and that would have pushed him into lawless tyranny had hepossessed any natural force of character.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And it came to pass, after these things,…. After the two battles with the king of Syria, in which Ahab was victorious, and after he had let Benhadad, a blasphemer, and injurious to him, go free:
[that] Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which was in Jezreel; of which place [See comments on Ho 1:5] or “who was in Jezreel”; that is Naboth, for the vineyard was in Samaria, 1Ki 21:18
hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria; that being the metropolis of the kingdom of Israel, is put for it, who, besides his palace in Samaria, had another in Jezreel; which, according to Bunting y, were sixteen miles distant from each other.
y Travels, &c. p. 164.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
After these events Ahab was seized with such a desire for a vineyard which was situated near his palace at Jezreel, that when Naboth, the owner of the vineyard, refused to part with his paternal inheritance, he became thoroughly dejected, until his wife Jezebel paved the way for the forcible seizure of the desired possession by the shameful execution of Naboth (1Ki 21:1-15). But when Ahab was preparing to take possession of the vineyard, Elijah came to meet him with the announcement, that both he and his wife would be visited by the Lord with a bloody death for this murder and robbery, and that his idolatry would be punished with the extermination of all his house (1Ki 21:16-26). Ahab was so affected by this, that he humbled himself before God; whereupon the Lord told Elijah, that the threatened judgment should not burst upon his house till after Ahab’s death (1Ki 21:27-29).
1Ki 21:1-2 Ahab wanted to obtain possession of the vineyard of Naboth, which was in Jezreel ( refers to ), near the palace of the king, either in exchange for another vineyard or for money, that he might make a vegetable garden of it. From the fact that Ahab is called the king of Samaria we may infer that Jezreel, the present Zerin (see at Jos 19:18), was only a summer residence of the king.
1Ki 21:3 Naboth refused to part with the vineyard, because it was the inheritance of his fathers, that is to say, on religious grounds ( ), because the sale of a paternal inheritance was forbidden in the law (Lev 25:23-28; Num 36:7.). He was therefore not merely at liberty as a personal right to refuse the king’s proposal, but bound by the commandment of God.
1Ki 21:4 Instead of respecting this tender feeling of shrinking from the transgression of the law and desisting from his coveting, Ahab went home, i.e., to Samaria (cf. 1Ki 21:8), sullen and morose ( as in 1Ki 20:43), lay down upon his bed, turned his face (viz., to the wall; cf. 2Ki 20:2) – “after the manner of sorrowful persons, who shrink from and refuse all conversation, and even the sight of others” (Seb. Schmidt) – and did not eat. This childish mode of giving expression to his displeasure at Naboth’s refusal to comply with his wish, shows very clearly that Ahab was a man sold under sin (1Ki 21:20), who only wanted the requisite energy to display the wickedness of his heart in vigorous action.
1Ki 21:5-7 When Jezebel learned the cause of Ahab’s ill-humour, she said to him, “Thou, dost thou now exercise royal authority over Israel.” is placed first for the sake of emphasis, and the sentence is to be taken as an ironical question, as it has been by the lxx. “I (if thou hast not courage enough to act) will procure thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.”
1Ki 21:8-10 The shameless woman then wrote a letter in the name of Ahab, sealed it below with the royal seal, which probably bore the king’s signature and was stamped upon the writing instead of signing the name, as is done at the present day among Arabs, Turks, and Persians (vid., Paulsen, Reg. der Morgenl. p. 295ff.), to give it the character of a royal command (cf. Est 8:13; Dan 6:17), and sent this letter (the Chethb is correct, and the Keri has arisen from a misunderstanding) to the elders and nobles of his town (i.e., the members of the magistracy, Deu 16:18), who lived near Naboth, and therefore had an opportunity to watch his mode of life, and appeared to be the most suitable persons to institute the charge that was to be brought against him. The letter ran thus: “Proclaim a fast, and set Naboth at the head of the people, and set two worthless men opposite to him, that they may give evidence against him: Thou hast blasphemed God and king; and lead him out and stone him, that he may die.” Jezebel ordered the fasting for a sign, as though some public crime or heavy load of guilt rested upon the city, for which it was necessary that it should humble itself before God (1Sa 7:6). The intention was, that at the very outset the appearance of justice should be given to the legal process about to be instituted in the eyes of all the citizens, and the stamp of veracity impressed upon the crime of which Naboth was to be accused. … , “ seat him at the head of the people,” i.e., bring him to the court of justice as a defendant before all the people. The expression may be explained from the fact, that a sitting of the elders was appointed for judicial business, in which Naboth and the witnesses who were to accuse him of blasphemy took part seated. To preserve the appearance of justice, two witnesses were appointed, according to the law in Deu 17:6-7; Deu 19:15; Num 35:30; but worthless men, as at the trial of Jesus (Mat 26:60). , to bless God, i.e., to bid Him farewell, to dismiss Him, as in Job 2:9, equivalent to blaspheming God. God and king are mentioned together, like God and prince in Exo 22:27, to make it possible to accuse Naboth of transgressing this law, and to put him to death as a blasphemer of God, according to Deu 13:11 and Deu 17:5, where the punishment of stoning is awarded to idolatry as a practical denial of God. Blaspheming the king is not to be taken as a second crime to be added to the blasphemy of God; but blaspheming the king, as the visible representative of God, was eo ipso also blaspheming God.
1Ki 21:11-13 The elders of Jezreel executed this command without delay; a striking proof both of deep moral corruption and of slavish fear of the tyranny of the ruthless queen.
1Ki 21:14-15 When the report of Naboth’s execution was brought to her, she called upon Ahab to take possession of his vineyard ( = , Deu 2:24). As Naboth’s sons were put to death at the same time, according to 2Ki 9:26, the king was able to confiscate his property; not, indeed, on any rule laid down in the Mosaic law, but according to a principle involved in the very idea of high treason. Since, for example, in the case of blasphemy the property of the criminal was forfeited to the Lord as cherem (Deu 13:16), the property of traitors was regarded as forfeited to the king.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Naboth’s Vineyard Refused to Ahab. | B. C. 899. |
1 And it came to pass after these things, that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. 2 And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house: and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it; or, if it seem good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money. 3 And Naboth said to Ahab, The LORD forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee. 4 And Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him: for he had said, I will not give thee the inheritance of my fathers. And he laid him down upon his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread.
Here is, 1. Ahab coveting his neighbour’s vineyard, which unhappily lay near his palace and conveniently for a kitchen-garden. Perhaps Naboth had been pleased that he had a vineyard which lay so advantageously for a prospect of the royal gardens, or the vending of its productions to the royal family; but the situation of it proved fatal to him. If he had had no vineyard, or it had lain obscure in some remote place, he would have preserved his life. But many a man’s possessions have been his snare, and his neighbourhood to greatness has been of pernicious consequence. Ahab sets his eye and heart on this vineyard, v. 2. It will be a pretty addition to his demesne, a convenient out-let to his palace; and nothing will serve him but it must be his own. He is welcome to the fruits of it, welcome to walk in it; Naboth perhaps would have made him a lease of it for his life, to please him; but nothing will please him unless he have an absolute property in it, he and his heirs for ever. Yet he is not such a tyrant as to take it by force, but fairly proposes either to give Naboth the full value of it in money or a better vineyard in exchange. He had tamely quitted the great advantages God had given him of enlarging his dominion for the honour of his kingdom, by his victory over the Syrians, and now is eager to enlarge his garden, only for the convenience of his house, as if to be penny wise would atone for being pound foolish. To desire a convenience to his estate was not evil (there would be no buying if there were no desire of what is bought; the virtuous woman considers a field and buys it); but to desire any thing inordinately, though we would compass it by lawful means, is a fruit of selfishness, as if we must engross all the conveniences, and none must live, or live comfortably, by us, contrary to the law of contentment, and the letter of the tenth commandment, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house. 2. The repulse he met with in this desire. Naboth would by no means part with it (v. 3): The Lord forbid it me; and the Lord did forbid it, else he would not have been so rude and uncivil to his prince as not to gratify him in so small a matter. Canaan was in a peculiar manner God’s land; the Israelites were his tenants; and this was one of the conditions of their leases, that they should not alienate (no, not to one another) any part of that which fell to their lot, unless in case of extreme necessity, and then only till the year of jubilee, Lev. xxv. 28. Now Naboth foresaw that, if his vineyard were sold to the crown, it would never return to his heirs, no, not in the jubilee. He would gladly oblige the king, but he must obey God rather than men, and therefore in this matter desires to be excused. Ahab knew the law, or should have known it, and therefore did ill to ask that which his subject could not grant without sin. Some conceive that Naboth looked upon his earthly inheritance as an earnest of his lot in the heavenly Canaan, and therefore would not part with the former, lest it should amount to a forfeiture of the latter. He seems to have been a conscientious man, who would rather hazard the king’s displeasure than offend God, and probably was one of the 7000 that had not bowed the knee to Baal, for which, it may be, Ahab owed him a grudge. 3. Ahab’s great discontent and uneasiness hereupon. He was as before (ch. xx. 43) heavy and displeased (v. 4), grew melancholy upon it, threw himself upon his bed, would not eat nor admit company to come to him. He could by no means digest the affront. His proud spirit aggravated the indignity Naboth did him in denying him, as a thing not to be suffered. He cursed the squeamishness of Naboth’s conscience, which he pretended to consult the peace of, and secretly meditated revenge. Nor could he bear the disappointment; it cut him to the heart to be crossed in his desires, and he was perfectly sick for vexation. Note, (1.) Discontent is a sin that is its own punishment and makes men torment themselves; it makes the spirit sad, the body sick, and all the enjoyments sour; it is the heaviness of the heart and the rottenness of the bones. (2.) It is a sin that is its own parent. It arises not from the condition, but from the mind. As we find Paul contented in a prison, so Ahab discontent in a palace. He had all the delights of Canaan, that pleasant land, at command the wealth of a kingdom, the pleasures of a court, and the honours and powers of a throne; and yet all this avails him nothing without Naboth’s vineyard. Inordinate desires expose men to continual vexations, and those that are disposed to fret, be they ever so happy, will always find something or other to fret at.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
First Kings – Chapter 21
Naboth’s Vineyard, verses 1-4
Ahab appears to have gotten over his embarrassment at letting the Syrian king, Ben-hadad, escape and bringing God’s judgment on himself. It may be he felt that nothing would come of the young prophet’s pronouncement. Anyway he had turned to peaceful pursuits. He had survived the terrible drought and the Syrian invasion, and at some unknown time, had erected himself a second palace at Jezreel. This city lay in the rich agricultural valley of Jezreel, in the tribe of Issachar. It was some distance northeast of the capital at Samaria, not far up the Kishon Valley from the fortress city of Megiddo.
Here at Jezreel Lived Naboth, a good, upstanding citizen, whose ancestors had occupied the same land for generations before him. It contained a vineyard which happened to be just outside the palace wall of Ahab The king conceived the idea of putting in an herb garden and saw in Naboth’s vineyard a desirable plot for it. Therefore, he approached Naboth with what might seem to a modern mind a reasonable offer for the land. Ahab would give Naboth a better vineyard for the land, or if it suited him better he would give money for it.
However, Naboth shunned to part with his ancestral possession, calling the Lord as his witness against such a deal. The law actually forbade the selling of the land divided to a certain family, on grounds that the land really belonged to the Lord (Lev 25:23). Naboth was correct on both legal and spiritual grounds, and Ahab knew it. The king was very displeased and upset about Naboth’s refusal to deal with him. He returned to his palace in a crestfallen and sombre mood. He felt so bad about it he took to his bed, refusing to talk to anyone, and not even arising to take food. Like many today he put his own feelings ahead of God’s will (2Pe 2:10).
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
THE DIVIDED KINGDOM
1 Kings 12-22.
IN resuming our study of I Kings, in this 12th chapter we confront a sudden turn in history. The falling of such a man as Solomon is a shock to history itself; a stop so sudden in its impetuous rush, that all society is shaken in consequence, and wonder as to what next? takes possession of the people. The text of Scripture does not always take account of time. How many days elapsed between the emptying of Davids throne by Solomons death, and the accession to the same on the part of Rehoboam, we are not told; but the pivotal points in this adjustment are made plain, and in the study of them one fact shines clearly forth, namely, that God, the true King of Israel, lived and reigned.
Men make their plans and attempt their executions, but history records how the Divine will overrules them all. The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord (Pro 16:33).
Teachers have called attention to the fitness of renaming the fifth Book of the New Testament, and instead of calling it, The Acts of the Apostles, declare it, The Acts of the Holy Ghost. So in this Old Testament history we seem to be studying the acts of the kings of Judah and Israel, but they are necessarily interpreted in the light of the will of the King of kings, the Lord of Glory. Whosoever sitteth upon the throne, the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.
Keeping that fact before us, we find these eleven chapters are as full of spiritual suggestions as they are replete with historic incidents, and in the interest of time as it relates itself to the most important truths, I ask your attention to the great opposing personalities that are herein discovered; to Jeroboam vs. Rehoboam; to Elijah vs. Ahab, and to Micaiah vs. false prophets.
JEROBOAM VS. REHOBOAM
Coming events cast their shadows before! We had not finished the 11th chapter when Jeroboam, the son of Neb at, an Ephrathite of Zereda, Solomons servant, the son of a widow, was lifting his hand against the king, and Ahijah, the prophet, was kindling his ambitions by telling him that the God of Israel would rend the kingdom out of Solomons hands and give ten tribes to him. The path, therefore, of Rehoboam, Solomons son, was not clear. If he came to the kingdom he must both put down his opponent and placate his people. This dual task requires wisdom, and the subject of the complaint was one with which the counsellors of the old king were alone familiar. When Rehoboam consulted them, they advised moderation in speech and conduct.
That is a hard word for ambitious youth. It is a consent to place a leash on passionate strength. The impetuous prince straightway made appeal to young men and secured from them the counsel his inexperienced spirit craved, namely the counsel of rigor, expressed in. the threat, my little finger shall be thicker than my fathers loins (1Ki 12:10).
Men, particularly inexperienced men, commonly accept the counsels that fit with their own plans and desires, and Rehoboam was no exception.
But even then, history is not made apart from the will and plan of God. The very decision of Rehoboam is a part of the prophecy of Ahijah as much so as the perfidy of Judas was prophecy converted into history. Whether God rules in all things may be a question! That God is familiar with all contingencies before they come to pass is not even debatable, and that He presides over history is a settled truth. If Judas betrayed Jesus that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled, so also Rehoboam refused wise counsel and accepted the false, that the word which the Lord spake by Ahijah the Shilonite should stand. Foreknowledge of human conduct does not render God morally responsible in any measure for what men may do, but it does enable Him to administer all history, and in the end to work out His own will.
In the remaining portion of this chapter and running through the 16th of the same book, there are at least three outstanding lessons to be learned by the observant student.
The Menace of mistaken counsels! Modern science is proving that all space is a unity, and transmission of sound by the radio is demonstrating that the speech made in America can actually be heard on every continent of the world; and yet more certain still is it that single events influence and affect history more positively and permanently than a spoken word affects the element of ether.
If it had been the rule of Rehoboam alone, the result of this consultation with the old men first and with the young men later must still have been important, but with limitations, both in time and effect. When it is remembered, however, that all human history, to the end of the age, would take color from the decision reached by this young king, then who can measure the importance of wise counsel?
The cheapest commodity is advice; that is to say, it is everywhere on exhibit and offered for nothing, but in the end it comes at the greatest conceivable cost or proves itself to have been a most invaluable contribution. In other words, counsel makes or mars. The world to this hour is suffering from Rehoboams mistake, not alone in the division of the sons of Abraham, but since that day, every Gentile nation has felt the evil influence of the same.
There is a philosophy, popular at this time, to the effect that it does not make much difference what you tell youth; whether you counsel them concerning the true God in heaven, or tell them that the only God there is is a one-celled animal; whether you lead them to believe that the inspired record of Genesis is true, or scoff their minds into an utter skepticism; whether you impress them with the notion that they are apesbetter developed, or the true creatures of Gods own thought, plan and power. There seems to be an impression that the counsel of youth finds no expression in the character of mature men and womena philosophy as false as the devil who fathers it.
I tell you that the counsels of youth determine everything! America, one hundred years from now, will be reaping the harvest of what is sown in the minds of the young men at this moment. If they are taught the truth, they will bless the world. If they are taught a lie, they will curse it! A correct counsel for the young is of too infinite moment to be banished from society through the specious plea of skeptics who cry Academic freedom. Rehoboam was not a beardless boy when they counselled him falsely. He was forty-one years of age, and yet, with even such maturity of years, he succumbed, and the nations have suffered in consequence. How vastly more deleterious is the effect of false counsel upon the ten and fifteen and twenty year old youth! To teach him falsehoods in the name of academic freedom is to flout all sound philosophy, fly in the face of all mans experience and seek to cover rotting skepticism with a wholesome sounding phrase!
But to pass on to another and kindred point, involving chapter 13:
The immorality of compromise with false ministers. When in the study of the week we came to a careful consideration of this 13th chapter, we felt exactly as though we were listening to an address in the Convention of the Christian Fundamentalists. Here is a true prophet of God with a Divinely given message, and a commission, and on his way. He is overtaken by a false prophet, a new theologian, a man with a social message, and is asked to sit at meat with him and prove himself a good fellow, and is even told that this is the will of the Lord. So the true prophet went back with the false prophet and did eat bread and drink water and the consequence was his repudiation by the false prophet first and a speedy judgment upon his disobedience, executed by his death at the paw of a lion (1Ki 13:11-32). The false prophet mourned him, buried and built a tomb to him, and requested of his own sons that he be let to lie beside him when his days are done.
How modern it all sounds! The greatest single plea presented by the new theologian of the present is that of good fellowship. They want us to sit at the same table with them; they want us to be silent about our differences; they want us to believe in their human and natural philosophies; that they are as true prophets of God as are the men who come with the revealed Word; and if we yield to their persuasions, compromise with them on the great matters in dispute between us. Deep in their own souls they despise us for our failure to stand for what we knew to be the inspired Word, and yet when we are dead, they will build tombs to us, and ask to be buried at our sides!
Meantime, every true minister of the Gospel must determine whether he will yield to such social and philosophic enticements or whether he will take his place with John and in obedience to the revelation made to that prophet, receive him not into your house, neither hid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds (2Jn 1:10-11).
Moving on to chapters 14 to 16, we find another fundamental truth waiting to be apprehended and emphasized, namely,
The folly of attempting to purchase acceptable prophecy. Here again the Old Testament times are being duplicated in the New Testament day. The son of Jeroboam fell sick. Ahijah the prophet was consulted by the queen mother, who came in disguise, with gifts and flatteries. The old mans vision had failed; his eyes were set by reason of age, he could not see; but age does not dim the vision of the Lord, and He revealed her personality to Ahijah and told him both her plan and purpose. So at the sound of her feet at the door, the old prophet said, Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam; why feignest thou thyself to be another? for I am sent to thee with heavy tidings (1Ki 14:6), and he pronounced judgment upon the king and his house and plainly declared that God would raise up another king over Israel who should cut off the whole house of Jeroboam in justice against the kings sin; and the prophecy came to pass, and Jeroboam, who had reigned twenty-two years, slept with his fathers, and Rehoboam, son of Solomon, who reigned in Judah, went also to his grave. Singularly enough, the death of these kings is recorded in the same chapter.
Then follows the long list of the kings on either side, conflicts, divisions, disasters and judgments (chaps. 15; 16). There are plenty of people who would like to purchase acceptable prophecy. There are plenty of women who, like Jeroboams wife, do not want the truth of God. They want smooth words; they want the prophet to say there is no sickness; they want him to affirm there is no death; they want him even to deny the reality of the same. Such people are perfectly willing to pay a price. They go to the healers, with ten loaves and cracknels and a cruse of honey. False philosophy is a profitable business, but it never yet exempted anybody from peril, never saved a single scientist from sin or sickness or death. It never kept a solitary throne upon a stable foundation and it never will.
It is interesting to watch these thrones rock, totter and fall one after another, and to find in every instance a fulfilment of the prophetic word of the Lord. Though heaven and earth shall pass away, not one jot or tittle of all that God has spoken shall fail.
But to turn afresh to our text and study another subject.
ELIJAH VS. AHAB
Read 1 Kings 17-21.
The histories of potentates and prophets run parallel in the Books of the Kings. Their views of life are divergent. Elijah and Ahab have little in common beyond the fact that they are contemporaneous, and dwell in the same empire. Elijahs character so far outshines that of Ahab that we consider the latter only as his conduct is seen in the light of the former. Let us learn again,
A pessimistic pronouncement does not disprove the prophet of God. When Elijah the Tishbite comes upon the scene, his first speech is, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years (1Ki 17:1). No! wonder he was non-acceptable! Unpalatable truths make unpopular preachers. The men who dont want to believe in the prophecies concerning the Second Coming of Christ, denounce as pessimists those who faithfully quote and believe Gods word upon that subject, and feel that by the very name they have discredited and discountenanced them. But Revelation pays little regard to what men want. It never consults public opinion that it may suit its speech to the same. It gives out the truth, knowing that in the end the knowledge of the truth is the worlds sorest need. If a famine is coming, it is foolish to shut ones ears against its prediction and be overtaken by starvation; and, if Christ is coming, it is foolish to repudiate the prophecy, to be shamed by His sudden appearance.
When will men learn that the prophet of God is not appointed to repeat the nonsensical platitudes of a Coue, or the filched and false aphorisms of a Mary Baker Eddy? The test of the prophets has not changed one whit in thirty centuries. To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this Word, it is because there is no light in them (Isa 8:20). When a prophet speaketh in the Name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken (Deu 18:22). Only a few years ago the post millenarians of America were telling us that war was forever over; that in the evolution of the race we had developed a better wisdom and adopted a more righteous way, and they held to scorn those who believed that in the last days wars would rend the world; and that famines, and pestilences would follow in the wake of them. But the words of Jeremiah the Prophet are the test of all such opponents of the truth, The prophet which prophesieth of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known, that the Lord hath truly sent him (Jer 28:9).
The 18th chapter has a further suggestionThe Prophets faith and speech is his sufficient self-defense. In this chapter, Elijah suddenly appears and sends, by the mouth of the Prophet Obadiah, word to Ahab, Elijah is here! He had no fear! He dared to face Ahab, the professed king of Israel, confident in the Potentate of Heaven, Israels true King. In answer to Ahabs question, Art thou he that troubleth Israel? he set up his defense, I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy fathers house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord (1Ki 18:17-18), and by faith he proposed a challenge, involving the entire company of Baal prophets, The God that answereth by fire, let Him be God (1Ki 18:24). We know the result; Jehovah revealed Himself as a God that heareth and answereth prayer, and it was made manifest that Baal was no god at all, and the consequence is the slaughter of the false prophets and the justification of Elijah. What other defense does the true prophet need for his person than he has in the King of kings, the Lord of Glory? And what other defense for his message than that he brings the Word of the Lord?
It doesnt concern me that certain of my brethren write, We wont accept the article on the Second Coming of Christ to be found in the Confession of Faith of the Fundamentalists of America. My concern is in another subject. Are these articles justified by the Word, and fortified in the sacred sentences thereof? The Lord is the defense of the true minister, and the Word the one and only justification of his message.
The endangered prophet has the assurance of Divine care and provision. The execution of the false prophets stirred Jezebel to desperate decision. The life of Elijah is threatened. A womans rage holds nothing in reverence. The fury of Jezebel was a thousandfold more dangerous than the anger of Ahab, and from it Elijah fled; before it, Elijah fainted; in the face of it, Elijah requested for himself that he might die (1 Kings 19).
And yet it is impossible to believe that Elijahs fear and discouragement were the fruits of cowardice. Instead they were the natural reactions of an overstrained spirit; doubtless in part, the result of having slain the false prophets in keeping with the customs of the day, when he had no command from the Lord, and also the protest of an overtaxed mind and body.
How grateful readers should be that the whole story is recorded, for with it is also written the story of Gods tenderness and the repeated instances of Gods care. Two visits from an angel, food and drink; a still, small voice; a gracious declaration of the 7,000 fraternal souls. What refreshing for body, mind and spirit! God truly cares for the whole man, and concerns Himself for him who ministers in His Word.
But to conclude our study with the consideration of,
MICAIAH VS. FALSE PROPHETS
and to learn from these three remaining chapters, 20 to 22, three important lessons:
Ahab wages successful war when he has Gods Word for his warrant. In his battle against Benhadad the king of Syria, he had Gods promise against Syria, Behold, I will deliver it into thine hand this day; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord (1Ki 20:13). The battle was won when that word was spoken. Ahab is no saint. His life and conduct are not acceptable to Jehovah, but he is king of Israel, the ruler over Gods people, and God cares for His own, and when they are at war with sinners, men who do not so much as name God, Jehovah is likely to be on their side.
Even poor leadership is not likely to doom a good cause. God does not lose His interest in right, when the evil rule. A thousandfold better to fight for a just cause with weak leadership than for an unjust cause, superbly led. The boasted scholarship of modernism fills me with no fear in trying to stand before it. Intellectual superiority, when it sets itself against God, is insanity; and even the great Gladstone of England had no objection to being found in fellowship with the plain people. He was that countrys Commoner indeed, and Americas great Commoner, William Jennings Bryan, was brainy enough to know that battles will finally be won upon the basis of right and wrong, which is only another way of saying, If God be for us, who can be against us? Where God is, there is victory! In the last analysis, the success of an enterprise does not depend upon its human leadership but rests with the Divine favor instead.
But to the 21st chapter and learn another lesson The covetousness of a king may be indulged at the cost of a kingdom. Here we have the record of Naboths vineyard, desired by Ahab and refused by its rightful owner. People may be disposed to condemn Naboth for not selling out when his superior proffered him a fair price, but only such as are ignorant of the Word would so speak. Naboth was more anxious to be loyal to the King of kings than to this petty potentate. He could not forget the Word of the Lord written in Num 36:7, So shall not the inheritance of the Children of Israel remove from tribe to tribe: for every one of the Children of Israel shall keep himself to the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers; and if Ahab had known the Word of the Lord, he would have been reminded of Eze 46:18, Moreover the prince shall not take of the peoples inheritance by oppression, to thrust them out of their possession.
Some men have sought to justify Ahab here by saying this was not covetousness, since he offered Naboth a proper price for it, but the defense is insufficient. The man who so far covets his neighbors possessions as to secure his death in order to appropriate the same is an enemy alike of God and of man, and cannot escape the judgment of the Lord. Hence it is written, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine (1Ki 21:19).
Truly, as Joseph Parker says, When Ahab went down to take possession of that vineyard, a death warrant was awaiting him. Yea, all the world does move under the hand of God and there are righteous results everywhere operative, and justice is a thousand fold more often meted out than men ever imagine.
A defenseless boy may be picked off a train in Florida and a purchasable judge may fine him an amount that he knows the lad does not have, and under the pretense of justice fling him into prison to die at the hands of a flogging brute in the form of a man, and months may pass; no mention of the matter reach the public, and in consequence the criminal chuckles to himself, My deeds are covered! Justice, if it sleep, is not dead, and in an unexpected moment it will arouse itself to speak in thunder tones, quickening the whole nation into a united jury that shall pass sentence and demand judgment. God lives!
Finally, The temporal interests of Gods Kingdom rest between true and false prophets. The last chapter tells the story of Micaiah, Gods true Prophet, and of a company of men who profess to be prophets, but who are possessed by a lying spirit. There were about 400 of these. Majorities do not settle questions of revelation, not even when they are 400 to 1! The more false prophets you have, the less dependable is their counsel. For the first time since Solomons death, the two kingdoms, Judah and Israel, have a prospect of being united. The lying spirit in the mouth of the false prophets did promise the project and assure the united forces of a final victory against the enemy.
Alas for the faith of men who follow those who have no sure word of prophecy! Micaiah, the true prophet, may be smitten on the cheek; may be thrust into prison; may be fed with the bread of affliction and the water of shame, but His word will not fail on that account. Throughout the length and breadth of the land, on this beautiful Sunday morning, there are hundreds of true prophets of God whom certain ecclesiastical potentates are seeking to silence. In the Methodist denomination, bishops are refusing them appointments. In the Baptist and Congregational denominations, State Secretaries are setting their faces against them, and are seeking to influence leading church officials to reject them, and cast them out.
Suffering is the true prophets experience, but better a Micaiah in prison with scant bread and unslaked thirst, than a deceived king marching forth to a battle that shall leave him dead on the field. The after-history of the prophet we do not know. God for His own reasons left that in obscurity. What matters it? If, as a free man he breathed his last as Moses did, on Nebos heights; if as a martyr he yielded up his spirit as did Stephen in Jerusalem; if as Paul he perished in prison, what matters it? An angel came to claim Moses body; Heaven opened to receive Stephens spirit; and Paul quit the earth with a triumphant shout! The kingdom is suffering; its king and subjects are still evil in the sight of the Lord; Baal, the false god of worship is an insult to the most High, but the prophets spirit is safe!
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
AHAB AND THE VINEYARD OF NABOTH
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.
1Ki. 21:1. Naboth the JezreeliteNaboth , fruits, according to Gesenius; but pre-eminence, according to Frst. He was an Israelite resident in the town of Jezreel (the Alex. Sept. follows the Hebrew, and designates him an Israelite throughout the whole chapter) owning a plot of ground (2Ki. 9:25-26) situate on the eastern slope of the hill of Jezreel, as well, also, as the vineyard, whose location is uncertain. Vineyard in Jezreela town in the tribe of Issachar (Jos. 19:18), where the kings of Israel had a palace (1Ki. 18:45). Hard by the palace of AhabThe Sept. reads instead, bard by the threshing floor of Ahab, king of Samaria. The dispute as to location of the vineyard turns upon the question whether the palace here referred to was the kings residence at Jezreel or at Samaria. Note, however, that the words in 1Ki. 21:4Ahab came into his house, &c.are identical with those in chap. 1Ki. 20:43, where the further explanation points to Samaria as his home. Further, in 1Ki. 21:8, we find that Jezebel sends her letters to Jezreel, as if she were resident in some other place; and that the elders of Jezreel send her tidings (1Ki. 21:14) of Naboths death, which would certainly have been superfluous if she were at the time resident in Jezreel. So probably the vineyard was hard by the palace in Samaria, and the king came to Naboth at Jezreel to ask this possession of its owner.
1Ki. 21:3. Naboth said, the Lord forbid it meLit., Be it to me far from Jehovah ( ) that I, &c., indicating both the personal loyalty of his faith in Jehovah, and his religious purpose not to sell Gods heritage to an idolatrous king.
1Ki. 21:5. Why is thy spirit sad?See for note on chap. 1Ki. 20:43resentful.
1Ki. 21:7. Dost thou now govern Israel?Either an ironical taunt. or a rallying call; for the words are usually translated imperatively: Thou! exert thy royal sway over Israel!
1Ki. 21:8. She wrote lettersThis is the solitary instance recorded in the Bible of a woman being able to write. Female education in the East then, as now, rendered it extremely exceptional for a woman to possess such a qualification. Sent the letters (lit. the letter) unto the elders and nobles that, in his city, dwelt with Nabotha statement which affirms both that Jezreel was the native city of Naboth, and his usual abode. These elders and nobles were his fellow-townsmen.
1Ki. 21:9. Proclaim a fastAn observance only proper on occasions of great distress and national calamities (Jdg. 20:26; 1Sa. 7:6; Joe. 1:14; Joe. 2:12). This would impart an appearance of gravity to the frivolous but foul procedure.
1Ki. 21:10. Thou didst blaspheme God and the king . The word means to bless, reverence, adore. Thou hast blessed Elohim [not using the name JEHOVAH] and the king. Keil accepts the words as meaning, Thou hast blessedi.e., bid farewell to, taken thy leave of God and the king; because at departure one utters a benediction [cf. Deu. 13:11; Lev. 24:14 sq.; and 2Sa. 16:9].
1Ki. 21:11. Did as Jezebel had sent unto themShows their absolute moral degradation and slavish submission before the tyranny of this woman.
1Ki. 21:15. Arise, take possession for Naboth is not alive, but deadHis possessions became confiscated, falling into the kings hands (cf. 2Sa. 16:4; Deu. 13:16).
1Ki. 21:16. Ahab rose up to go down to the vineyardFrom Samaria to Jezreel.
HOMILETICS OF 1Ki. 21:1-16
THE OVERMASTERING POWER OF A COVETOUS SPIRIT
I. That a covetous spirit is unsatisfied with the most ample possessions (1Ki. 21:1-3). About twenty-five miles from Samaria Ahab had his summer palace, his vast park and favourite hunting seat at Jezreelthe Windsor of England, and Fontainebleau of France. After his successful wars with Syria, he gives himself to luxury and pleasure, and employs himself in enlarging and beautifying his summer residence. Not content with what he already possesses, he covets what belongs to his subjects, as the people who demanded a king were forewarned would be the case (1Sa. 8:14). More particularly is he anxious to possess a vineyard owned by one Naboth, of an illustrious family, and to add it to the royal demesnes. But Naboth refuses to part with his property, and confirms his refusal in the name of Jehovah. It is the curse of covetousness to be never satisfied. As a ship may be overladen with gold and silver even unto sinking, and yet have compass and sides enough to hold ten times more, so covetous men, though they have enough to sink them, yet have they never enough to satisfy them. This kyte-footed corruption, wherever it domineers, blasts and banishes all nobleness of spirit, natural affection, humanity, reason, discretion, manliness, mutual entertainment, intercourse of kindness and love; so that, for any fair dealing, a man had as good converse with a cannibal as with a truly covetous caitiff.
II. That a covetous spirit gives way to unmanly and helpless distress when it cannot have all it wishes (1Ki. 21:4). Like a spoilt child, because he cannot have his toy, Ahab punishes himself by yielding to a fit of fretfulness and sour temper that completely prostrated him. Avarice, like every other evil passion, leads to moral pauperism. Had covetous men, as the fable goes of Briareus, each of them one hundred hands, writes Dryden, they would all of them be employed in grasping and gathering, and hardly one of them in giving or laying out; a thing in itself so monstrous that no thing in nature besides it is like it, except it be death and the grave, the only things I know which are always carrying off the spoils of the world, and never making restitution. Covetousness has been well called the great sepulchre of all other passions. The covetous monarch, surrounded with the luxuries and wealth of a kingdom, blubbers and frets because he does not own a paltry herb garden.
Some, oer enamoured of their bags, run mad,
Groan under gold, yet weep for want of bread.
Young.
III. That a covetous spirit is utterly unscrupulous as to the means by which its wishes are gratified (1Ki. 21:5-14).
1. It is at the mercy of the vilest agents. Jezebel knew how to take advantage of the weak moments of her weak husband, and, unhappily, had at her beck the agents who were ready to carry out any diabolical plot she might invent. Big and black though the villany appear, the wicked queen resolved that Naboth should be executed for treason, and then his property, with the coveted vineyard included, would all revert to the crown as a criminals possessions. While her poor fool of a husband, therefore, is sleeping off his wounded pride, she, never accustomed to stand upon trifles, commits the fourfold crimes of forgery, false-witness, perjury, and murder. We are shocked when we read of the massacre of Glencoe in the very midst of the open-handed hospitality of the children of the mountains. Our whole soul shudders at the story of that Russian soldier who, during the Crimean war, solicited in his dying agonies a cup of cold water from an English officer, and then pointed his pistol right at his benefactors heart. And with kindred feelings we read of the horrible contradiction before usan unoffending follower of God compelled to surrender his life, a victim to the machinations of a heathen queen, screening, but only in reality aggravating, her wickedness under the thin disguise of a new-born religious zeal.
2. It weakly sanctions deeds it has not itself the courage to do or prevent. Ahab must have known about the execution and its alleged cause; and he knew Jezebel well enough to know that she would not hesitate at any means by which her ends could be gained. Naboth stood between him and his avaricious purpose; and he cared not how the obstacle was removed. The sufferings of Naboth and his sons, who perished with their father (2Ki. 9:26), caused the king no uneasiness. A covetous spirit is essentially mean, cowardly, heartless.
IV. That a covetous spirit eagerly clutches its prize, little caring how it has been acquired, and little dreaming what a curse it may bring (1Ki. 21:15-16). Without wasting a pang of regret upon the cruel fate of his harmless victims, Ahab drives with all speed to Jezreel, and jauntily enters into possession of the confiscated estate. He walks round and round; he admires trellis and cluster, and branches hanging over the wall. He plans improvement here and enlargement there, by way of preparing for the flower-garden he has in view. And now he turns to leave, when, just at the very moment, let us indulge the fancy, he is plucking a bunch of the dead mans grapes as a gift for Jezebel, there confronts himlike an apparition from the other world, like the ghost of Naboth, like Banquo in another sceneone he has not seen for more than seven years, never since they parted that night of the rushing storm at the gate of Jezreelone he had thought Jezebel had either effectually frightened, or who had gone back to his mountains, or down to his grave; and yet there he is! still with the long shaggy locks, the sheep-skin mantle, the dark knitted brows, and the thunder peal about to issue from those awful lips. (Howat.) It is ELIJAH! and from his mouth the trembling Ahab receives his doomthe overthrow and ruin of his house. A covetous man may gain his unholy ends, but he gains also disappointment, misery, remorse. What is wealth, when peace of mind and the hope of the heavenly inheritance are gone?
LESSONS:
1. The demands of covetousness are insatiable.
2. A covetous spirit is easily tempted to commit the worst crimes.
3. Covetousness prepares the instrument of its own torment.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
1Ki. 21:1-16. Naboths vineyard. In this narrative we have an exhibition of the following topics:I. Covetousness. Ahab saw Naboths garden; its situation, and in all likelihood its condition, made it desirable in his eyes. He offered Naboth a price for it which he declined, because it was unlawful and dishonourable to sell it. This ought to have satisfied Ahab, but it did not; he was annoyed and vexed at being refused, and willingly allowed his unscrupulous wife to resort to any means to secure for him his coveted prize. How many are led away by covetousness; resorting to illegal means to gain the object of their desire. David conceived an inordinate desire for Uriahs wife, and planned the death of her husband that his desire might be gratified. II. Manly independence. Naboth said to Ahab: The Lord forbid it me that I should give the inheritance of my father unto thee. It was a great temptation to Naboth to yield to the expressed wish of the king; he might gain favour, and be remembered by the king in many ways to his temporal advantage. Many yield to temptations of this kind; they will do almost anything to gain the favour or the kindly notice of the wealthy or the influential in society. But Naboth was no sneak. He would not satisfy right to the pleasure even of the king, and told him so. It is well for men to cultivate kindliness and obliging manners, but not at the expense of their own self-respect and manly independence. III. Despotism. As soon as Jezebel made the proposal to murder Naboth, it was readily executed. It does not appear as if there was any protest against it, either on the ground of illegality or unrighteousness. There was no fear of any legal consequences. The will of the queen was supreme, and there would be no desire to resist it. Such deeds as the murder of Naboth fill the annals of despotism. IV. Divine retribution. The death of Naboth was duly announced to Ahab, and he arose to go to take possession of the coveted vineyard. He little thought that the whole proceedings were watched by another Kingthat the blood of Naboth had ascended into the ears of the Lord of Hosts, crying for vengeance. He thought not of these things; but God marked his sin, and sent Elijah to charge him with it, and to declare unto him Gods vengeance. Even so the sinner may indulge in his sinful course, never thinking that there is an all-seeing eye resting upon him.The Study and Pulpit.
Voices from Naboths vineyard I. One of these isBeware of covetousness. That vineyard has its counterpart in the case and conduct of many still. Covetousness may assume a thousand chameleon hues and phases, but these all resolve themselves into a sinful craving after something other than what we have. Covetousness of means: a grasping after material wealth, the race for riches. Covetousness of place: aspiring after other positions in life than those which Providence has assigned to us, not because they are better, but because they are other than our God-appointed lot, invested with an imaginary superiority. And the singular and sad thing is, that such inordinate longings are most frequently manifested, as with Ahab, in the case of those who have least cause to indulge them. How many there are surrounded with all possible affluence and comfort, who put a life thorn in their side by some similar chase after a denied good, some similar fretting about a denied, trifle. Be assured that carping discontent will grow, if you feed it, till it comes to eat out the kernel of lifes happiness; a discontented manhood or womanhood culminating in that saddest of conditions, a peevish old age. II. Another of the voices is, Keep out of the way of temptation. If Ahab, knowing his weakness and besetting sin, had put a restraint upon his covetous eye, and not allowed it to stray upon his neighbours forbidden property, it would have saved a black page in his history, and the responsibility of a heinous crime. If Achan had not cast his eye on the goodly Babylonish garment, the shekels of silver and the wedge of gold, he would have saved Israel a bloody discomfiture and himself a fearful end. Each has his own strong temptationhis besetting sin. That sin should be specially watched, muzzled, curbed; that gate of temptation specially padlocked and sentinelled. III. Another voice is, Be sure your sin will find you out. Ahab and Jezebel, as we have seen, had managed to a wish their accursed plot. The wheels of crime had moved softly along without one rut or impediment in the way. The two murderers paced their blood-stained inheritance without fear of challenge or discovery. Their time for retribution did come at last, although years of gracious forbearance were suffered to intervene. And are the principles of Gods moral government different now?Macduff.
1Ki. 21:1-4. An undisciplined nature. I. Fancies it may gain possession of whatever it covets. II. Cannot understand the motives of those who refuse to gratify its desires. III. Easily overwhelmed with disappointment and chagrin.
1Ki. 21:1. Naboth had a fair vineyard; it had been better for him to have had none: his vineyard yielded him the bitter grapes of death. Why do we call those goods, which are many times the bane of the owner? Naboths vineyard lay near to the court of Jezebel: it had been better for him had it been planted in the wilderness. It was now the perpetual object of an evil eye, and stirred those desires which could neither be well desired, nor satisfied: eminency is still joined with peril, obscurity with peace. There can be no worse annoyance to an inheritance, than the greatness of an evil neighbour.Bp. Hall.
1Ki. 21:2. Great lords often have fancies which cost them more time and money than do their chief and holiest duties. Thus Ahab thought more of the enlargement and adornment of his garden than of the good of his subjects. The desire for things which serve for pleasure is often a temptation to grievous sin. Therefore says the Scripture: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours goods, nor anything that is his. Let the needy be thy first care, not thine own pleasure. It is a great gain to be godly and contented. Watch over thine heart, for desires apparently lawful, if not resisted and denied, may lead to ruin.Lange.
1Ki. 21:3. True courage the fruit of righteousness. 1 Regards worldly possessions as a sacred trust.
2. Witnesses for God in the midst of prevalent idolatry.
3. Dares to oppose the wishes of an unrighteous king.
Naboth shows, by the very first words of his reply, that he is a worshipper of Jehovah, not of Baal; and that he does not fear to confess his faith before the idolatrous king. He also indicates by the form of his asseveration that he considers it would be wrong for him to comply with the kings request. It is plain, therefore, that we have not here a mere refusal arising out of a spirit of sturdy independence, or one based upon sentimentthe sentiment which attaches men to ancestral estates. Naboth objects to the kings proposal as wrong. This is best explained by those passages of the law which forbid the alienation of landed property, and especially the transfer, of estates from one tribe to another (Lev. 25:23-28; Num. 36:7).Speakers Comm.
1Ki. 21:4. Godless people regard the care taken by the pious to observe reverently the divine law as so much useless scrupulousness. Even so, in our day, does the worldling look with an evil eye upon the Christian who, for the sake of the Divine Word, refuses to yield to his wishes, for either he recognizes no divine authority, or exalts his own above it. The children of this world, whose aims and designs are wholly material, will often fret and grieve for days when they are compelled to give up a temporal gain, or a promised enjoyment, whilst the condition of their souls never causes them the slightest grief. The high and mighty ones of this world often think that all other people are placed here simply to yield obedience to their whims. They cannot comprehend that all men are not to be bought with gold, and woe to that inferior whose refusal destroys their darling plans.Lange.
O the impotent passion and insatiable desires of covetousness! Ahab is lord and king of all the territories of Israel: Naboth is the owner of one poor vineyard. Ahab cannot enjoy Israel if Naboth enjoy his vineyard. Whether is the wealthier? I do not hear Naboth wish for anything of Ahabs; 1 hear Ahab wishing, not without indignation of a repulse, for somewhat from Naboth. Riches and poverty are no more in the heart than in the hand: he is wealthy that is contented; he is poor that wanteth more.Bp. Hall.
1Ki. 21:5-16. The apparently fortunate, but really unfortunate and accursed, marriage of Ahab and Jezebel. I. She seeks the sorrowful man, shares his grief, and seeks to comfort him, as is the province of a wife; but, instead of pointing him to the true Comforter, and leading his heart to higher and better things, she strengthens him in his grasping desire after others property, and leads him on still further. II. She reminds him that he is the lord and master, and recognizes him as such, as a wife should; but, at the same moment, she assumes the dominion, and the weak man lets her manage and rule, as if she were the man and he the woman. III. She rejoices to accomplish an ardent wish of her husbands, and to make him a worthy present, as every faithful spouse should strive to do; but it is a blood-stained and stolen gift, obtained with deceit and falsehood, and Ahab delights in it. Thus both husband and wife, who together should be blest after Gods ordinance, together walk on to ruin and destruction.Lange.
1Ki. 21:5-14. The terrible power of an impious queen. I. Knows how to take advantage of a weak and fretful husband (1Ki. 21:5-7). II. Shrinks not from adopting the most diabolical means of accomplishing her designs (1Ki. 21:8-10). III. Can command accomplices in carrying out any deed of villany (1Ki. 21:11-12). IV. Is permitted to perpetrate the most horrible acts of cruelty and murder (1Ki. 21:13-14).
1Ki. 21:5-7. He that caused the disease sends him a physician. Satan knew of old how to make use of such helpers. Jezebel comes to Ahabs bedside, and casts cold water in his face, and puts into him spirits of her own extracting. Ahab wanted neither wit nor wickedness; yet is he in both a very novice to this Sidonian dame. There needs no other devil than Jezebel, whether to project evil or work it. She chides the pusillanimity of her dejected husband, and persuades him his rule cannot be free unless it be licentious; that there should be no bounds to sovereignty but will. Already hath she contrived to have by fraud and force what was denied to entreaty. Nothing needs but the name, but the seal of Ahab: let her alone with the rest. How present are the wits of the weaker sex for the devising of wickedness!Bp. Hall.
1Ki. 21:9. But what damnable dissimulation was it in this devilish creature to do her feats under pretext of a fast! This was like that Italian device of a pocket stone bow which, held under a cloak, shoots needles with violence to pierce a mans body, yet leaves a wound scarcely discernible; or, rather, that other, more detestable, of a pocket church-book with a pistol hid in the binding, which turning to such a page dischargesa plot to entrap him you hate, whilst you are at your devotions together, when there is less suspicion. If Jezebel proclaim a fast, let Naboth look to his life. The Jesuits enjoined a fast and set forth a sevenfold psalmody for the good success of the gunpowder plot; wherein, Rabshakeh-like, they would persuade the world that they come not up against us without the Lord!Trapp.
1Ki. 21:11-14. Evil masters can ever find evil servants, who do their will from ambition or covetousness. Woe, where such things befall! and shame, that in the fairest lands, as in the plains of Jezreel, are often the worst men to be found! Godlessness and corruption in courts is a poison which extends throughout the whole body politic, even to the lowest rank; no example is so powerful upon all classes of society. How many gross, how many refined, sins are committed out of sheer complaisance to high personages, whose favour men wish to seek or preserve! Woe to those lords who find such ready tools in their servants, who will be accomplices in their misdoings, and palliate, or even laud and praise, all their perverse dealings: they undermine the throne more than open enemies. The judgment and condemnation of Naboth compared with that of our Lord. There, as in this instance, offended pride, followed by hatred, accusation of blasphemy and riot; false witnesses and vile judges; and a blind, infuriated populace crying out, Crucify! Crucify!Lange.
1Ki. 21:15-16. Ill-gotten gains.
1. Will not bear examination as to the methods of their acquisition.
2. Are eagerly and gladly seized.
3. Never give the satisfaction expected.
4. Entail unspeakable anxiety and suffering.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
III. THE GREAT SOCIAL CRISIS 21:116
The third crisis[476] discussed in chapters 1921 is of a different nature than those previously treated. Here the threat is not of external military domination, but of internal breakdown of law and order. Chapter 21 shows clearly the social breakdown of Ahabs kingdom. Years of flirtation with pagan practices were taking their toll. The rights of individuals guaranteed in the Sinai covenant were being ignored. The king was no longer under the Law, but was superior to it. The story unfolds in four stages: (1) the covetousness of the king (1Ki. 21:1-7); (2) the conspiracy against Naboth (1Ki. 21:8-16); (3) the condemnation by Elijah (1Ki. 21:17-24); and (4) the contrition of Ahab (1Ki. 21:25-29).
[476] Chapter 21, as far as content is concerned, is a continuation of the Elijah narrative of chapters 1719. The Septuagint version places this chapter immediately after chapter 19. The author of Kings must have been attempting to give a chronological assessment of Ahabs reign in the way he arranged these chapters.
A. THE COVETOUSNESS OF THE KING 21:17
TRANSLATION
(1) And it came to pass after these things that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard which was in Jezreel beside the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. (2) And Ahab spoke unto Naboth, saying, Give me your vineyard, that it may become my garden of herbs, for it is near beside my house, and I will give you in place of it a better vineyard; or if it is good in your eyes, I will give you in silver the price of it. (3) And Naboth said unto Ahab, Far be it to me from the LORD that I should give the inheritance of my fathers to you. (4) And Ahab came unto his house sullen and angry over the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken unto him when he said, I will not give to you the inheritance of my fathers. And he laid down upon his bed, and turned away his face, and would not eat food. (5) And Jezebel his wife came unto him, and spoke unto him, Why is your spirit so sad, that you do not eat food? (6) And he spoke unto her, Because I spoke unto Naboth the Jezreelite, and said to him, Give me your vineyard for silver, or if you desire I will give to you a vineyard instead of it; and he said, I will not give you my vineyard. (7) And Jezebel his wife said unto him, You now are the one who governs the land of Israel! Arise, eat food, and let your heart be merry! I will give to you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.
COMMENTS
From the royal palace in Samaria Ahab and his court would often commute to Jezreel[477] twenty-five miles to the north where the king also had a palace. Near his Jezreel palace was a plot of ground, a vineyard, possessed by a man named Naboth which Ahab dearly coveted (1Ki. 21:1). The king negotiated with Naboth for this property, offering to exchange vineyards with him, or pay him in silver whichever he desired. This vineyard was not required for the public welfare, but to satisfy a purely selfish personal whim (1Ki. 21:2). Naboth, however, was a devout worshiper of the Lord, and he would not violate the Law of Moses[478] by selling his family inheritance to one outside the family[479] (1Ki. 21:3). To pious Israelites, it was a religious duty as well as an obligation to family and tribe to preserve the inheritance. Rebuffed by this devout man, Ahab returned to the palace to give vent to childish grief. Sullen and angry he pouted in his private chamber, refusing to partake of food (1Ki. 21:4).
[477] Jezreel may have been the ancestral home of the Omrides. The place would have served ideally as a base of operations against Ramoth-gilead. Jezreel seems to have served as a winter resort for the king (1Ki. 18:45).
[478] Cf. Lev. 25:23 ff.; Num. 36:7 ff.
[479] Moreover the status of Naboth as a freeman was bound up with his possession of his ancestral land. To have accepted the offer of Ahab would have made him and his family royal dependents. See Gray, OTL, p. 439.
Jezebel, noting the absence of the king from the banqueting chamber, went to Ahabs room to inquire as to the reason for his loss of appetite (1Ki. 21:5). He told his wife how Naboth had refused to sell his vineyard, but he did not mention the reason which Naboth assigned to his refusal (1Ki. 21:6). Probably he realized that Jezebel would have no understanding of the Israelite laws of family inheritance. The queen did not inquire as to the reasons for Naboths refusal to dispose of his property. She could not understand why her husband was so upset over the incident. After all, he was the king, was he not? So Jezebel urged her husband to leave the matter in her hands (1Ki. 21:7).
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(1) Which was in Jezreel.The LXX. omits these words, and makes the vineyard to be hard by the threshing-floor of Ahab, king of Samariathe word being the same as that rendered void place in 1Ki. 22:10apparently near the palace of Ahab in Samaria, not in Jezreel. The Vulgate renders who was instead of which was in Jezreel. The question of the position of the vineyard, apparently the scene of Naboths murder, is difficult. The plot of ground of Naboth, referred to in 2Ki. 9:25-26not, however, called a vineyardis clearly at Jezreel. where, as a native of the place, Naboth would be likely to hold land. But the vineyard may have been an outlying property near Samaria, which Ahab might naturally suppose Naboth, even for that reason, likely to sell. In favour of this suppositionwhich is, perhaps, on the whole the more probableis the very emphatic prediction of 1Ki. 21:19, which in 1Ki. 22:38 is declared to have been fulfilled at the pool of Samaria. Moreover, the whole action of the chapter, as far as Ahab is concerned, seems to have been at Samaria; and, indeed, if we take 1Ki. 21:18 literally, this is actually declared to be the case. On the other side, however, we have the reading of the text, the more obvious interpretation of the words his city in 1Ki. 21:8; 1Ki. 21:11; and the reference to the prophecy of Elijah, in connection with the casting of the body of Jehoram into the plot of ground at Jezreel (2Ki. 9:25-26). It is, perhaps, impossible to clear up the discrepancy entirely with our present knowledge.
(24) And Ahab spake.The whole history is singularly true to nature. At first, as the desire of Ahab was natural, so his offer was courteous and liberal. The refusal of Nabothevidently grounded on the illegality, as well as the natural dislike, of alienation of the inheritance of his fathers (see Lev. 25:13-28; Num. 36:7), and therefore not only allowable, but righthas nevertheless about it a certain tone of harshness, perhaps of unnecessary discourtesy, implying condemnation, as well as rejection, of the offer of the king. It is characteristic of the weak and petulant nature of Ahab, that he neither recognises the legality and justice of Naboths action, nor dares to resent the curt defiance of his refusal. Like a spoilt child, he comes back sullen and angry, throws himself on his bed, and will eat no bread. All that he has is as nothing, while the little plot of ground is refused; as to Haman all was worthless, while Mordecai the Jew sat in the kings gate (Est. 5:13). This temper of sullen, childish discontent is the natural seedplot of crime, under the instigation of more determined wickedness.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
NABOTH’S SHAMEFUL EXECUTION, 1Ki 21:1-16.
1. The Jezreelite He was so identified with the place where the inheritance of his fathers lay that he was naturally called the Jezreelite.
Hard by the palace of Ahab Its location so near the palace enhanced its value, and made it as much an object for Na-both to retain as for Ahab to acquire. Ahab seems to have divided his residence between Samaria and Jezreel, part of the time dwelling at one place and part of the time at the other. See note on 1Ki 18:45.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Ahab Craves Naboth’s Vineyard And Is Promised It By Jezebel ( 1Ki 21:1-7 ).
The first step in the downward spiral is that of Ahab coveting Naboth’s vineyard. This was in direct disobedience to the covenant of YHWH (it disobeyed quite blatantly the final one of ‘the ten commandments’). And it demonstrated what coveting came to when it was in the mind and heart of a weak king. Ahab is revealed as weak and foolish and petulant, hardly a good recommendation for a king.
Analysis.
a
b And Ahab spoke to Naboth, saying, “Give me your vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near my house, and I will give you for it a better vineyard than it, or, if it seem good to you, I will give you the worth of it in money.” And Naboth said to Ahab, “YHWH forbid it to me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers to you” (1Ki 21:2-3).
c And Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him, for he had said, “I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers” (1Ki 21:4 a).
d And he laid himself down on his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no food. (1Ki 21:4 b).
c But Jezebel his wife came to him, and said to him, “Why is your spirit so sad, that you eat no food?” (1Ki 21:5).
b And he said to her, “Because I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite, and said to him, “Give me your vineyard for money, or else, if it please you, I will give you another vineyard for it,” and he answered, “I will not give you my vineyard” (1Ki 21:6).
a And Jezebel his wife said to him, “Do you now govern the kingdom of Israel? Arise, and eat food, and let your heart be merry. I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite” (1Ki 21:7).
Note that in ‘a’ we learn of Naboth’s vineyard, and in the parallel Jezebel promises it to Ahab. In ‘b’ Ahab asks Naboth for his vineyard, but Naboth refuses, and in the parallel this is the complaint that Ahab makes to Jezebel. In ‘c’ Ahab is heavy and displeased, and in the parallel Jezebel asks him why his spirit is so sad. Centrally in ‘d’ we learn that Ahab is behaving like a petulant small boy, an indication that he is unworthy to be king.
1Ki 21:1
‘ And it came about after these things, that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria.’
The incident is introduced by a general description of the situation. It occurred while Ahab was at his summer (or winter) palace in Jezreel, where he had also been at the time of the incident at Mount Carmel. Nearby that palace in Jezreel was a vineyard that belonged to Naboth the Jezreelite. Note the emphasis on the fact that Ahab was ‘the king of Samaria’. It would be as a result of his taking up that attitude that what follows would result. But there is in it the hint that Ahab was not king of the Old Israel. His attitudes were new-fangled and foreign.
1Ki 21:2
‘ And Ahab spoke to Naboth, saying, “Give me your vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near my house, and I will give you for it a better vineyard than it, or, if it seem good to you, I will give you the worth of it in money.” ’
Ahab coveted Naboth’s vineyard so that he could use it for a herb garden, and he therefore offered him a better one for it, or the alternative of a very good price. So far, so good. The offer seemed reasonable. But it did not take into account the loss of status that would be involved for Naboth’s family in surrendering the ancient family land, and becoming the king’s tenants.
1Ki 21:3
‘ And Naboth said to Ahab, “YHWH forbid it to me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers to you.’
The Israelites had a very strong sense of duty about their family land, for they saw it as having been given to their family by YHWH (Lev 25:23-28; Num 36:7). Thus Naboth considered that to sell his family land would be to disobey and insult YHWH, and that is why he refused to sell it, or yield it up in any way. At this stage the whole of ‘old Israel’ would have approved.
1Ki 21:4
‘ And Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him, for he had said, “I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers.” And he laid himself down on his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no food.’
But Ahab was not used to not getting what he wanted and he was heavy in his spirit and displeased as a result of Naboth’s refusal. Note the emphasis again on the fact that Naboth had refused to give him ‘the inheritance of my fathers’. Ahab knew that that in Israel that was sacrosanct.
Thus although he was upset he accepted ungraciously that that was the case, and because he was immature in his attitude, instead of saying ‘you are doing what is right in the eyes of YHWH’, he went to his room and sulked. Indeed he did it to such an extent that he refused any food. Such an attitude in a king was disgraceful. It demonstrated his inadequacy as a king, as the prophetic author wants us to recognise. Going with food while sulking was in total contrast with his later going without food when he was demonstrating repentance (1Ki 21:27). Here it was petulant, there it was right.
1Ki 21:5
‘ But Jezebel his wife came to him, and said to him, “Why is your spirit so sad, that you eat no food?” ’
When he did not turn up to eat, Jezebel went to find out what was wrong, and she asked him why he was so unhappy, and why he was going without food.
1Ki 21:6
‘ And he said to her, “Because I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite, and said to him, “Give me your vineyard for money, or else, if it please you, I will give you another vineyard for it,” and he answered, “I will not give you my vineyard.” ’
His reply to Jezebel sounds very much like that of a spoiled small boy who has not got what he wanted. He had tried to persuade Naboth to sell him his vineyard and he had refused. Note how bluntly he puts Naboth’s reply. It gives the impression that Naboth was just being awkward, when it has previously been emphasised that in fact he was being loyal to his family and to YHWH.
1Ki 21:7
‘ And Jezebel his wife said to him, “Do you now govern the kingdom of Israel? Arise, and eat food, and let your heart be merry. I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.” ’
Jezebel came from a country where the king’s word was law, and there were no such inconveniences as YHWH’s covenant with His people. So she asked him who he thought was governing Israel. Then she assured him that he could start eating again, and making merry, because he could leave it with her. She would soon obtain Naboth’s vineyard for him. Ahab could have been in no doubt that her methods would be crude, for he knew his wife. What he might not have expected was just how crude they would be. He cannot, however, thereby be exempted from blame for what happened.
‘b7
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Ahab Is Condemned By Elijah For Both His Past Behaviour And For What Jezebel Has Done And Repents Before YHWH ( 1Ki 21:1-26 ).
We now come to what the account has been building up to, the condemnation of Ahab by Elijah for what he has done, and the condemning of him above all who have gone before him. This is why the story is introduced at all. To illustrate how YHWH’ covenant was being broken and to underlines His subsequent condemnation of those who broke His covenant.
Analysis.
a
b “And you shall speak to him, saying, ‘Thus says YHWH, Have you killed and also taken possession?’ And you shall speak to him, saying, ‘Thus says YHWH. In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth will dogs lick your blood, even yours’ ” (1Ki 21:19).
c And Ahab said to Elijah, “Have you found me, O my enemy?” And he answered, “I have found you, because you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of YHWH” (1Ki 21:20).
d “Behold, I will bring evil on you, and will utterly sweep you away and will cut off from Ahab every man-child, and him who is shut up and him who is left at large in Israel, and I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah for the provocation with which you have provoked me to anger, and have made Israel to sin” (1Ki 21:21-22).
e And of Jezebel also spoke YHWH, saying, “The dogs will eat Jezebel by the rampart of Jezreel” (1Ki 21:23).
d “Him who dies of Ahab in the city the dogs will eat, and him who dies in the field will the birds of the heavens eat” (1Ki 21:24).
c (But there was none like Ahab, who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of YHWH, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up, and he did very abominably in following idols, according to all that the Amorites did, whom YHWH cast out before the children of Israel) (1Ki 21:25-26).
b And it came about, when Ahab heard those words, that he tore his clothes, and put sackcloth on his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went tenderly (1Ki 21:27).
a And the word of YHWH came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, “Do you see how Ahab humbles himself before me? Because he humbles himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days, but in his son’s days will I bring the evil on his house” (1Ki 21:28).
Note that in ‘a’ Elijah is called on to go to Ahab as he stands proudly and arrogantly amidst the vineyard that he has falsely taken possession of, and in the parallel he is later to be spared the worst of the judgment because he has humbled himself before YHWH. In ‘b’ Elijah comes to Ahab with the words of YHWH, and in the parallel Ahab hears the words of YHWH and humbles himself before YHWH. In ‘c’ he is described as having done evil in the sight of YHWH, and in the parallel the same applies. In ‘d’ Ahab’s whole house is to be punished, and in the parallel the same applies. Centrally in ‘e’ the greatest judgment is to come on Jezebel.
1Ki 21:17
‘ And the word of YHWH came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, “Arise, go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, who dwells in Samaria. Behold, he is in the vineyard of Naboth, where he has gone down to take possession of it.” ’
What Ahab and Jezebel had done did not go unnoticed with YHWH. That was the problem for the kings of Israel and Judah. No other nation had gods who were concerned about the behaviour of kings as long as they fulfilled their religious duties, but YHWH was very concerned. And the result was that YHWH came to Elijah the Tishbite and told him to go and see ‘Ahab who dwells in Samaria’. There is an indication here that Ahab was really to be seen as alien to the rest of Israel. He had established his Baal sanctuary in Samaria, so let him have it, but thereby he lost any right to the rest of Israel. By thus ‘dwelling in Samaria’ he had had no right to make claims in Jezreel. But he had made such claims, and he had made them on land that belonged to YHWH, and had taken possession of the vineyard of Naboth, which YHWH had given to Naboth.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jezebel Arranges Naboth’s Death In Order To Obtain His Vineyard For Ahab Who Is Then Severely Rebuked By Elijah ( 1Ki 21:1-28 ).
The story of Naboth’s Vineyard is introduced here in order to illustrate how grasping and inward-looking Ahab had become, and how greatly he was manipulated by his evil wife Jezebel, leading on to the prophecy by Elijah that proclaims his demise and the demise of his house, something which begins to come about in chapter 21. Central to the story is the right of every Israelite to hold his family’s property, given to them by YHWH, in perpetuity. It was one of the cardinal statutes of Israel. And to retain that land gave the family great prestige. The evil of Jezebel is especially illustrated in the setting up at her instigation of false and lying witnesses, followed by the cold-blooded murder of an innocent man, something in which she also involved a number of others causing them also to disobey the Law of YHWH. Her pollution was thus spreading among the leaders of Israel, causing them to ignore the covenant. It is a reminder of the direction in which Baalism was taking Israel, and goes on to explain that this was why YHWH’s judgment was coming on Ahab. Despite all YHWH’s appeals, and the goodness that He had shown to Ahab, Ahab demonstrates that he was still far from YHWH and His ways in his inner heart.
The chapter therefore closes with Elijah’s clear cut condemnation of Ahab, which is the reason why it is placed here. It fills in the detail behind what the earlier prophet had said in 1Ki 20:42-43, and pronounces in depth the doom of Ahab’s house in conformity with the fate declared on previous kings by earlier prophets. Even the wording of the denunciation is similar, with Elijah clearly taking up the words of the previous prophets. Such judgment is, however, then delayed because Ahab repents and seeks for mercy, a reminder that, as with David, all God’s judgments can be avoided where men truly repent. But his repentance did not result in a permanent change of heart towards YHWH (as is demonstrated by his view of the prophet Micaiah in the next chapter). Thus the delay also would only be temporary.
The account of Naboth’s vineyard divides up into three parts:
Ahab Craves Naboth’s Vineyard And Is Promised It By Jezebel (1Ki 21:1-7).
Jezebel Arranges For The Death Of Naboth By A False Accusation (1Ki 21:8-15).
Ahab Is Condemned By Elijah For Both His Past Behaviour And For What Jezebel Has Done And Repents Before YHWH (1Ki 21:16-28).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Reign Of Ahab King Of Israel c. 872-851 BC ( 1Ki 16:29 to 1Ki 22:40 ).
The reigns of the previous seven kings of Judah and Israel have been covered in a short space (1Ki 15:1 to 1Ki 16:28). The reign of Ahab will now take up almost the whole of the remainder of 1 Kings (from 1Ki 16:29 to 1Ki 22:40). This, however, was not due to the importance of Ahab politically, but occurs because he was in continual conflict with the prophets of YHWH. It was these conflicts which were considered important by the prophetic writer. His initial prolonged encounter was with Elijah the prophet (chapters 17-19, 21), he had dealings with an unnamed prophet (chapter 20) and he had dealings with Jehoshaphat, a righteous king of Judah, who caused him to have dealings with Micaiah, a third prophet. He was thus of note because of YHWH’s dealings with him, and especially because his wife Jezebel, sought to establish Baalism in the face of the efforts of Elijah and the other prophets to maintain the truth of pure Yahwism. It is describing a conflict for the soul of Israel.
The whole section can be summarised as follows:
a 1). Initial summary of the reign of Ahab (1Ki 16:29-34).
b 2). WARNING OF FAMINE. Elijah Warns Of The Coming Famine Which Duly Occurs. The First Flight Of Elijah (1Ki 17:1 to 1Ki 18:2 a).
A. Elijah flees and is fed by ravens indicating YHWH’s control of the living creation in the midst of famine (1Ki 17:2-7).
B. Elijah is sustained by the miraculous provision of meal and oil indicating YHWH’s control over the inanimate creation in the midst of famine (1Ki 17:8-16). |
C. Elijah raises the dead son of the widow to life indicating YHWH’s control over life and death in the midst of famine and death (1Ki 17:17-24).
c 3). AHAB’S FIRST REPENTANCE. The Contest on Mount Carmel between the prophets of Baal and Elijah indicating YHWH’s power over storm and lightning (purportedly Baal’s forte) (1Ki 18:2-40). This leads to Ahab’s first change of heart (although not repentance).
d 4). Elijah flees from Jezebel and meets God at Horeb leading on to the command to anoint of Hazael, Jehu and Elisha as symbols of YHWH’s judgment and mercy on Israel through war, assassination and ministry (1Ki 19:1-21).
d 5). Two wars with Benhadad of Aram (Syria) before each of which a prophet of YHWH promises that YHWH will give him victory, and which results in YHWH’s final declaration of judgment on Ahab through a third prophet for failing to execute the captured king who had been ‘devoted to YHWH’ (1Ki 20:1-43).
c 6). AHAB’S SECOND REPENTANCE Naboth is falsely accused and murdered in order that Ahab might take possession of his vineyard, an incident that brings home how YHWH’s covenant is being torn to shreds and results in Elijah’s sentence of judgment on Ahab’s house, which is delayed (but only delayed) because of his repentance (1Ki 21:1-28).
b 7). WARNING OF DEATH. Micaiah warns Ahab of his coming death. War over Ramoth-gilead results in Ahab’s death as warned by Micaiah the prophet of YHWH and the humiliation of his blood by contact with scavenger dogs and common prostitutes (1Ki 22:1-38).
a 8). Ahab’s Obituary (1Ki 22:39-40).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Murder of Naboth
v. 1. And it came to pass after these things, v. 2. And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard that I may have it for a garden of herbs, v. 3. And Naboth said to Ahab, The Lord forbid it me that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee. v. 4. And Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased, v. 5. But Jezebel, his wife, came to him and said unto him, Why is thy spirit so sad that thou eatest no bread? v. 6. And he said unto her, Because I spake unto Naboth the Jezreelite and said unto him, Give me thy vineyard for money, or else, if it please thee, I will give thee another vineyard for it; and he answered, I will not give thee my vineyard.
v. 7. And Jezebel, his wife, said unto him, Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? v. 8. So she, v. 9. And she wrote in the letters, saying, Proclaim a fast, v. 10. and set two men, Sons of Belial, v. 11. And the men of his city, even the elders and the nobles who were the inhabitants in his city, v. 12. They proclaimed a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people.
v. 13. And there came in two men, children of Belial, v. 14. Then they sent to Jezebel, saying, Naboth is stoned and is dead.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
THE STORY OF NABOTH. THE DOOM OF AHAB‘S HOUSE. HIS PENITENCE.
1Ki 21:1
And it came to pass after these things [These words are omitted in the Vat. LXX; which, as before remarked, transposes 1Ki 20:1-43. and 21. See introductory note, 1Ki 20:1-43.], that Naboth [“Fruit,” “produce” (Gesen). Wordsworth sees in him a type of Christ, cast out of the vineyard (Mat 21:39) and slain] the Jezreelite [The Alex. LXX. here, and throughout the chapter, reads . Josephus (Ant. 8.13. 8) says that Naboth was of illustrious family] had a vineyard, which was in Jezreel [See note on 1Ki 18:46], hard by the palace [LXX. threshing-floor. Stanley, arguing from this word, would reject the Hebrew text of this narrative, which places both the vineyard and the plot of ground (2Ki 9:25, 2Ki 9:26) in Jezreel, and would locate the vineyard on the hill of Samaria, in the “void place” of 1Ki 22:10] of Ahab king of Samaria. [It is clear from these last words that Jezreel had not replaced Samaria as the capital. It was a “palace” only that Ahab had there. No doubt the beauty of the situation had led to its purchase or erection. As Jezreel is only twenty-five miles distant from Samaria, it is obvious that it might be readily visited by the court.]
1Ki 21:2
And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard [The prediction of Samuel (1Sa 8:14) is being realized], that I may have it for a garden of herbs [as in Deu 11:10; Rom 15:17], because it is near unto [Heb. beside] my house: and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it: or [Heb. omits or], if it seem good to thee [Heb. if good in thine eyes], I will give thee the worth of it in money. [Heb. I will give to thee silver the price of it. See note on 1Ki 20:39. Whatever Ahab’s moral weakness, he was certainly a prince of some enterprize. 1Ki 22:39 speaks of the “cities “which he built. And the palace of Jezreel would seem to have been erected by him. This vineyard was to be one of his improvements.]
1Ki 21:3
And Naboth said to Ahab, The Lord forbid it me [Heb. Far be it to me from Jehovah. These words reveal to us, first, that Naboth was a worshipper of the Lordotherwise he would hardly have used the sacred name, and that to Ahab, with whom the servants of the true God had found but scant favour; and, secondly, that he looked upon the alienation of his patrimony as an act displeasing to the Lord, and as violating the law of Moses (Le 25:93 sqq.; Num 36:7 sqq.) We have instances of the sale of land to the king in 2Sa 24:24but that was by a Jebusiteand in 1Ki 16:24], that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee. [“The preservation of the was for every covenant keeping Israelite a matter not merely of piety towards his family and his tribe but a religious duty” (Bhr). It is clear, however, that the restraints of the old Mosaic law began to be irksome in that latitudinarian age. Many of its provisions were already regarded as obsolete.]
1Ki 21:4
And Ahab came into his house [At Samaria, as we gather from 1Ki 21:18, 1Ki 21:14, 1Ki 21:16, etc.] heavy and displeased [Heb. sullen and angry; same words as in 1Ki 20:43. Ewald thinks that we have here a clear reference to that passage] because of the word which Naboth the Jezreellte had spoken to him: for [Heb. and] he had said, I will not give thee the inheritance of my fathers. And he laid him down upon his bed [Rawlinson understands this to mean the couch on which the Orientals recline at meals. And is used with this meaning in Est 1:6 Eze 23:41, and elsewhere. But “his bed” seems rather to point to his private chamber; see on Eze 23:5], and turned away his face [The Vulgate adds ad parietem. Cf. 2Ki 20:2; from which place it may have been unconsciously introduced here], and would eat no bread. [Keil contends that” this childish mode of giving expression to his displeasure shows very clearly that Ahab was a man sold under sin (2Ki 20:20), who only wanted the requisite energy to display the wickedness of his heart in vigorous action;” but whether this is a just inference from these words may well be questioned. It rather shows that so little did he meditate evil that he accepted the refusal of Naboth as conclusive, and gave way to childish grief.
1Ki 21:5
But Jezebel his wife came to him, and said unto him, Why is thy spirit so sad [same word as in 1Ki 21:4], that thou eatest no bread? [It would seem that the queen missed him from the banqueting hallhe can hardly, therefore, have lain down on one of the divans or couches thereinand went to his bedroom to inquire the reason.]
1Ki 21:6
And he said unto her, Because I spake unto Naboth the Jezreelite, and said unto him; Give me thy vineyard for money [Heb. silver]; or else, if it please [Heb. delight] thee, I will give thee another vineyard for it: and he answered [Heb. said], I will not give thee my vineyard. [Ahab does not mention the reason which Naboth assigned for his refusal. But Naboth’s reasons were nothing to him, and he had hardly given them a second thought.]
1Ki 21:7
And Jezebel his wife said unto him. Dost thou now govern [Heb. make; LXX: [] the kingdom of Israel? [There is no question expressed in the Hebrew which stands, “Thou now makest the kingdom over Israel.” The commentators generally, however, understand the wordsas the LXX. and the A.V.as an ironical question, “Art thou ruler in aught but name?” though some take it as an imperative: “Do thou now exert authority over the kingdom of Israel,” And on the whole, this latter interpretation appears to be preferable. “Do thou now play the king. Make thy power felt. Give me the requisite authority. I will,” etc.] Arise, and eat bread [or food], and let thine heart be merry [Heb. good; same words 1Sa 25:36]: I [This word is emphatic. “If thou wilt do thy part, I will do mine.”] will give thee [no need to buy it] the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.
1Ki 21:8
So she wrote letters [Heb. writings] in Ahab’s name, and sealed them with his seal [The use of the seal, for the purpose of authentication, is of great antiquity. Some of the Egyptian signets are more than 4,000 years old. Their use in the age of the patriarchs is attested by Gen 38:15 and Gen 41:42; their importance is proved by the text, by Est 3:10; Est 8:2, Est 8:8, Est 8:10 (cf. “Herod,” 3:128); Dan 6:17; Jer 32:10, 54; Hag 2:23, etc. Whether this sealwhich does not necessarily prove that those who used it could not writewas impressed upon the writings themselves according to the modern practice of the East, or upon a piece of clay (Job 38:14), which was then attached to the letter by strings, we have no means of knowing. The use of Ahab’s seal affords a strong presumption that he was privy to her designs (Bhr), but of this we cannot be absolutely certain], and sent the letters unto the elders [see Deu 16:18] and to the nobles [same word Neh 2:16; Neh 4:13; Ecc 10:17] that were in his city, dwelling [or inhabitants, as in Ecc 10:11] with Naboth.
1Ki 21:9
And she wrote in the letters, saying Proclaim a fast [The object of this ordinance was to give the impression that the city was labouring under, or threatened with, a curse, because of some undiscovered sin (2Sa 21:1; Jos 9:11; Deu 21:9), which must be removed or averted by public humiliation. Cf. Joe 1:14; Joe 2:12; 1Sa 7:6; 2Ch 20:3)], and set Naboth on high among the people. [Heb. at the head of the people. Keil, al. interpret, bring him into the court of justice, as defendant before all the people.” And certainly here, and in the next versewhere it is used of the witnesses (cf. verse 13)means, make to sit; which looks as if judicial procedure were intended. But “at the head of the people “rather suggests that in the public assembly, which marked the fast (Joe 2:15), Naboth was assigned the most distinguished place. The reason for this is obvious, viz; to give a colour of impartiality to the proceedings. As Grotius, Ne odio damnasse crederentur, quem ipsi honoraverunt. It would also accord with the popular idea of retributive justice that Naboth should be denounced in the very hour of his triumph and exaltation. Josephus, however, says that it was because of his high birth that this position was assigned him.]
1Ki 21:10
And set two men [according to the previsions of the law (Deu 17:6, Deu 17:7; Deu 19:5; Num 35:30). “Even Jezebel bears witness to the Pentateuch” (Wordsworth). Josephus speaks of three witnesses], sons of Belial [i.e; worthless men. This use of the word “son” (cf. Psa 89:22, “son of wickedness”), which is one of the commonest idioms of the East, throws some light on the expression “sons of the prophets” (see 1Ki 20:35, note; cf. Deu 13:13; Mat 26:60)], before him [confronting him], to bear witness against him, saying, Thou didst blaspheme [Heb. bless; cf. Job 1:5, Job 1:11; Job 2:5; LXX. . The Lexicographers are not agreed as to how this word, the primary meaning of which is to kneel, hence to pray, to bless, came to signify curse or blaspheme. According to some, it is an euphemism, the idea of cursing God being altogether too horrible for the Jew to express in words; whilst others derive this signification from the fact that a curse is really a prayer addressed to God; and others, again, account for it by the consideration that a person who bids farewell to another sometimes does so in the sense of dismissing and cursing him. Anyhow, it is noticeable that the word “blessing” is sometimes used with a similar meaning amongst ourselves] God and the king [God and the representative of God in Israel are here coupled together, as in Exo 22:28. To curse the king was practically to curse Him whose vicegerent he was (cf. Mat 23:18-22). Hence such cursing is called blasphemy and was punishable with death (Deu 13:11; Deu 17:5; 2Sa 16:9; 2Sa 19:21; and see on 1Ki 2:43, 1Ki 2:44)]. And then carry him out [i.e; out of the city (cf. Le Exo 24:14; Act 7:58; Luk 4:29; Heb 13:12). “Locus lapidationis erat extra urbem, omnes enim civitates muris cinctae paritatem habent ad castra Israelis“ (Babyl. Sanh.)], and stone him [the legal punishment for blasphemy (Le Exo 24:16)], that he may die. [The terrible power accorded to “two or three witnesses,” of denouncing a man to death, accounts for the prominence given to the sin of bearing false witness (Exo 20:16; Exo 23:1; Deu 19:16). It found a mention in the Decalogue.]
1Ki 21:11
And the men of his city, even the elders and the nobles who were the inhabitants in his city, did as Jezebel had sent unto them [Their ready compliance shows not merely the “deep moral degradation of the Israelites” at that period, but also the terror which the name of Jezebel inspired], and as it was written in the letters which she had sent unto them. [That she did not hesitate to put her infamous command into writing shows the character of the woman.]
1Ki 21:12
They proclaimed a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people.
1Ki 21:13
And there came in [Heb. came. The assembly was probably held al fresco. From the word , A.V. yesterday, but strictly, yesternight, Stanley suggests that the trial took place by night. But the word is often used in the wider sense of “yesterday” (Gesenius)] two men, children of Belial, and sat before him: and the men of Belial witnessed against him, even against Naboth, in the presence of the people [The whole congregation was interested in a charge of blasphemy. If unpunished, the guilt rested on the congregation. Hence the provision of Deu 24:14. By the imposition of hands they testified that the guilt of the blasphemer thenceforth rested upon his own head], saying, Naboth did blaspheme God and the king. Then they carried him forth [Heb. made him to go forth] out of the city, and stoned him with stones, that he died. [It appears from 2Ki 9:26 that the children of Naboth, who otherwise might have laid claim to their patrimony, were put to death at the same time, and probably in the same way; cf. Jos 7:24, Jos 7:25; Num 16:27. This was the rule of the East (Dan 6:24). The principle of visiting the sins of the parents upon the children seems to have been carried to an excess, as we find Joash (2Ki 14:6) instituting a more merciful rule.]
1Ki 21:14
Then they sent to Jezebel [clearly she was not at Jezreel], saying, Naboth is stoned, and is dead. [Stanley observes that it is significant that this announcement was made to her and not to Ahab. It appears from 1Ki 21:19 that the corpses both of Naboth and his children were left to be devoured of dogs.]
1Ki 21:15
And it came to pass, when Jezebel heard that Naboth was stoned, and was dead, that Jezebel said to Ahab, Arise, take possession [or inherit, succeed to; same word Gen 21:10; Deu 2:24; Jer 49:1. The possessions of a person executed for treason were ipso facto forfeited to the crown. There was no law prescribing this, but it followed the principles of the Mosaic code. Just as the goods of the idolater were devoted as cherem to the Lord (Deut, Jer 13:16), so those of the traitor reverted to the king. So Keil] of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give to thee for money [there is a proud malicious triumph in these words. “He refused, simple fool, to sell it. Now thou canst have it for nothing. I have discovered a better plan than buying it”]: for Naboth is not alive, but dead.
1Ki 21:16
And it came to pass, when Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, that Ahab arose up [According to the LXX; his first act was to rend his clothes and put on sackcloth. Afterwards “he rose up,” etc.] to go down [The “Great Plain, on the margin of which Jezreel stands, is at a much lower level than Samaria, which is in the mountain district of Ephraim”] to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it. [“Behind himprobably in the back part of his chariotride his two pages, Jehu and Bidkar (2Ki 9:26),” Stanley. But the expression “riding in pairs after Ahab” (A.V. “rode together after”) does not make it certain that they were in the same chariot. Indeed, they may have been on horseback. This was apparently (2Ki 9:26) on the day after the murder.]
1Ki 21:17
And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying [As in 1Ki 17:1, 1Ki 17:8; 1Ki 18:1],
1Ki 21:18
Arise, go down [Bhr hence concludes that Elijah was at this time in a mountain district. But wherever he might be, this word would probably be used of journey to the plain of Esdraelon] to meet [“The word used 1Sa 17:48 of David going out to meet Goliath (Stanley). But the same word is used (1Sa 18:6) of the women going out to meet Saul, and indeed it is the usual word for all meetings. We cannot hence infer, consequently, that Elijah went forth as if to encounter a foe] Ahab king of Israel, which is in Samaria [i.e; whose seat is in Samaria; who rules there. There is no need to understand the word of the territory of Samaria]: behold, he is in the vineyard of Naboth, whither he is gone down to possess it. [The words imply that Elijah found Ahabstrode into his presencein the vineyard; not that he was there already when the royal chariot entered it (Stanley).]
1Ki 21:19
And thou shalt speak unto him;. saying, Thus saith the Lord, Hast thou killed [, a rare and expressive word. We might render, slaughtered], and also [this word suggests that Jezebel’s programme, which he had accepted, was fast being accomplished. But in the very hour of its completion it should be interrupted] taken possession? And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the Lord [For the repetition, see on 1Ki 20:13, 1Ki 20:14], In the place where dogs [LXX. ] licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood [according to the lex talionis, as in 1Ki 20:42], even thine. [Heb. even thou. The LXX. adds, “And the harlots shall bathe in thy blood.” For the construction see Gesen; Gram. 119. 3; and cf. Gen 27:34; Pro 23:15; Psa 9:7. Thenius contends that there is a contradiction between this ver. and 1Ki 22:38 (together with 2Ki 9:25) which is absolutely insuperable. But as Bhr observes, “How thoughtless our author must have been if in two consecutive chaptersi.e; on the same leaf, as it werehe had inadvertently inserted direct contradictions.” And the following considerations will show that the discrepancy is only apparent.
(1) The sentence here pronounced against Ahab was, on his repentance, stayed in its execution. God said distinctly, “I will not bring the evil in his days,” and as distinctly added that He would “bring the evil in his son’s days, upon his house“ (1Ki 22:29). And
(2) with the prophecy, as thus modified, the facts exactly record. The body of Jehoram was “cast into the portion of the field of Naboth the Jezreelite” (2 Kings l.c.). And if it be objected
(3) that our historian sees in the death of Ahab in Samaria (1Ki 20:1-43. l.c.) a fulfilment of this prophecy, the answer is that that death was a partial fulfilment of Elijah’s words. The repentance of Ahab, having secured him immunity from this sentence, his subsequent folly and sin (cf. 1Ki 22:27) nevertheless brought down upon him a judgment of God strikingly similar, as we might expect it would be, to that originally denounced against him, which was now reserved for his son. In ether words, the prophecy was fulfilled to the letter in the person of his son, but it had a secondary fulfilment in its spirit on himself].
1Ki 21:20
And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me [Not merely, “Hast thou found me out? hast thou surprised me in the very act?” though this meaning is not to be excluded, but also, “Has thy vengeance overtaken me?” is used in this sense 1Sa 23:17; Isa 10:10; Psa 21:9. Ahab is so conscience stricken by the sudden apparition of Elijah, whom in all probability he had not seen or heard of since “the day of Carmel,” and by his appearance on the scene at the very moment when he was entering on the fruit of his misdoing,” in the very blossom of his sin,” that he feels that judgment is already begun], O mine enemy? [No doubt the thought was present in Ahab’s mind that Elijah had ever been opposed to him and thwarting him, but he does not dream (Von Gerlach, in Bhr) of justifying himself by ascribing Elijah’s intervention to personal hatred towards himself. The sequel shows that he was thoroughly conscious of wrong-doing.] And he answered, I have found thee: because [not because I am thine enemy, but because] thou has sold thyself [or sellest thyself, i.e; surrenderest thyself wholly. The idea is clearly derived from the institutions of slavery, according to which the bondservant was wholly at his master’s disposal and was bound to accomplish his will. Whether “the practice of men selling themselves into slavery” (Rawlinson) existed in that age may perhaps be doubted. We have the same thought in 2Ki 17:17, and Rom 7:14] to work evil in the sight of the Lord. [We can readily gather from these words why the doom was denounced against Ahab, who had but a secondary share in the crime, rather than against Jezebel, its real perpetrator. It was because Ahab was the representative of God, God’s minister of justice, etc. If he had not himself devised the death of Naboth; if he had, which is possible, remained in ignorance of the means by which Jezebel proposed to procure him the vineyard, he had nevertheless readily and gladly acquiesced in her infamous crime after its accomplishment, and was then reaping its fruits. And because he was the king, the judge, who, instead of punishing the evil doer, sanctioned and approved the deed, and who crowned a reign of idolatries and abominations with this shameful murder, the prophetic sentence is directed primarily against him.]
1Ki 21:21
Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and will take away thy posterity [Heb. exterminate after thee. See note on 1Ki 14:10. Ahab knew well the meaning of these words. He had before him the examples of Baasha and Zimri], and will cut off from Ahab [Heb. to Ahab] him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel [see on 1Ki 14:10].
1Ki 21:22
And will make thine house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat [cf. 1Ki 15:29], and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah [1Ki 16:3, 1Ki 16:11], for[ used in the sense of , as elsewhere] the provocation wherewith thou hast provoked me to anger [1Ki 14:9; 1Ki 16:7, etc.], and made Israel to sin.
1Ki 21:23
And of Jezebel [Heb. to Jezebel. LXX. . But we cannot be sure that she also received a message of doom Elijah, as : like after verbs of from speaking sometimes has the meaning of, concerning. Cf. Gen 20:13; Psa 3:3; Jdg 9:54; 2Ki 19:32. Moreover if the denunciation had been direct, it would have run, “The dogs shall eat thee,“ etc. See also 2Ki 19:27] also spake the Lord [Probably at the same time. Certainly by the same prophet (2Ki 9:1-37 :86). Elijah’s words to Ahab appear to he only partially recorded (ib; 2Ki 19:26)], saying, The dogs shall eat Jezebel [see on 1Ki 14:11] by the wall [. same word as , is used of the strength and defences of a town, sc. its fortifications, and especially of the ditch or moat before them. Cf. 2Sa 20:15. The LXX. render by or , the Vulgate by antemurale. “There is always in Oriental towns a space outside the walls which lies uncultivated and which is naturally used for the deposit of refuse of every kind. Here the dogs prowl, and the kites and vultures find many a feast” (Rawlinson). In 2Sa 21:12 we find the bodies of Saul and Jonathan impaled in the open space (A.V. “street”) of Bethshean. This heap of refusefor such the place soon be-comesis called in the Arabian Nights “the mounds” (Stanley)] of Jezreel. [Retribution should overtake her near the scene of her latest crime (2Ki 9:36). By this the just judgment of God would be made the more conspicuous.
1Ki 21:24
Him that dieth of Ahab in the city the dogs shall eat; and him that dieth in the fields shall the fowls of the air eat. [See on 1Ki 14:11; 1Ki 16:4. Stanley, forgetting that the phrase is almost a formula, thinks that “the large vultures which in Eastern climes are always wheeling aloft under the clear blue sky doubtless suggested the expression to the prophet.” “The horizon was darkened with the visions of vultures glutting on the carcases of the dead, and the packs of savage dogs feeding on their remains, or lapping up their blood.”]
1Ki 21:25
But [Heb. Only] there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord [as in verse 20], whom Jezebel his wife stirred up [or as Marg; incited, instigated and urged to sin. Cf. Deu 13:7 Hebrews; Job 36:18].
1Ki 21:26
And he did very abominably in following idols [Heb. to go after the idols. For the last word see on 1Ki 15:12], according to an things as did the Amorites. [Heb. the Amoritethe word is always singularhere put as a nomen generale for the seven nations of Canaan. Cf. Gen 15:16; 2Ki 21:11; Eze 16:8; Amo 2:9, Amo 2:10. Strictly the term Amorite, i.e; Highlander, is in contrast with Canaanite, i.e; dwellers in the lowlands; see Num 13:29; Jos 5:1. But the word is used interchangeably with Canaanite (cf. Deu 1:44 with Num 14:45, and Jdg 1:10 with Gen 13:8), Hittites (Jdg 1:10 with Gen 23:2, Gen 23:3, Gen 23:10), Hivites (Gen 48:22 with Gen 34:2), and Jebusites (Jos 10:5, Jos 10:6, with Jos 17:1-18 :63, etc.) The ethnical and geographical ideas of the Jews were never very precise. The idolatries of the seven nations had lingered, as we might expect, amongst the Zidonians, whence they were reintroduced into the kingdom of Samariaone fruit of disobedience to the command of Deu 7:1-5, etc.], whom the Lord cast out before the children of Israel [Deu 2:34; Deu 3:8, Deu 3:8, etc.]
1Ki 21:27
And it came to pass, when Ahab heard those [Heb. these] words [verses 21-24, and others not recorded], that he rent his clothes [cf. 2Sa 13:19; Job 1:20; Job 2:12; Jer 36:24, etc.], and put sackcloth upon his flesh [1Ki 20:31; 2Ki 6:1-33 :80; Joe 1:8; 2Sa 21:10, Heb.], and fasted, and lay [i.e; slept] in sackcloth, and went softly. [All these were signs of contrition and humiliation (verse 29). The “going softly”Josephus says he went barefootis especially characteristic of the subdued and chastened mind.]
1Ki 21:28
And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, [It is not clear that this mitigation of the sentence was announced to Ahab],
1Ki 21:29
Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me? [The repentance, if it was not profound, or enduring, was nevertheless, while it lasted, sincere. The Searcher of hearts saw in it a genuine self-abasement. And “He will not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax;” Isa 42:3; Mat 12:20.] Because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil [There is a manifest reference to Mat 12:21, where the same words are used] in his days; but in his son’s days [There is no injustice hereno threat of punishment against the innocent instead of the guiltyas might at first sight appear. For in the first place, God knew well what the son would be, and in the second place, if the son had departed from his father’s sins he would have been spared (Eze 18:14 sqq.); the sentence would have been revoked. Judgment was deferred to give the house of Ahab another chance. When Ahab lapsed into sin, he suffered in his own person: when his sons persisted in sin, excision befell the family] will I bring the evil [Mat 12:19] upon his house [Mat 12:22],
HOMILETICS
1Ki 21:1-15
The Martyrdom of Naboth.
History tells of few crimes of its kind more flagitious, more cruel and cold-blooded than this. Here we see that spectacle which one of the ancients said was dear to the godsa just man suffering shameful wrongs with dignity and patience: we see a man because of his fidelity to God and His law judicially done to death by the representative of God, by the authority appointed to execute the Law.
And just as the crime has few parallels, so has the history few equals in point of graphic force and quiet pathos. It is like one of those sketches by the hand of a master, which set us wondering to see how much effect can be produced, and how much meaning conveyed, by a few broad lines and touches. We see in the first place the king, from his palace lattices, or from his garden slopes, casting hungry, envious eyes on the rich vineyard of his neighbour. He must have it at any cost. The residence is incomplete without it. We then hear him making overtures to the sturdy owner. There is a smile upon his face. His words are smoother than butter. Nothing could be fairer, as it seems at first, than his proposals. Surely Naboth will do well to sell or exchange on such liberal terms as these. But we find him straightway shrinking in pious horror from the idea. There is nothing to soften or modify his blunt and abrupt refusal. He cannot, he will not, do this thing and sin against God. We see a cloud of vexation gather on the king’s brow. He is foiled. The project on which he has set his heart he cannot realize. With a mortified scowl, a look in which suppressed rage and bitter disappointment are equally blended, he terminates the interview and hurries to his palace, while Naboth, strong in the consciousness of right, but not without misgivings as to the issue, goes to tell his story to his wife and children at home.
And now the scene changes. We are admitted to a room, a bedroom of the palace of Samaria. We see on an ivory couch, in an ivory house (1Ki 22:29), or in a chamber celled with cedar, and painted with vermilion (Jer 22:14), a man whose soul is so vexed and troubled that he can eat no bread, that he has a word for no one, but turns his face sullenly to the wall. Can this be the king of Israel? can this be Ahab, whose recent victories over the Syrians have rung through many lands? It is Ahab indeed. The great conqueror is a slave to himself. By his side there stands his dark, malignant, Phoenician consort. We hear his pitiful, almost childish, complaint, that he cannot have the vineyard he so much covets, and we straightway see a look of something like scorn upon her face. We hear her almost contemptuous rejoinder, “Art thou, then, so helpless, so utterly without resources, as to lie here and grieve like a spoilt child? Is it for nothing that thou art a king, or art thou king in name only? If thou art baffled, I am not. Arise, and eat bread. Banish dull care and give thyself up to feasting. I will give thee the vineyard of this wretched peasant.”
The next tableau introduces us to another chamber of this same royal residence. The king may keep his bed if he will, but the queen is up and doing. The scribes are now writing at her command. She it is who dictates the words, who stamps the writings with the king’s seal. The scribe’s hand may well tremble as he pens the infamous decree, for the letter consigns Naboth to death; but she knows no fear, has no scruples. The letters are despatched, the royal posts carry their sealed orders to Jezreel, and the murderess sits down to eat and drink, and rises up to play.
Again the scene changes. We find ourselves in s village convocation. The elders of Jezreel, the officers of the royal borough, have proclaimed a fast. Their town has incurred the wrath of God, and they must find out and expiate the sin. Naboth is there. He fears this meeting bodes him no good, but he is compelled to attend. He finds himself, to his great surprise, set “at the head of the people.” But who shall picture the astonishment and pain in this man’s face, when there rise up in that assembly, two miserable varlets who swear that he, Naboth, the humble servant of the Lord, the man who has honestly striven to keep the law, even against his king, has committed a horrible breach of law, has blasphemed God and the anointed of God. He thinks, perchance, at the first, that the charge is so utterly reckless and improbable, that none of these his neighbours, who know him so well, and have known him from his youth up, will entertain it for a moment. But he is speedily undeceived. He finds that he has not a chance with them, that all steel their faces and hearts against him. He perceives that there is a conspiracy against him. In vain he protests his innocence; in vain he appeals to his blameless life. His cries and those of his wife and children are alike unheeded. In a trice he is condemned to die the death of the blasphemer.
And now we find ourselves hurried along by a tumultuous crowd. We pass through the city gate, we reach the open space outside the walls. So far, Naboth has hardly realized that they are in earnest, so suddenly has the thing come upon him. Surely it is some grim jest that his neighbours play upon him. It cannot be that he is to die, to look for the last time on the faces of those he loves, on his native fields, on the blessed light of the sun. But if he has any lingering hopes of deliverance they are rapidly dispelled. He sees them making preparations for his execution. They are going to stone him on the spot. “O God in heaven!” he thinks, “is it for this I have kept Thy law? Is this agony and death the reward of mine integrity? Must I then die, when life is so sweet! Is there no power to rescue me out of the jaws of the lion? Has God forgotten me? or will He look on it and require it?” (2Ch 24:22.) It is true the history says nothing of any such thoughts, of any prayers, appeals, entreaties, threatenings; but the history, it must be remembered, is but an outline, and that outline it is left for us to fill up. And we cannot doubt that Naboth had some such thoughts as these. But whatever they were, they were speedily brought to a close. “The king’s business required haste.” Time for reflection would mean time for repentance. The witnesses speedily divest themselves of their abbas; they lay them down at the feet of the elders; they take up stones and rush upon him. At the first blow he quivers from head to foot with a great throb of pain, but blow follows fast upon blow; he sinks senseless; the blood streams from his wounds; the dear life is crushed out of him, and Naboth’s name and the names of his sons are added to those on the glory roll of the noble army of martyrs.
But it is now for us to ask what led to this shameful deed. There were five parties to this tragedyNaboth, the king, the queen, the elders, the witnesses. Let us see how each of these contributed, though in very different ways, to diabolical result. We shall thus see how Naboth, who was murdered in the name of law and religion, was a martyr to law and religion. And let us consider
1. The piety of Naboth. For it was his religion brought this doom upon his head. He had but to comply with the request of the kingand what loyal subject would not wish to gratify the Lord’s anointed?and all would have gone well. So far from being stoned, he would have been honoured and rewarded. And that request seemed so reasonable. There was no attempt at robbery or confiscation. The king offered an ample equivalent; a better vineyard than it, or bars of silver which could buy a better. Was he not perverse and wrong headed to let a scruple stand in the way? We should not have done so. No; but is not that precisely because we have not the steadfast piety of Naboth? There is no reason to think that he was not loyal. Doubtless he would have been glad to oblige his king. But there were two considerations stood in the way. First, his duty to God; secondly, his duty to his forefathers and to his posterity. His duty to God. For God’s law said, “The land shall not be sold forever” (Le 25:2-3); it laid down that every child of Israel should “cleave to the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers” (Num 36:7). And Naboth knew this, and Ahab knew it. But to the latter the law was a dead letter; to the former it was a living reality. To him there was no God but one, no will to be considered in comparison with His. If Naboth could but have consented to do as others had done (1Ki 16:24), he would have kept his life. But he could not. He “did not fear loss, but sin.” It was a crime against Jehovah, and he would not consent. Moreover it wasthough perhaps this thought had comparatively little influence with hima wrong to his ancestors and to his posterity. For generations past, ever since it was allotted to his first father, had that vineyard been in his family. It had been transmitted through a long line to him. It was his duty to transmit it intact to those who came after him, and he would do it. It was for these reasonssentimental reasons some would call themthat Naboth died, because of his belief in a living God, and because he kept His law, and especially the first and fifth commandments of the Decalogue.
2. The impiety of Ahab. Just as the action of Naboth arose out of his belief, so did that of Ahab spring out of his practical unbeliefan apt illustration of the close connexion between our faith and our practice. This crime had its beginning, its fons et origo, in idolatry. It was because Ahab worshipped gods many and lords many that his allegiance to the Divine law was shaken. The law of Baal, he argued, did not forbid the alienation of landwhy should the law of Jehovah? The root of this sin, therefore, like the root of all sin, was unbelief. And its blossom was a direct violation of the Decalogue. Out of the breach of the first commandment sprang violations of the sixth, eighth, ninth, and tenth. Just as Naboth, the believer in the one true God, stands out conspicuously as a keeper of the ten words, so do all the other parties in the tragedy stand convicted of violating them. It was primarily the tenth commandment that Ahab set at nought. He had no right to set his heart upon that vineyard, which the great King had given to another. And a breach of law was the less excusable in his ease, insomuch as he was the guardian of law and was acquainted with its provisions (Deu 17:18). Of all men, he should have been the last to defy or disregard it. But it is only when we consider that when his subject, to whom he should have been an example, set him an example, and refused to participate in his sin, that then, so far from repenting and praying that the thought of his heart might be forgiven him, he mourns and repines that he was not allowed to consummate itit is only when we consider this that we realize its hue character. His was a sin against light and knowledge; a sin against his helper and benefactor (1Ki 20:13, 1Ki 20:28); a sin in spite of manifold warnings; a sin which led to blacker sin still. He coveted an evil covetousness to his house. That “love of money” was a root of false witness, of foul murder. And in this estimate of Ahab’s sin it is assumed that he neither knew nor sanctioned Jezebel’s designs. If he gave her the royal seal with the least idea of the malignant purpose to which she would apply it, he was virtually an accessory before the fact, and so was guilty of murder and robbery. And even if he was ignorant of her intentions, still the readiness with which he reaped the fruits of her crime makes him a partaker in her sin. It is a common saying that the “receiver is as bad as the thief.” And he must have known that “Jezebel could not give this vineyard with dry hands.”
3. The depravity of Jezebel. Great as Ahab’s guilt was, it was altogether eclipsed by that of his wife. At her door lies the real sin of the murder. The hands that accomplished it were not so guilty as the heart that suggested it and the mind that planned it. Ahab broke the tenth, Jezebel the sixth, eighth, ninth, and tenth commandments. Covetousness, false witness, murder, confiscation, she stands convicted of them all. But what lends its most hideous feature to her sin is the consideration that she, the sworn foe of the law of Jehovah, availed herself of its forms to compass Naboth’s death. Was ever such black-hearted ingenuity as hers? We can fancy her laughing in her sleeve at the crafty use she made of the hated system of the Jews. We can see her shaking her finger at Naboth and saying “Simple fool! thou hast stood out for the law; thou shalt have a surfeit of it this time.” It is possible that she rejoiced at the base part to which she commits the elders of Jezreel. If they will cling to their austere and gloomy creed, she will make them carry out its provisions. To this shameful murderess it added zest to her sin that she scored a triumph against the followers and the law of the God of Israel. We must also observe the evident satisfaction, the malicious triumph, with which she hears of Naboth’s death. So far from feeling the least compunction, she hurries with the good news to her husband. Her part, so far as we know, is absolutely without a parallel of all the daughters of our first mother. What name is there so deservedly infamous as hers?
4. The corruption of the elders. We may readily acquit them of liking the task entailed upon them. They could not embark on that course of crime without many qualms of conscience and secret self upbraidings. But the name of Jezebel inspired so much terror that they dared not resist her will. Their sin was, first, that they feared man more than God. It was unbelief at bottom; they had more faith in the finger of the queen than in the arm of the Almighty. They argued, as the Turkish peasant does, that the queen was near and God was a long way off. It was, secondly, that they abused their office. In defiance of law (Exo 23:2, Exo 23:6; Deu 16:19), they wrested judgment and condemned the innocent (Deu 27:19, Deu 27:25), and so they share with Jezebel the guilt of the murder. It is idle to plead the constraint put upon them, to say that they would have died had they resisted her; they should have died rather than slay the innocent. But for their complaisance, the queen might have been baffled. One might reasonably expect eldersthe “judges and officers” of the land (Deu 16:18)to answer, “We ought to obey God rather than man.” History tells of many judges who have withstood the corrupt commands of their sovereign. During the Mohammedan rule in Spain one of the caliphs took forcible possession of a field belonging to one of his subjects. This man, as a forlorn hope, stated his grievance before the kadi, a man renowned for his integrity, and the kadi promised to bring his case before the king. Loading his mule with a sack of earth which he had taken from the stolen field, he strode into the presence of the prince, and asked him to be so good as to lift the sack of earth to his shoulders. The caliph tried to comply with his request, but the burden proved too heavy for him; he could not move, still less carry, it. “Wretched man!” cried the judge, “see what thou hast done. Thou canst not carry one mule’s burden of the earth of this field of which thou hast deprived thy subject. How, then, canst thou hope to sustain the whole field on thy shoulders in the dreadful day of judgment?” The appeal was successful; the prince made immediate restitution and rewarded the judge. But nothing of this kind did the elders of Jezreel. They only feared for their skins. They argued that one or the other must die, and if so it must be Naboth. And so he died, and they bore the stain of blood upon their souls.
5. The perjury of the witnesses. It is hardly correct to describe their sin as perjury. It was much more than that. It was actual murder also. As witnesses, they had to cast the first stoneto take the principal part in the execution. Even without this they were guilty of murder, for it was upon their testimony that Naboth was condemned to die. They share with the elders, consequently, the guilt of violating the sixth and ninth commandments. But they were “sons of Belial” to begin with. They were not ministers of God; still less were they the “Lord’s anointed.” And they were but instruments in the hand of others. The elders were the hand; the queen was the head.
It is clear, then, that Naboth’s death was a true martyrdom. He died a victim to his faith in God and his obedience to law. He was a witness (), consequently, for God no less than Elijah or Elisha. Like Elijah, he was a public vindicator of the law, and he sealed his witness with his blood. He died because he would not deny it; because others, its guardians and executors, violated and abused it.
But if any deny his right to be enrolled in the army of martyrs, it only needs to compare his end with that of the protomartyr Stephen, and indeed with that of our blessed Lord. The analogy could not well be closer.
1. The same passions and influences were at work in each case. It was unbelief and pride and covetousness occasioned the death of Naboth. These were the forces arrayed against our Lord and against Stephen. Was there a coveted vineyard in one case? so there was in the other (Luk 20:14, Luk 20:15).
2. The tribunals were equally corrupt. The Sanhedrim was the counterpart of the elders; the council of Jerusalem of that of Jezreel (Mat 26:59; Act 6:12).
3. The princes of this world occasioned the death of Naboth; the princes of this world took counsel against the Christ (Act 4:26, Act 4:27), and crucified the Lord of glory (1Co 2:8).
4. The charge was the same in every case, viz; blasphemy (Mat 26:65; Act 6:13). The variation is extremely slight: “God and the king” in one case; “against Moses and God” in another (Act 6:11).
5. The charge was made in each instance by men who were conspicuously law-breakers (Joh 17:19; Act 7:58), and it was made in the name of law (Joh 19:7; Act 6:14).
6. The means used to compass the death were alike in every case, viz; false witness (Mat 26:59, Mat 26:60; Act 6:11, 18).
7. Each of these three martyrs suffered without the gate (Act 7:58 : Heb 13:12). Like Naboth, Stephen was stoned; like Naboth, our Lord would have been stoned if the Jews had had the power (Joh 18:31), and if the counsel of God had not willed otherwise (Act 4:28).
8. There is indeed one difference, and that is suggestive. The martyrs of our religion prayed for their murderers (Luk 23:34; Act 7:60); the martyrs of Judaism could only cry, “The Lord look on it and require it” (2Ch 24:22). The blood of the covenant speaks better things than the blood of Naboth.
1Ki 21:17-24
Divine Retaliation.
We have just seen Naboth martyred because of his fidelity to law; we have seen him murdered by men who in the name of law violated all the laws of God and man.
Now the dispensation under which these men lived promised a present recompense, a temporal reward, to obedience, and it denounced temporal punishment against “every transgression and disobedience.” We may imagine, consequently, how this tragedy would strike the men of that age. They would see in it a direct failure of justice. They would ask whether there was a God that judgeth in the earth. They would look, and especially the God-fearing amongst them, in utter perplexity and distress on this conspicuous instance of the triumph of force and wrong. “What is the Almighty,” they would be tempted to ask,” that we should serve him? and what profit should we have if we pray unto him?” (Job 21:15.) They would be tempted to think that “in keeping of his commandments there was no reward; yes, even tempted to say in their hearts, “There is no God” (Psa 53:1).
It would have been strange, therefore, if such a red-handed, cold-blooded murder had passed unnoticed and unavenged; if the dogs had been left to feast on the remains of Naboth, and Ahab had been suffered to enter on his vineyard without protest. But this was not to be. The men of Jezreel had not seen the last act in the tragedy. They must learn that “no reckoning is brought in the midst of the meal; the end pays for all;” they must be taught to count no man happy before his death. They must be reminded that there is a prophet in Israel, and a God of Israel who will by no means clear the guilty. And so Elijah, the great restorer of the law, stands forth to avenge the death of Naboth, the law-keeper, at the hands of law-breakers.
“Arise, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth, which he refused to give thee for money, for Naboth is not alive, but dead. Did the king stop. to ask how this death had been brought about? Did he know the shameful crime that had been committed in his name, and under his palace walls? He must have known something of it, if not all. Even if he thought it prudent to ask no questions, still he would remember the significant promise of 1Ki 21:7; he would have some suspicions of the purpose for which the royal seal was required; and it would be clear to him, even if he did not know the exact circumstances, that somehow Jezebel had compassed Naboth’s death. It was clear to him that this vineyard was bought at the price of blood.
But he will not let such considerations as these hinder his enjoyment of it. All he thinks of or cares for is this, that the vineyard is his and he can enter upon it at once. He will enter upon it at once. His chariot shall bear him to the spot. He will view his new property that day; he will begin his garden of herbs forthwith.
The citizens of Jezreel, the “elders,” and “children of Belial” amongst them, see the royal chariot crossing the plain, breasting the hill, entering the city. They know full well what is its destination. There is hardly a child in the city but guesses the king’s errand. It causes them no surprise when the chariot and its escort pass on to the vineyard of Naboth. But they shall learn, and through them all Israel shall learn, that there is a just God in heaven, and that even the king is responsible to a Higher Power; and they shall know that God Himself is against the evildoer, and shall render to every man according to his works (Pro 24:12; Mat 16:27; 2Ti 4:14).
For who is this that strides up to the king as he stands in the coveted vineyard, and shapes his projects concerning it? It is a prophetthe dress proves that; a glance shows that it is the dreaded, mysterious prophet Elijah. “Behold Elijah” (1Ki 18:8, 1Ki 18:11) is on their lips. Whence has he come? Since the day of Carmel he has been hidden from their view. They had often wondered why he had so suddenly disappeared; whether he was still alive; whether the Spirit had cast him upon some mountain or into some valley (2Ki 2:16); whether he was hiding among foreigners as he had done before. And now he is amongst them again. And Jehu and Bidkar at least (2Ki 9:25), and probably others with them, presently understand the reason of his sudden reappearance. “Hast thou killed,” he thunders forth, “and also taken possession?” They see the guilty look on Ahab’s face; they note his ashy paleness; they observe how he trembles helplessly from head to foot. Then they hear the terrible doomand their ears tingle, as Elijah’s impassioned words fall upon them”Thus saith the Lord, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Jezebel shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine.” They hear, and Ahab hears, that for him a death as cruel and shameful as Naboth’s is reserved; that, king though he is, he shall come to the dogs at the last. But more: they presently learn that for his children, born in the purple and delicately nurtured, there remains a reckoning; that their blood must be shed, their bodies torn of beasts, like those of Naboth’s sons. Nor shall proud Jezebel, the prime mover in this murder, escape. In the open space before the city wall the dogs which devoured the flesh of Naboth shall feast upon her dead body. All this was spoken in the broad day, before king and retinue, by a prophet whose words had never fallen to the ground. The king is found out; he is taken red-handed in the blossoms of his sin, Yesterday the crime, today the sentence. We may compare the feelings of that group standing in the vineyard with those of that surging crowd who saw Robespierre standing under the guillotine to which he had consigned so many. hundreds of Frenchmen. “Aye, Robespierre, there is a God.” We may imagine how they stood for a while transfixed to the spot; how, when Elijah had hurled his words at the king, he strode away and left them to rankle in his mind. But the thing was not done in a corner, and it could not be kept secret. As the chariot returns to Samaria the townsman in the street, the peasant in the field, perceive that something untoward has happened. The news of Elijah’s reappearance spreads like wildfire; his scathing words are passed from lip to lip; every town and hamlet soon knows that Naboth is avenged; it knows that with what measure king and queen meted to him it shall be measured to them again.
The lessons which this public manifestation of the righteous judgment of God had for the men of that age, and some of which it has still, may be briefly stated in the words of Scripture. Among them are these:
1. “The eyes of the Lord are in every place beholding the evil and the good” (Pro 15:3); God doth know, and there is knowledge in the Most High (Psa 73:11; cf. Psa 11:4).
2. “Verily there is a reward for the righteous; verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth” (Psa 58:11). “Thou beholdest mischief and spite, to requite it with thy hand” (Psa 10:14).
3. “Be sure your sin will find you out” (Num 32:23).
4. “Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished” (Pro 11:21).
5. “I will come near to you in judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord” (Mal 3:5).
6. “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed” (Gen 9:6).
7. “Life for life, eye for eye, tooth, for tooth, hand or hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe” (Exo 21:23-25). “God loves to punish by retaliation” (Hall),
1Ki 21:28, 1Ki 21:29
Divine Relentings.
If we were to seek the Scriptures through for a proof that God’s “property is always to have mercy,” and that judgment is His strange work, where should we find a more striking and eminent one than in this relenting towards Ahab? Consider –
I. AHAB‘S SIN. In this respect” there was none like him.” He “sold himself to work wickedness.” It was not because of Naboth’s murder alone that the sentence of 1Ki 21:19-22 was pronounced against him; it was for the varied and accumulated sins of a reign of twenty years. Among these were –
1. The sin of schism. He continued the calf worship (1Ki 16:1-34 :81). He kept “the statutes of Omri.” Despite the warnings of prophets and of history, he maintained the shrines, sacrifices, priests, of Bethel and Daniel
2. The sin of his marriage. “Was it a light thing to walk in the way of Jeroboam that he must take to wife Jezebel” (1Ki 15:31 Hebrews), in direct violation of the law (Deu 7:1-3), in disregard of the example of Solomon? To place such a woman, daughter of such a house, on the throne of Israel was to insult the true religion, and to court its overthrow.
3. The sin of idolatry. (1Ki 16:32.) Samaria had its house of Baal, its altar for Baal. He did very abominably in following idols (1Ki 21:26).
4. The sin of impurity. This was involved, as we have already remarked, in the idolatry of that age. “Ahab made an Asherah” (1Ki 16:32). Indeed, it is to the impurities of Canaanitish worship that the words just cited (verse 26) refer. The abominations of the Amorites are not to be named amongst Christians.
5. The sin of persecuting the prophets. It is very possible that Ahab himself was no persecutor, but Jezebel was, and he should have restrained her (1Sa 3:18). He was directly responsible for her deeds. She owed her power, place, and influence to him.
6. The sin of releasing the persecutor of God’s people. The pardon and favour he accorded to Ben-hadad are mentioned as a part of the provocation wherewith he provoked the Lord (1Ki 20:42). It sprang out of his forgetting God. He ignored altogether God’s will and pleasure in the matter. See p. 492.
7. The sin of slaying Naboth and his sons. For with this crime Ahab is charged. “Hast thou killed?” I have seen yesterday the blood of Naboth; and I will requite thee” (2Ki 9:26). Perhaps he flattered himself that that sin lay at Jezebel’s door. If so, he is soon undeceived.
Such was Ahab’s sevenfold sin. Consider
II. ITS AGGRAVATIONS. It enhanced his guilt that
1. He was the Lord’s anointed. He was the head of the Jewish Church. Fidei Defensorthis was the highest function of a true king of Israel. His very position reminded him of the gracious and marvellous history of his fathers. To him it was granted to be the representative of heaven to the chosen people. How great the sin when the champion of the faith became its oppressor, when the “nursing father” of the Church depraved and prostituted it.
2. He had witnessed miracles. The drought, the fire, the rain, all these signs and tokens had been wrought in his presence. Unto him they were showed that he might know that the Lord He was God (Deu 4:35, Deu 4:36; cf. 1Ki 18:39). Did ever king hear the voice of God as he had done?
3. He had been miraculously helped and delivered. Cf. 2Ch 26:15. If he gave no heed to the signs, he should have been moved by the victories God had granted him. These were plain proofs that the Lord alone was God (1Ki 20:13, 1Ki 20:28). But neither plagues, nor signs, nor victories moved that rebellious heart. He is scarce home from his Syrian compaigns, to enjoy the fruit of his success, than he lends himself to fresh sin, to murder and oppression, He, the executor and guardian of law, connives at the murder of a law-abiding subject. Let us now consider
III. HIS REPENTANCE. Now that he is found out and denounced, like Felix, he trembles. As Elijah stands over him, and announces the doom of his house, he sees a horrible vision of blood and slaughter. The garden of herbs he has pictured dies away from his view. He sees in its stead his own mangled body cast into the plot of ground where he was then standing. He sees his hands, his feet, his face gnawed by the curs of the adjoining city. He sees his proud consort stripped of her silk attire, suffering a like indignity in the neighbouring ditch. He sees his children, the fruit of his body, stretched in the streets of the town, or in the open champaign, a feast for the jackal and the carrion crow. “Like the house of Jeroboam,” “like the house of Baasha,” he knew the horrors involved in these words. A horrible dread overwhelms him. He is smitten by sudden compunction. He must get away from this cursed spot at once. He might then have justly said to his charioteer, “Turn thine hand and carry me away, for I am wounded” (1Ki 22:34). An arrow from Elijah’s lips has pierced his harness through. He mounts his chariot, it bears him through the plain, bears him to his palaceno longer “heavy and displeased,” but utterly crushed and terrified. Again he steals to his bedchamber, and turns his face to the wall and eats no bread. In vain the queen assays to laugh him out of his fears. No instruments of music can charm his melancholy, no physicians can minister to that mind diseased. He cannot banish that vision from his thoughts. It haunts him like a nightmare. Can he not avert the doom? Can he not make his peace with Heaven? He has but lately forgiven cruel and persistent enemy; is there no forgiveness for him? He will make the effort. He too will “gird sackcloth on his loins, and put a rope on his head,” and go to the great king of Israel. He rises from his couch a sadder and a wiser man. He rends his kingly robes and casts them from him; he assumes the garment of humiliation, he fasts, he prays, he goes softly. It is true his penitence was neither profound nor enduring (1Ki 22:8, 1Ki 22:26), but it was undoubtedly
1. Sincere while it lasted. It is a mistake to call it the “shadow of a repentance.” There was real contritionnot only fear of punishment, but also sorrow for his sin. We may be sure that, like a former king of Israel, his cry was, “I have sinned against the Lord” (2Sa 12:13).
2. Open and public. His queen, his courtiers, saw the sackcloth, marked the hushed voice, the downcast eye, and knew what it meant (verse 29). “Seest thou how Ahab?” etc; implies that it was notorious. The crime was known of all men; the sorrow and humiliation must be the same.
3. Marked by restitution. The Scripture does not say so, but it does not need to say so. There could be no real repentance, certainly no relenting, on God’s part so long as Ahab kept the vineyard. His prayers would have been unheeded so long as there was a lie in his right hand. A “penitent thief” has always restored the theft. Ahab could not recall Naboth to life. But he could surrender the vineyard to the widow, and we may be sure he did so.
But this repentance, this self abasement was observed, was carefully watched outside the palace. As day by day, with contrite heart and bowed head and soft footstep, the miserable king moved among his retainers, the merciful God and Father of the spirits of all flesh beheld his returning prodigal, yearned over him, ran to meet him. He who will not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking wick welcomed the first faint tokens of contrition. The sentence of doom shall be deferred. The same voice which just now thundered, “Hast thou killed?” etc; is now hushed into tenderness. “Seest thou,” it says, “seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me? Because,” etc. (verse 29). Ahab receives
IV. PARDON. And this pardon, it is to be observed, was
1. Instant. The rebellion had lasted for years. The forgiveness follows on the heels of repentance. While he was speaking God heard. Cf. Dan 10:12.
2. Free and full. If Ahab’s repentance, that is to say, had been lasting, the sentence would have been reversed so far as he was concerned. It was not finally reversed because of his subsequent sin and that of his sons. The guilt of innocent blood, no doubt, could only be purged by the blood of him that shed it (Num 35:33), and it is to be remembered that Jezebel was never included in the pardon. But it is probable that God, to “show forth all long-suffering,” would have spared the king and his sons, if they had turned from their evil way.
3. Conditional. “Dum se bere gesserit.” This provision is always understood, if not expressed.
4. Forfeited. When Ahab turned like a dog to his vomit, then the sword which had been sheathed awhile leapt again from its scabbard, and he was suddenly destroyed, and that without remedy.
HOMILIES BY J.A. MACDONALD
1Ki 21:1-4
Covetousness.
Amongst the arguments used by Samuel to discourage the people of Israel from desiring a king, he said, “He will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your olive yards, even the best of them.” We have in the verses before us a notable example of the truth of this forecast, understanding covetousness in a bad sense.
I. DESIRE, IN THE ABSTRACT, IS NOT COVETOUSNESS.
1. It is the principle of exchanges.
(1) If persons had no desire to possess anything beyond what they have acquired, there would be no motive to trade. Of the virtuous woman it is said, “She considereth a field and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard” (Pro 31:16).
(2) All commerce is founded upon the desire to make exchanges.
2. But commerce is fruitful in blessings.
(1) There are evils connected with trading, viz; where dishonest practices come into it. But these are intrusions; and they are denounced as “illegitimate” and “uncommercial.”
(2) Genuine commerce gives profitable employment to thought and labour.
(3) It brings the countries and peoples of the wide world into correspondence. Thereby it enlarges our knowledge of those countries, their peoples and products, and other. wise stimulates science.
(4) It encourages philanthropy. Relief is afforded for distresses through famines, floods, fires, earthquakes; and religious missions are organized.
3. Desire, well directed, should be encouraged.
(1) To be absolutely without desire for things evil would be a happy state. Therefore this state should be earnestly desired.
(2) There is also the positive desire to be Christ like. This can scarcely be too vehement.
(3) Ahab does not seem to have signalized himself in either of these directions.
II. ILLICIT DESIRE IS COVETOUSNESS.
1. We should not desire what God has forbidden.
(1) Herein Ahab was wrong in desiring the vineyard of Naboth. It was the “inheritance of his fathers,” transmitted in the family of Naboth, from the days of Joshua, and it would have been unlawful for him to part with it (Le 25:23; Num 36:7).
(2) Ahab was wrong in tempting Naboth to trangress the commandment of the Lord. He should never have encouraged a desire, the gratification of which would involve such a consequence.
(3) It was a pious act in Naboth, who, doubtless in things lawful would be pleased to gratify the king, to have indignantly refused to gratify him here. “The Lord forbid it me that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee.” He had his tenure from the Lord. He looked upon his earthly inheritance as a pledge of a heavenly.
2. This rule requires the study of God’s word.
(1) It is of the utmost moment to us to be acquainted with the will of God. This he has revealed in the Scriptures.
(2) In cases of transgression we cannot plead ignorance when we have the Bible in our hands. Neither can we shift now our responsibility on to our teachers.
(3) Do we make proper use of our Bibles? Do we study them? Do we read them prayerfully? We must not sell the moral inheritance we have received from the past.
III. INORDINATE DESIRE IS COVETOUSNESS. Some things are lawful without limit. Such are the direct claims of God.
(1) The love of God. We may love Him with all our heart. We cannot love Him too much, or too much desire His love.
(2) The service of God. This, indeed, is another form of love; for love expresses itself in service (Joh 14:15, Joh 14:23; Rom 13:10; Gal 5:14; 1Jn 5:3).
(3) The knowledge of God. To love and serve God perfectly we must have a perfect knowledge of Him according to our capacity. We cannot too ardently desire this knowledge.
(4) If Ahab had loved, served, and known God with perfect desire, he would have found such satisfaction as to have rendered it impossible for him to have sulked as he did because he could not obtain Naboth’s vineyard. When God is absent there is a restless void; nothing can satisfy an unholy spirit.
2. Other things are lawful in measure.
(1) Otherwise they would interfere with the direct claims of God. The creature must not be put into competition with the Creator. “Thou shalt have none other gods beside me.”
(2) Desire for sensible and temporal things must not displace the desire for things spiritual and eternal. To love the inferior preferably to the superior is to deprave the affections.
(3) It would have been lawful for Ahab to have purchased a lease of the vineyard of Naboth at a fair price, leaving it in the power of Naboth to have redeemed it; and for it to revert to Naboth or his heirs in the jubilee (Le 25:23-28). But this desire to possess it, even under these conditions, could not be justified if a refusal should lead him to go home “heavy and displeased” and sicken with chagrin. Ahab’s discontent brought its own punishment. He was a king, yet discontented. Discontent is a disease of the soul rather than of the circumstances.J.A.M.
1Ki 21:5-14
A Sinful Nation.
Time was when the Hebrew nation was great and respected, “a praise in the earth” for kings wise and honourable, for magistrates upright and noble, and for a people faithful and true. But how completely is all this changed! A more pitiable picture of national depravity could scarcely be drawn than that presented in the text. Here we have
I. AN INIQUITOUS PALACE.
1. The king is utterly unprincipled.
(1) See him “heavy and displeased,” sick with rage and chagrin, lying in bed in a sulk, his face turned away, refusing to eat. And what for? What dreadful calamity has befallen him? Simply that he could not have the vineyard of Naboth for a garden of herbs!
(2) But, to make things worse, he could not have it without inducing Naboth to transgress God’s law (see Le 25:28). Naboth had too much respect for the law to yield. Ahab was really sulking against God I
(3) What model king is this I How could he expect his subjects to be law-abiding when he showed them this example? What a royal soul to take it thus to heart that in addition to his kingdom he cannot have this vineyard!
2. His queen is a “cursed woman.”
(1) Such is the style in which she is described by Jehu (2Ki 9:34). She seems never to have failed in any incident of her life to justify this description.
(2) Now she promises to give Ahab the vineyard of Naboth. Thus she encouraged his evil humour, instead of pointing out to him, as she should have done, his folly.
(3) She will accomplish this by an act of cruel and treacherous despotism scarcely to be paralleled in history (1Ki 21:8-10). She makes her pliant husband her accomplice, using, with his consent, his seal of state, as probably she had done before when she destroyed the prophets of the Lord (1Ki 18:4), to give authority to the missive of death. She engaged in this business all the more readily because Naboth appears to have been one of the “seven thousand” who would not bend to Baal.
II. AN UNSCRUPULOUS MAGISTRACY.
1. Their servility is horrible.
(1) Not voice of any noble or elder in Jezreel is raised in protest against the order from the palace to have Naboth murdered. With eyes wide openfor the sons of Belial are not found for them; they have themselves to procure these wretchesthey proceed to give effect to the dreadful tragedy.
(2) What motive can influence them? They are afraid of Jezebel. They knew her power over Ahab, and they knew the cruelty and vindictiveness of her nature was nerved by more than masculine resolution.
(3) But where was their fear of God?
2. It is aggravated by treachery.
(1) Naboth was one of their number. Is not this suggested in the words, “the elders and nobles that were in the city, dwelling with Naboth“! Then is there no voice of neighbourly friendship to speak for Naboth? No voice is raised.
(2) If one voice found courage surely others would take courage, and it might be found in the sequel that the sense of justice would be represented by such numbers and influence that even Jezebel might hesitate to reek vengeance upon them. But not a voice was raised.
3. The treachery is aggravated by hypocrisy.
(1) The tragedy opens with a fast. This is proclaimed ostensibly to avert from the nation the judgments of God supposed to have been provoked by the crimes of Naboth. How much more fitting had it been proclaimed to avert the judgment provoked by the crimes of Naboth’s murderers!
(2) The accusation is, “Thou didst blaspheme God and the King”, ( ), which by some is rendered, “Thou hast blessed the false gods and Molech.” Parkhurst says, “The Lexicons have absurdly, and contrary to the authority of the ancient versions, given to this verb () the sense of cursing in the six following passages: 1Ki 21:10, 1Ki 21:13; Job 1:5, Job 1:11; Job 2:5, Job 2:9. As to the two first, the LXX. render in both cases by , and so the Vulgate by bendico, to bless. And though Jezebel was herself an abominable idolatress, yet, as the law of Moses still continued in force, she seems to have been wicked enough to have destroyed Naboth upon the false accusation of blessing the heathen Aleim and Molech, which subjected him to death by Deu 13:6; Deu 17:2-7.”
(3) What abominable cruelties have been perpetrated under the name of religion!
III. A DEMORALIZED PEOPLE.
1. Sons of Belial are at hand.
(1) There seems to have been no difficulty in procuring men so lost to truth and mercy that they will readily swear away the life of a good citizen. Nor is this to be wondered at when the whole magistracy are sons of Belial, no better than those they suborned. Jezebel saw no difficulty in procuring such. The nobles and elders of Jezreel found none.
(2) The sons of Belial no doubt were paid for their services. The “consideration” is not mentioned. What will not some men stoop to for gain! What will they hazard in eternity! And for what a trifle!
2. No voice is raised for justice.
(1) Naboth has no hearing in his defence. The sentence given, he is hurried away to be stoned to death.
(2) His family are sacrificed along with him (see 2Ki 9:26). This was on the principle that the family of Achan had to suffer with him (Jos 7:24). But how different are the cases!
(3) Unless the family of Naboth had perished with him, the vineyard would not have fallen to the crown. This would be an objection to Jezebel hiring sons of Belial to assassinate Naboth, for Naboth’s heirs would still have to be disposed of. Melancholy is the condition of the nation in which right is sacrificed to might. “Sin is reproach to any people.”J.A.M.
1Ki 21:15-24
Divine Inquisition.
Ahab lost no time in reaping the fruit of Jezebel’s wickedness. The next day, after the murder of Naboth and his family, we find him taking possession of the coveted vineyard (see 2Ki 9:26). But in all this dark business there was an invisible Spectator, whose presence does not seem to have been sufficiently taken into the account,
I. GOD IS AN OMNISCIENT OBSERVER.
1. He inspects all human actions.
(1) He was present in the palace looking upon the king of Israel as he sulked and sickened upon his bed. His eye also was full upon Jezebel as she proposed her ready cure for the monarch’s chagrin. “Thou God seest me.”
(2) He was present in that court of justice when the honest Naboth was “set on high among the people.” He witnessed the sons of Belial as they swore away the fives of a worthy family. He looked into the faces of the “nobles” and “eiders” of Jezreel who suborned these perjurers. “Thou God seest me.”
(3) He was a spectator at the place of execution. He saw the steadiness of Naboth’s step, and noted well the bearing of his sons as they came forth to suffer for righteousness. And the swelling of every muscle of those who hurled the stones was measured by His piercing vision. “Thou God seest me.”
2. He surveys all human motives.
(1) He clearly discerned the abominable hypocrisy of Jezebel’s “fast.” It was proclaimed ostensibly to avert from the nation Divine judgments provoked by the alleged blasphemy or idolatry of Naboth. The vineyard of Naboth had more to do with it than his crime. It is “a new thing in the earth” to see Jezebel jealous for the honour of Jehovah!
(2) He knew why the sons of Belial publicly perjured themselves, and accurately estimated the price for which they sold the lives of honourable citizens. He also estimated the cowardly fear of Jezebel’s wrath, rather than encounter which the magistrates carried out her wicked instructions. “Nobles” and “elders” they were accounted by men; perjurers, murderers, and dastards they were accounted by God.
(3) He nicely weighed the motive which nerved the muscle of every man who lifted a stone against the life of Naboth. If any were misled by the hypocrisy of the authorities, and thought they “did God service” when they cast the stones, their sincerity was recognized; and those who were not deceived were also known.
3. Nothing is forgotten before Him.
(1) As He sees the end from the beginning so does He see the beginning from the end.
(2) Let us never forget that God never can forget. Every action of our lives is present with Himso every wordso every thought and intent of the heart. Therefore
II. GOD IS A SUPREME JUDGE.
1. He makes sin bitter to the sinner.
(1) The acquisition of the vineyard, the murders notwithstanding, was at first so pleasing to Ahab that it cured his sickness, and he “rose up to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it.” And this is often the first effect of the gratification of covetousness.
(2) But how transient is the unworthy satisfaction! It is soon succeeded by a season of reflection. The sudden apparition of Elijah upon the scene filled Ahab with alarm. His conscience now brought his guilt home, and before Elijah uttered a word, the king exclaimed, “Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?” This was the language of mingled hatred and fear (see Gal 4:16). The presence of the good is a silent and effective rebuke to the wicked.
(3) The enormity of Ahab’s guilt was brought home to him by the questions, “Hast thou killed, and also taken possession?” He has killed, for by taking possession he sanctions the means by which his title is made out (see Job 31:39; Jer 22:18, Jer 22:14; Hab 2:12).
(4) God’s Holy Spirit still, by means of the word of prophecy, if not by the lips of living prophets, carries guilt to the consciences of sinners, and fills them with remorseful shame.
2. He conveys judgments in His providence. We read this principle in the denunciations uttered by Elijah.
(1) Upon Ahab. “In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine.” This was fulfilled (see 1Ki 22:38). But how “in the place?” for Naboth suffered near Jezreel. Jezreel is, generally, called Samaria, being like Bethel, one of the “cities of Samaria” (see 1Ki 13:32). So in 1Ki 21:16, the vineyard of Naboth is said to be in Samaria. The passage is more clearly thus translated: “And the word of Jehovah came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, Arise, go down to meet Ahab the king of Israel, who is in Samaria; behold, at the vineyard of Naboth, whither he is gone down to take possession of it.”
(2) Upon the family of Ahab (1Ki 21:21, 1Ki 21:22, 1Ki 21:24). This was a reprisal for the family of Naboth sacrificed with him (see 2Ki 9:26). All was to the letter accomplished (see 2Ki 9:10.)
(3) Upon Jezebel. The “cursed woman” is signally execrated (1Ki 21:23). The retribution was as signally accomplished (see 2Ki 9:36).
(4) This law of retribution in the judgments of Providence is not limited to sacred history. Orestes recognized it when he said to AEgisthus
“Go where thou slew’st my father,
That in the selfsame place thou too may’st die.”
It may be read in every full and accurate history.
3. He will finally judge the world.
(1) For Naboth and his family have yet to be vindicated. Providence has vindicated their reputation; but they have to be vindicated in person also. To this end all parties concerned in their murder will have to stand face to face, with their hearts exposed to the clear light and sensible presence of Omniscient Justice. What defence can the sons of Belial then set up? The magistrates? Jezebel? Ahab?
(2) What a day of vindications will that be to all the righteous! What a day of confusion to all the wicked! Everything will be righteously adjusted in that final sentence (Mat 25:34, Mat 25:41, Mat 25:46).J.A.M.
1Ki 21:25-29
Ahab’s Repentance.
After the terrible sentence pronounced by Elijah upon Ahab for his enormities follows this account of his repentance. The record teaches
I. THAT THERE IS REPENTANCE FOR THE VILEST.
1. Ahab answered this description.
(1) He “wrought wickedness.” So have we all. But his was evil of no common order. “He did very abominably in following idols, according to all things as did the Amorites, whom the Lord cast out before the children of Israel.” (See Gen 15:16; 2Ki 21:11.)
(2) He wrought this wickedness “in the sight of the Lord,” as the Amorites did not, for they had not the religious privileges of an Israelite. Ahab in particular had signal proofs of the presence of God. The shutting and opening of the heavens, to wit, together with the miracle on Carmel. Where much is given much is required.
(3) He had “sold himself” to work this wickedness. (See Rom 7:14.) He was slave to Jezebelslave to Satan. He drudged hard in his serfdom.
(4) None of his predecessors had gone so far wrong. “There was none like unto Ahab” (see 1Ki 16:33). Jeroboam had “made Israel to sin,” and Omri, at the instigation of Ahab, made “statutes” to confirm that sin. (See Mic 6:16.) Ahab went further, and established the worship of Baal, with its attendant abominations of Ashere. (See 1Ki 16:29-33.)
(5) He was in the worst company. He had married a “cursed woman,” and submitted to be led by her into the extremes of wickedness. “Whom Jezebel his wife stirred up.” Under her instigation he consented to a wholesale massacre of the sons of the prophets; and now she makes him her accomplice in the murder of Naboth, with its attendant atrocities.
2. Yet Ahab took God’s message to heart.
(1) He believed the terrible sentence, as he had good reason to do, for it came by the hand of Elijah. In all his former experience he had found that the word of the Lord in Elijah’s mouth was truth.
(2) Now, with his death vividly before him, and the fearful doom of his houseall the fruit of his crimesthese crimes live up again, and pass in formidable order before his eyes. (See Psa 1:1-6 :21.) Conspicuous amongst the spectres that would move before him would be those of the newly murdered Naboth with his children.
(3) This ghastly phantasmagoria would be to him a premonition of the solemnities of the final judgment in which the thousands injured, whether in body or soul, by his bad conduct and influence, would cry to God’s justice for vengeance upon the royal culprit.
3. He humbled himself accordingly.
(1) Before Jehovah. He “rent his clothes” in token of deep grief. (See Gen 37:34; Job 1:20; Ezr 9:8.) He put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly. Here were all the signs of deep contrition before God. They were symbols of the prayer of the heart for mercy.
(2) Before men. To put on sackcloth he laid aside those robes of state in which he had prided himself. Instead of moving with his former kingly tramp he now “went softly.” (Compare Isa 38:15.) He moved with the timid step of a culprit.
(3) Who will say his repentance was not genuine? God did not say so. He afterwards, indeed, professed to “hate” a faithful servant of God (1Ki 22:8). But what does this prove? Simply that he afterwards relapsed into sin. And it admonishes us not to presume upon any dogma of infallible final perseverance, but, by the help of God, to “work out our own salvation with fear and trembling.”
II. THAT THERE IS MERCY FOR THE PENITENT.
1. God observed the repentance of Ahab.
(1) He observed it before man haft. He saw its first motions in the depths of his heart. He saw the prodigal “while yet a great way off” (Luk 15:20).
(2) Doubtless He graciously encouraged these motions so that they ripened into confession. And does not the goodness of God still lead men to repentance, even the vilest?
2. He called the attention of Elijah to it.
(1) To the prophet he said, “Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me.” This was an encouragement to the man of God. His labour was not in vain. Ahab required some moral courage to humble himself before Jehovah in the presence of Jezebel.
(2) God in His goodness directs His servants to those who are penitent that they may minister words of encouragement to them. Ananias was sent to Saul (Act 9:11).
3. He extended His mercy to the supplicant.
(1) “Because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days: but in his son’s days will I bring the evil upon his house.” The mercy is not a reversal of the mischief, neither was the repentance. The mischief is done, and cannot be reversed. Early piety is therefore earnestly to be desired that the mischief of an evil life may be avoided.
(2) It was a substantial benefit nevertheless.
(a) To Ahab personally. It was something to be spared the pain of witnessing the judgments of God upon his wicked house; but, what is still more considerable, this mercy contained a promise respecting the world to come; for, and especially in prophecy, things visible are signs or portents of things spiritual.
(b) It was also a benefit to his nation. For after this, probably, came the war with Ben-hadad, in which God interposed in a very remarkable manner on behalf of His people. In the Septuagint, which translation was made from much older copies of the Hebrew Bible than any now extant, this chapter and that here before it change places; and the order in the Septuagint is also followed by Josephus.
(3) This fact is very important, for it shows also where the backsliding of Ahab commenced. It was evidently in the false mercy which he showed to Ben-hadad. After this relapse God forsook him and handed him over to evil spirits and lying prophets, who wrought his ruin. “He that endureth to the end shall be saved.”J.A.M.
HOMILIES BY A. ROWLAND
1Ki 21:1-24
The Progress of Sin.
This chapter describes one of the blackest crimes which ever blotted the page of history. The description is so graphic that we seem eyewitnesses of the tragedy, and so suggestive that we can understand the motives and feelings of the principal actors. Naboth has been blamed sometimes for refusing what appeared a reasonable request that he would sell a piece of land to his rightful king at a fair price. It is evident, however, that he was not only acting within his right, but that he could not have assented to the proposal without breaking the Divine law given by Moses. The paternal inheritance might only be sold in extreme poverty, and then on the condition that it might be redeemed at any time; and, if not previously redeemed by purchase, it reverted to the original owner at the year of jubilee (Le 25:13-28). With Naboth it was not the dictate of churlishness, but of conscience, to refuse the proposal of the king. Nor was Ahab’s guilt the less because the crime was suggested by Jezebel He might be deficient in nerve and inventiveness, but he was not in iniquity. Let us trace him in this his hideous downfall, that none of us may be “hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” Our subject is the PROGRESS OF SIN. We see here
I. POSSESSIONS LEADING TO COVETOUSNESS. His stately palace and park at Jezreel did not content him. With greedy eye he looked on this tiny plot of freehold, and resolved to have it. It is not in the power of material possessions to satisfy man. The rich man must be richer still; the large kingdom must extend itself yet further; the great business must crush the small competitors, etc. How often this leads to wrongs wrought on the poorer and weaker! “The love of money is the root of all evil.” “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of things that he possesseth.”
II. COVETOUSNESS LEADING TO DISCONTENT. “He laid himself down upon his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread.” Disappointed of that which he coveted he could find no pleasure in that which he already possessed. Show how easily a discontented habit of mind may be formed, and how it embitters everything. Thankfulness, gladness, and hope are strangled by this serpent sin. The necessity of watching against the rise of this in our children.
III. DISCONTENT LEADING TO EVIL COUNSEL (1Ki 21:7). Ahab was just in the right condition to welcome anything bad. On an ordinary occasion he might have repelled this hideous suggestion. Satan watches his opportunity. His temptations are adapted to our age, our social position, our mood of mind. What would fail today may succeed tomorrow. What the youth would spurn the old man may welcome, etc. “Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.” It is an evil thing to have a bad counsellor always near you. Let that thought guard us against unholy associates.
IV. EVIL COUNSEL LEADING TO LIES (1Ki 21:10). The fast was a hypocritical device to prepare the minds of the people for the death of Naboth. Its appointment presupposed that there was a grievous offence committed by some one, which the community was to mourn. Their suspicions would be ready to fasten on any man who was suddenly and boldly accused by two independent witnesses. The scheme was as subtle as it was sinful. Give examples of the use of deceit and lies in modern life for the purpose of making money, advancing social interests, etc. Show the sinfulness of this.
V. LIES LEADING TO MURDER (1Ki 21:18). Not only was Naboth killed, but his children also (2Ki 9:26). Hence the property would revert to the king. It was a cold-blooded murder. Few worse are recorded in history. Seldom is this most heinous crime committed until the way has been paved for it, as here, by lesser sins. Exemplify this.
VI. MURDER LEADING TO RETRIBUTION. Read Elijah’s bold and terrible denunciation of the crime on the very soil of the coveted vineyard (1Ki 21:20-24). Retribution may linger long, but it comes at last. In the light of many a startling discovery we read the words, “Be sure your sin will find you out.”
CONCLUSION.”Cleanse thou me from secret faults: keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins,” etc.A.R.
1Ki 21:27-29
Partial Penitence.
Such was the effect of Elijah’s message delivered in the vineyard of Naboth. The fearless courage of the prophet had again asserted itself, and once more the king quailed before his terrible words of denunciation. The subject is the more worthy of study because the deceitfulness of the human heart is here laid bare by “the searcher of hearts.” If we understand Ahab, we shall better understand ourselves.
I. THE DECEITFUL NATURE OF AHAB‘S HUMILIATION. We shall show that there was a mixture of the good and evil, of the true and false.
1. It originated in a true message. No phantom of his own brain, no utterance of a false prophet misled Ahab; but the declaration of a man who, as he knew by experience, spoke truly, and spoke for God. He dared not refuse credence to the message, but that his heart was unchanged was shown in his continued hatred to the messenger (1Ki 18:17; 1Ki 21:20). In all ages the word of God has been “as a fire,” and as a “hammer” (Jer 23:29). Give examples. The Ninevites, the Jews at Pentecost, etc. It has “pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe.”
2. It asserted itself in fasting and tears. These would be natural signs of distress. In themselves they were no evidence of sincerity. It is easier to put on the outward than to experience the inward. There is always danger of letting the visible supersede the invisible, though it is only of value as the honest expression of conviction, Leaves and blossoms may be tied around a dead branch, but that does not make it live. (The perils of Ritualism.) Even under the Old Dispensation this was understood. Samuel said, “To obey is better than sacrifice,” etc. David exclaimed, “Thou desirest not sacrifice,” etc. (Psa 51:16, Psa 51:17; see also Mic 6:8; Isa 1:11). Compare the words of our Lord, “Moreover when ye fast, be not as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance; for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast.”
3. It consisted in terror, not in turning. Ahab was thoroughly alarmed, but imagination rather than conscience was at work within him. He did not forsake his idols, nor give up Naboth’s vineyard, nor abandon his self confidence. See next chapter, which narrates his dealings with Micaiah. Evidently there was no change of heart or of life; nor had his present feeling any abiding influence. He was like those who are alarmed at the thought of hell, not at the thought of sin. They shrink from punishment, but not from guilt. Examples. The drunkard weeping maudlin tears over his poverty; the detected wrong doer thrown out of employment; the sinner who believes himself to be at the point of death, etc. True repentance makes us feel and act differently towards sin and towards God.
II. THE DIVINE NOTICE OF AHAB‘S HUMILIATION.
1. It did not escape the Divine search. God looks down from heaven to see if there were any that do good. He rejoices to find not the evil that must be punished, but the feeble germs of good that may be encouraged. (Compare Psa 14:2.) Even such a sinner as Ahab (1Ki 21:25) was not disregarded when he showed the faintest signs of repentance. God would foster them lovingly, as He fosters the seed sown in the warm earth. The prodigal is seen “when yet a great way off.” Even the first beginnings of righteousness were commended by our Lord: “Jesus, beholding him, loved him,” etc.
2. It led to the mitigation of the Divine punishment. Ahab’s feeling was real as far as it went. The postponement of punishment was to give opportunity for more genuine repentance. Had that revealed itself, the judgment would have been averted. Compare this with our Lord’s washing the feet of Judas, though He knew he was about to betray Him. “The goodness of God leadeth to repentance.” See how ready God is to meet those who may return to Him (Act 2:38; Joe 2:12-14). [NOTE.We ought to notice and encourage what is right even in those who are not what they should be, commending it whenever it is possible.]
3. It Jailed to win a reversal of the Divine judgment. A temporary repentance may be followed by a temporary reprieve; but final salvation must be preceded by true repentance. If the heart is not turned from sin, it cannot be turned from hell. “Godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation, not to be repented of; but the sorrow of this world worketh death.” Not only must evil be expelled, but good must enter; for if the heart is left “empty, swept, and garnished” by self-reformation, the evil spirits will return. Good must supersede evil; Christ must supplant sin; the Holy Spirit must conquer the evil spirit. (Compare Act 11:17, Act 11:18.)
A partial penitence gained reprieve, and much more will a thorough repentance gain justification. As Trapp says, “If the leaves of repentance be so medicinal, much more the fruit.”A.R.
HOMILIES BY J. URQUHART
1Ki 21:1-4
First Steps in the Path of Crime.
I. UNBRIDLED DESIRE.
1. The spirit in which Ahab came. He came down to Jezreel not to present a thank offering to God for recent deliverance, nor to inquire what might be done to meet the wishes or improve the condition of the people. Had he come thus, paths of usefulness would have opened up before him, and, instead of the dark memory of guilt, he would have left behind him blessing and praise. God and man were alike shut out, and self was set up as that which alone was to be regarded and served. Such spirit not only stands open to temptation; it invites it. Right aims shut out is half Satan’s victory.
2. How the temptation presented itself. He was about to make improvements upon the palace, and his eye fell on Naboth’s vineyard. This made into a garden of herbs would secure greater privacy and allow other improvements to be carried out. As he looked only upon his own things the advantages of the acquisition were magnified, the fire of desire was kindled and fanned into even fiercer flame. A selfish spirit is ready to be set on fire by the slightest spark of evil suggestion. There was much in God’s recent goodness, much also in the necessities of Israel, to raise Ahab above so small a care. The spirit of selfish discontent, which “never is, but always to be, blest,” makes thankfulness and service alike impossible. If it rule us we are already set in the way of sin. From the spot on which we stand a hundred dark paths branch outenvies, jealousies, falsehood, dishonest dealing, mean lying artifices, thefts, murders. When tempted to set the heart on what we have not, let us come back into the midst of the good which God has given, and say that if He see it to be best for us, that will be given too.
3. How the object was pursued. All restraints were cast aside. Ahab’s offer (1Ki 21:2) seems at first sight most generous. But it shut out of sight
(1) the ties which bound Naboth to his inheritance, and
(2) the duty he owed to God.
The Israelite could not alienate his lot even when pressed by direst necessity. It might be parted with for a time, but it returned again to its rightful owners at the year of jubilee. Ahab’s offer was a temptation to Naboth to think lightly of God’s arrangements and to despise his birthright.
II. MISDIRECTED ANGER. “Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased,” not with himself, but with Naboth. His anger was not against his sin, but against the man who had rebuked it. He might have stood and said, “I have sinned. I have abused my position. I have been caring for my own good, and not for theirs over whom God has set me.” But he took the side of his sin against the truth. He that struck at that struck him. When God meets us as He then met Ahab, we must either return humbled and penitent into the right way, or withstand Him and pass into deeper darkness.U.
1Ki 21:5-14
Sin’s friendships, and what they lead to.
I. THE SINFUL FIND MANY HELPERS. Ahab seems to have done all that he was able or cared to do. He had tempted Naboth and failed, and the matter seemed to have come to an end. But where Ahab stops, Satan’s servants meet him and carry on the work. Jezebel prevails on him to tell the story, and the elders of Jezreel and its sons of Belial are ready to do their part also, to give him his desire and steep his soul in crime. The man who is casting away means and character and health and eternal life will find friends to take the part of his worse against his better self, and agents enough to aid him in accomplishing his sinful will. It is vain to think of arresting a career of vice merely by change of place. Satan has his servants everywhere.
II. THE MISUSE OF INFLUENCE. There is much that may be admired in Jezebel’s conduct. However false she was to others, she was true to her own. With tenderness, which lends a peculiar grace to a strong, regal nature like hers, she approaches the moody monarch. Under the warm sunshine of loving sympathy the bands which bind the burden to his soul melt away. It is laid down and exposed to view. But however good the impulses which incite the wicked to action, their feet take to the paths of sin.
1. Her sympathy becomes fierce championship of wrong. There is love for Ahab, but no consideration for Naboth, and no regard to the voice of justice and of God. How much human love today is after the pattern of Jezebel’snarrow, selfish, unjust! The home is everything; the world outside has no claims, sometimes not even rights! Others are regarded with pleasure as they favour those we love; with aversion and hatred so soon as they oppose them, or even stand in their way. Homes are meant to be training schools for God’s sons and daughters, where they may learn to be patient, forbearing, less exacting, able to make allowances for difference of disposition and of judgment, and so pass out able to do a brother’s, sister’s part in the great world around them. But Jezebel’s affection frustrates God’s plan and arms the home against the world it was meant to serve.
2. She goads him on to greater sin. She blames him not for setting his heart so upon a trifle, but for letting the matter rest where it did. She reminds him of his might and Naboth’s weakness: “Dost thou now govern?” etc. How often does the sympathy of the wicked daringly recommend what the heart had feared to think, and this too with reproaches of weakness, of wrongs and slights left unavenged! Instead of quenching the fire of hate, they fan it into fiercer flame.
3. She bears him onward into crime (1Ki 21:7-10). Ahab’s very weakness would have prevented him shedding Naboth’s blood, but her subtle brain and indomitable will supply what is needful to steep his soul in guilt. How many dark stains have been in this very way fixed upon the page of history! How much genius and talent have thus served, and are serving now, the devil’s purpose!
III. THE EVIL WROUGHT BY TIME SERVERS (1Ki 21:11-15). There is nothing to relieve the baseness of the elders and nobles of Jezreel. They were not impelled by misguided affection to avenge a fancied wrong. They could not even plead ignorance. They were behind the scenes and arranged for the trial. It was murder of the deepest dyemurder done under the guise of zeal for the offended majesty of God. They had one of the grandest opportunities of shielding innocence and rebuking wickedness in high places. They had only to say they could not lend themselves to such a deed. But these do not stand alone. The greatest crimes in history have Been wrought in this very way. Is there no place today over which “Jezreel” might well be written? Are there no men and no causes frowned upon, not because that in themselves they deserve such treatment, but Because they are not in favour, and it will not pay to befriend them? Are there none who will use their influence in favour of a good cause when it is safe to do so, but who will be looked for in vain when it sorely needs to be befriended? There may be no crime wrought now in this land such as was then done in Israel; But should the time come, these are the men who will do as the elders and nobles did then. The spirit is the same, and in the like circumstances it will bear the same fruit.U.
1Ki 21:15-29
Guilt and Mercy.
I. To ENJOY THE FRUITS OF SIN IS TO TAKE ITS GUILT. “Hast thou killed?” etc. It is not said that Ahab knew of the plot. The plain inference is that he did not. Jezebel wrote to the elders, and to her the tidings were sent that the deed was done. But if Ahab did not know before, he knew after. Knowing how it had been procured he nevertheless received it, and heard as he stood there the word of the Lord: “Hast thou killed, and also taken possession?” There are men, for example, who could not pass their days in the vile drink traffic. They could not sleep at night for thought of the wives and mothers and children whose misery had pleaded in God’s sight against them and their work. The thought of the souls they had helped to lead down into the eternal darkness would terrify them. But they can pocket the gains of that very trade; they can receive the higher rent which their property secures because it is let to the sellers of drink, and live in quietness, and sit at the Lord’s table, and die in good esteem, and go forth to meetwhat? the same judgment as the publican! Your reputable merchant may not lie and cheat; but if the young men that serve behind his counters do so, and if he knowingly pockets the gains of such baseness, he is equally guilty in God’s sight. To take the fruit of falsehood and oppression and wrong is to stain our souls with their guilt. “Thus saith the Lord, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine.” “Behold I will bring evil upon thee,” etc. (1Ki 21:21-24).
II. WHAT IT MEANS WHEN A MAN FINDS THE TRUTH HATEFUL. Ahab’s question, “Hast thou found me?” etc; was a self revelation. There were many to whom Elijah’s presence would have been like that of an angel of God; but to Ahab it is as the shadow of death. And the explanation was, “Because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord.” It is only to death that the truth is a savour of death. He was sin’s bondman. For the gratification of evil desire he had sold himself to work Satan’s will, and now in his attitude to God’s servant he was owning Satan still as master. It is easy to listen with approval, and with pleasure even, when other men’s sins are dealt with; but when our own are touchedwhen we are met with our feet standing in Naboth’s vineyard, what is our attitude toward the truth? Is it anger or submission? Whom do we own as master, Satan or God?
III. THE RICHES OF GOD‘S MERCY (1Ki 21:25-29).
1. The greatness of Ahab’s sin. He had outstripped all who had gone before him, great as their sins had been; “but there was none like unto Ahab,” etc.
2. The inadequacy of his repentance. It was no doubt sincere, but it did not go far enough. It was fear of judgment, not loathing of sin.
3. The fulness of the Divine compassion. 1Ki 21:25 and 1Ki 21:26 might well have been a prelude to the record of full and speedy vengeance, and especially so in view of the unsatisfactory nature of his sorrow. But it is the introduction to the story of mercy. All that sinsin of deepest dyewill not prevent God running forth to meet Ahab so soon as he begins to turn to Him. That sorrow, shallow though it was, God had marked and accepted. “Seest thou how Ahab?” etc. God is not a stern, relentless Judge. Father’s heart has never yearned over child as God’s over us.U.
HOMILIES BY J. WAITE
1Ki 21:20
Naboth’s Vineyard.
The robbery and murder of Naboth form one of the darkest episodes in the story of Ahab’s life. We see that idolatry and persecution were not the only crimes into which Jezebel seduced him. Indeed, such iniquities never stand alone. They would naturally be the parents of many more. He was probably guilty of many such acts of cruel wrong during his wicked career. This is related to show how completely he had “sold himself to work evil in the sight of the Lord.” Let us think of
(1) his sin,
(2) his punishment,
(3) his remorse.
I. His SIN. It had many elements of moral wrong in it, and is not to be characterized by any one particular designation.
1. Avarice. Large and rich as his royal domain was, he envied Naboth the possession of his little vineyard.
2. Oppression. It was a wicked abuse of power. “Might” to him was “right.”
3. Impiety. Ahab must have known that he was tempting Naboth to the violation of an express Divine command (Num 36:7).
4. Abject moral weakness. This is seen in his childish petulance (1Ki 21:4) and in his mean subserviency to the imperious will of Jezebel.
5. Base hypocrisy, in subjecting the injured man to the decision of a mock tribunal. Crimes like this generally present various phases of evil thought and feeling; and when they attempt to cover themselves with a false veil of rectitude, it only tends to deepen immeasurably our sense of their iniquity.
II. HIS PUNISHMENT. The prophet was assuming his true function in pronouncing this swift judgment on the cruel wrong that had been committed. His calling was to proclaim and enforce the laws of eternal righteousness, to vindicate the oppressed, to rebuke injustice, and that not least, but rather most of all, when it sat enthroned on the seats of authority and power. Note respecting this punishment.
1. Its certainty. Ahab could not really be surprised that his “enemy had found” him, for that “enemy” was but the instrument of a God to whom “all things are naked and opened.” “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good,” and the transgressor can never escape His righteous judgment. “Be sure your sin will find you out” (Num 32:23).
2. Its correspondence with the crime. “In the place where the dogs licked the blood of Naboth,” etc. (1Ki 21:19). The principle involved in this has often been a marked feature of the Divine retributions. “Whatsoever a man soweth,” etc. (Gal 6:7, Gal 6:8). “They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind” (Hos 8:7).
3. Its delay. The sentence was fully executed only in the person of his son Joram (2Ki 9:25, 2Ki 9:26); but this in no way alters the character or lessens the terribleness of it as a punishment upon him. Especially when we remember what an instalment of the full penalty was given in the violence of his own death (1Ki 22:34-37). “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil” (Ecc 8:11). But when, space being thus given them for repentance, they abuse it, they do but “treasure up wrath for themselves against the day of wrath,” and, falling under the righteous vengeance of God, they do not escape “till they have paid the uttermost farthing.” Thus did Ahab inherit the woe pronounced on him who thinks to secure any good for himself by iniquity and blood (Hab 2:12). Ill-gotten gain always brings with it a curse.
III. HIS REMORSE (1Ki 21:27). It can scarcely be called repentance. It may have been sincere enough so far as it went, and for this reason God delayed the threatened punishment; but it was wanting in the elements of a true repentance. It was the compunction of a guilty conscience, but not the sacred agony of a renewed heart. It sprang from sudden alarm at the inevitable consequences of his sin, but not from a true hatred of the sin itself. It soon passed away, and left him still more a slave to the evil to which he had “sold himself” than he was before. “For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death” (2Co 7:10).W.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
B.The proceedings of Ahab against Naboth
1Ki 21:1-29
1And it came to pass after these things,1 that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. And 2Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house:2 and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it; or,3 if it seem good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money. 3And Naboth said to Ahab, The Lord [Jehovah] forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee. 4And Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased, because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him: for he had said, I will not give thee the inheritance of my fathers. And he laid him down upon his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread.4 5But Jezebel his wife came to him, and said unto him, why is thy spirit so sad, that thou eatest no bread? 6And he said unto her, Because I spake unto Naboth the Jezreelite, and said unto him, Give me thy vineyard for money;, or else, if it please thee, I will give thee another vineyard for it: and he answered, I will not give thee my vineyard.5 7And Jezebel his wife said unto him, Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? arise, and eat bread, and let thine heart be merry: I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite. 8So she wrote letters in Ahabs name, and sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters6 unto the elders and to the nobles that were in his7 city, dwelling with Naboth. 9And she wrote in the letters, saying, Proclaim a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people: 10and set two men, sons of Belial, before him, to bear witness against him, saying, Thou didst blaspheme God and the king. And then carry him out, and stone him, that he may die. 11And the men of his city, even the elders and the nobles who were the inhabitants in his city, did as Jezebel had sent unto them, and as it was written in the letters which she had sent unto them. 12They proclaimed a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people. 13And there came in two men, children of Belial, and sat before him: and the men of Belial witnessed against him, even against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, Naboth did blaspheme God and the king. Then they carried him forth out of the city, and stoned him with stones, that he died. 14Then they sent to Jezebel, saying, Naboth is stoned, and is dead. 15And it came to pass, when Jezebel heard that Naboth was stoned, and was dead, that Jezebel said to Ahab, Arise, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give thee for money: for Naboth is not alive, but dead. 16And it came to pass, when Ahab heard that Naboth was dead,8 that Ahab rose up to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it.
17And the word of the Lord [Jehovah] came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, 18Arise, go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, which is [dwelleth9] in Samaria: behold, he is in the vineyard of Naboth, whither he is gone down to possess it. 19And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the Lord [Jehovah], Hast thou killed, and also taken possession? And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the Lord [Jehovah], In the place10 where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine.11 20And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? And he answered, I have found thee: because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord 21[Jehovah]. Behold, I will bring12 evil upon thee, and will take away thy posterity, and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, 22and will make thine house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah, for the provocation wherewith thou hast provoked me to anger, and made Israel to sin. 23And of Jezebel also spake the Lord [Jehovah], saying, The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel. 24Him that dieth of Ahab in the city the dogs shall eat; and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat.
25But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord [Jehovah], whom Jezebel his wife stirred up. 26And he did very abominably in following idols, according to all things as did the Amorites, whom the Lord [Jehovah] cast out before the children of Israel. 27And it came to pass, when Ahab heard those words, that he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly. 28And the word of the Lord [Jehovah] came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, Seest 29thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me? because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days: but in his sons days will I bring the evil upon his house.
Exegetical and Critical
1Ki 21:1. And it came to pass after these things, &c. The Sept. places this whole chapter before the twentieth, and Thenius holds this to be its original place. Ewald says, rightly: The transposition resulted simply to unite more closely the similar narrations in chaps. 20 and 22 and inversely chaps. 1719, 21. The expression in 1Ki 21:4, as a climax to 1Ki 20:43, refers back rather palpably to the latter passage. Naboths affair must have happened then after the two victories over the Syrians, because Elijahs severe sentence proclaiming the fall of the house of Ahab, which was occasioned by them, could not have immediately preceded those victories. The connecting thought with chap. 20 is this: As Ahab, in consequence of victory twice won, found tranquillity and peace externally, he was contemplating the extension and the beautifying of the garden of his summer palace at Jezreel (vide on 1Ki 18:46). Sanctius: post victos hostes ad delicias comparandas animum adjecit.
1Ki 21:2-6. And Ahab spake unto Naboth, &c. 1Ki 21:3, literally: Far is it for me from Jehovah that I, &c. This expression presupposes two things, viz.: that Naboth was a worshipper of Jehovah and did not bow his knee to Baal, and that he belonged to those who had remained faithful (Ahab does not mention the name Jehovah) and that also he held the alienation of his vineyard to be a sin against Jehovah, a transgression of a command of Jehovah. This command must have been that respecting the inalienability of the inheritance which was apportioned to each tribe and to each family, and could not, even by marriage, go into other hands, and which, even if it were sold on account of impoverishment or otherwise on account of distress, would revert to it again, without price, in the year of Jubilee (Num 36:1-13; Lev 25:10-28). According to Eze 46:18, the prince himself could not force any one out of his property. This Mosaic law is connected most intimately with the stability of the Theocracy; it secured its material foundation (cf. Symb. des Mosais. Kult., II. s. 604); and if it were not always strictly observed and enforced, the main thought pervading it nevertheless struck out strong roots in the consciousness of the people, and the preservation of the was for every covenant-keeping Israelite a matter not merely of piety towards his family and his tribe, not merely a prudential, worldly affair, but a religious, sacred duty. No consideration would induce Naboth to violate this, neither greater gain (for Ahab offered him a better vineyard or wished to pay him well), nor the royal authority and the fear of the royal displeasure, especially when, as here, not need, but a royal whim only, was concerned. Hence it is almost laughable when with J. D. Michaelis Naboths answer is explained as uncivil in the extreme, or when others say that it was a piece of obstinacy; for in that case Josephs reply to Potiphars wife (Gen 39:9) was uncivil and obstinate. For (1Ki 21:4), see on 1Ki 20:43 : He turned away his face, the Vulg. adds ad parietem, which 2Ki 20:2, has: Seb. Schmidt: more tristium, qui conversationem, colloquium et conspectum hominum fugiunt et declinant.
1Ki 21:7-8. And Jezebel his wife said, &c. The words are usually translated imperatively: Thou! exert now the royal authority over Israel (de Wette), i. e., act as king, use the power which belongs to thee as king of Israel, or, Thou exercisest authority now over Israel (Philippson), i. e., now must thou show thyself to be king over Israel. On the other hand, as Thenius properly remarks, the collocation of the words is to be observed (Thou comes first), and also the connection (Jezebel says: I will give thee). This antithesis compels us to understand the words as ironical, and with the Sept., the Vulg., and the Syriac, to regard them as a question: Dost thou now exercise authority over Israel? Dost thou as king permit thyself to ask such a thing of one of thy subjects? I will give thee the vineyard, since thou trustest not thyself to act as man and king.The letters (1Ki 21:8) Jezebel furnished with the royal seal, i. e., she affixed the seal to (not sealed up). Probably the seal had on it the name of the king, which, instead of the signature, was by the seal stamped upon the document, as is the case now in Egypt and Persia, amongst Turks and Arabs; cf. Paulsen, die Regier. der Morgenland. s. 295 (Keil); Est 8:12. Jezebel certainly received the seal (seal-ring, Dan 6:18) from Ahab himself, who allowed her the free use of it. From 1Ki 21:8, it is manifest that Ahab and Jezebel were then in Samaria, their residence, properly speaking. The elders and nobles constituted without doubt the city tribunal (Deu 16:18), which must have had then, according to our chapter, in cases easily to be decided the jus vit (Thenius); cf. on Mat 5:21. The addition: dwelling with Naboth, shows that they were his fellow-townsmen.
1Ki 21:9. Proclaim a fast, as was customary in the event of national calamities (Joe 1:14), after grievous defeats (Jdg 20:26; 1Sa 31:13), after great sins(1Sa 7:6; Joe 2:12), or for the turning away of apprehended misfortune (2Ch 20:2; 2Ch 20:4); it is always the sign of penitence. Obviously it stands here in a definite relation to the offence charged, and it was not merely to furnish occasion for the procedure against Naboth (Thenius), but rather to publish the fact that a grievous fault was resting upon the city, which must be expiated. The stamp of truth would thus thereby be impressed, in the eyes of the entire city, upon the crime with which Naboth was charged (Keil). Naboth was to be set on high in the assemblage, so that the public indignation might be the more vividly expressed, if one who was worthy of such distinction, on account of his God-fearing sentiment, should be convicted of being such a grievous sinner (Thenius). This is certainly better than the view advanced by Grotius: ne odio damnasse crederentur, quern ipsi honoraverant, or the explanation of Seb. Schmidt: producite eum ante universum populum in judicium ad causam dicendam.
1Ki 21:10-14. Two men before him, &c. According to Deu 17:6; Deu 19:15, every crime punishable by death must be testified to by at least two witnesses, who also must at the stoning make the beginning. not contra (Vulg.), but coram, in conspectu.Thou didst blaspheme means properly to bless; then, because at a departure one utters a benediction, generally to say farewell, is to leave, so Job 1:5; Job 2:5 : to bless God, to give God a departure, to turn ones self from Him. If now Naboth, by this expression, was guilty of a capital crime, it must of necessity be that which the law ordained in the death-punishment (cf. Lev. 24:14sq.). Blasphemy against the king is placed beside blasphemy against God, because the king represents God and rules in His name; crime against majesty involves death (2Sa 16:9). Jezebel does not use the name but the more general indefinite .
1Ki 21:15-16. Take possession of the vineyard, &c. The immediate seizure of the property appears here as something which, in consequence of the execution of Naboth, is understood to be according to usage and right. The Rabbins remark, that which indeed the Mosaic law does not expressly ordain, the property of an offender against majesty falls to the king, who was, in so far, its inheritor ( means also to inherit, Gen 21:10; Jer 49:1). According to 2Ki 9:26, Naboths sons also were put to death, the heirs proper, besides, were no longer living.
1Ki 21:17-19. And the word of the Lord came to Elijah, &c. From in 1Ki 21:18 we are to conclude that Elijah was, at that time, in a mountain-district. Ahabs crime is set before him in the form of a question, which was more fitted to awaken his conscience than a bare affirmation. When the guilt of the crime is charged upon Ahab, and not upon Jezebel who was the agent in the matter, it is like Gen 3:9, where God brings Adam and not Eve to account.According to 1Ki 22:38, the dogs licked the blood of Ahab, not at Jezreel, the place where Naboth was put to death, but at Samaria. In order to reconcile both passages, either have been translated by pro eo quod (Grotius, Maurer, De Wette: for that), or it has been supposed that the prophecy, inasmuch as Ahab repented (1Ki 21:27), was fulfilled but partially in him, and fully in his son (2Ki 9:25) (Calmet, Keil, Gerlach and others). Thenius believes that there is a contradiction here which does not admit of any reconciliation, no matter what the explanation be. But how thoughtless the author of our books must have been, if in two chapters alongside of each other, on the same leaf as it were, he had admitted direct contradictions inadvertently. The place where Naboths and Ahabs blood were licked up by dogs was before or outside the city, i. e., the place where supposed or real criminals were executed (cf. 1Ki 21:13; Lev 24:14; Act 7:56; Heb 13:12 sq.). The prophetic word means: As thou hast unrighteously put Naboth to death, as a criminal, without the city, so shalt thou, righteously, in the same place, outside thy city (residence), be put to death, i. e., as a criminal. In this the prophecy found its fulfilment, in the similarity of the disgraceful death, not in the similarity of the special locality. Consequently here the entirely general stands, and not, as in 2 Kings 11:25 sq. the special .
1Ki 21:20. Hast thou found me, &c. Luther follows the inaccurate translation of the Vulg.: num invenisti me inimicum tibi? Thenius: is here in its most proper signification: to overtake (seizing me), (1Sa 31:3; Job 11:7; Jer 10:8), used especially of the punishing hand (1Sa 23:17; Isa 10:10; Psa 21:9), consequently: Hast thou overtaken me, mine enemy? As a defiant question, and entirely suited to, mine enemy: thinkest thou that thou hast now got me down? To this the reply is wholy suited: Yes, I have got thee! Von Gerlach justly remarks: Struck at by the address of Elijah, Ahab seeks to justify himself by attributing personal enmity upon the prophets part towards himself. Michaelis wholly wrong: Hast thou found me in an act which I cannot excuse? or Vatablus: Hast thou found something against me which thou canst censure, thou who art always against me? must be taken here in a wholly general sense, as in 1Ki 21:25 (cf. 2Ki 17:17; Rom 7:14); to abandon ones self without will to evil; to make ones self a slave of sin; the feebleness is therein expressed also, by virtue of which he was the tool of others (Gerlach). The Sept. add arbitrarily, , which Thenius holds to be original, and then translates: on account of thy pretended selling of thyself to do, &c. i.e., thou shalt become conscious that thou hast fully received the price of sin; very forced. The of the Sept. after is also an arbitrary addition.
1Ki 21:21-24. Behold, I will bring evil, &c. Upon 1Ki 21:21-24, see above on 1Ki 14:10, sq. and also 16:3sq. It is the standing avenging sentence for the dynasties of apostate kings, repeated also in 1Ki 22:38 and 2Ki 9:8 sq. 36. The divine punishment falls upon Ahab and his house not alone on account of the crime committed against Naboth, but also, and chiefly, on account of the idolatry existing and promoted during his reign, with which, indeed, that crime was closely connected. The in 1Ki 21:23 is translated in the Septuag, rightly here as in 2Sa 20:15, by , by which a space immediately close to the walls, and belonging to the city-terrain, is. to be understood. Jezebel also was to be devoured by dogs before, i. e. outside the city. When for , occurs in 2Ki 9:10; 2Ki 9:36-37, not another but the same place is designated, viz. in the space, i. e., in the city-terrain of Jezreel. Thenius very unnecessarily would have the reading in our passage . Jezebel, according to 2Ki 9:33, was thrown out of a window and trodden by horses, but was not devoured by dogs in the court of the palace. This happened rather before the city-walls.
1Ki 21:25-26. There was none like unto, &c. The 25th and 26th verses are a parenthesis by which the relator desires once more to bring out the reason for the miserable destruction of the house of Ahab, and why every effort to wash Ahab clean, and to make of him a good man of the best disposition (Michaelis) seemed useless. does not mean here: yea, assuredly (De Wette); it has here its usual meaning, but it does not stand, as is often the case, immediately before the word to which it is related; translate: besides how Ahab (Ahab excepted), there was none (as he), &c. (Thenius).The Amorites are mentioned instead of the Canaanites generally, as in Gen 15:16; Jos 24:15; Amo 2:9, because they were the most powerful tribe of Canaan. Ahab had abandoned himself entirely to the idolatry on account of which Jehovah had driven the Canaanites from their land, and had given it to the Israelites (1Ki 16:33).
1Ki 21:27-29. When Ahab heard those words, &c. The rending of the clothes, putting on sackcloth and fasting, are the usual signs of mourning and penitence (Winer, R.-W.-B., II. s. 631. Ahab slept in his sackcloth. does not mean barefoot (Jarchi and others), not demisso capite, or slowly (Keil), but quietly, softly (Isa 8:6).The complete ruin was not to overtake Ahab during his lifetime, but he was referred back to the threatening of the law, according to which, the misdeeds of the fathers were not to be borne in the children, who did not cease from them longer than to the third or fourth generation (Menken).
Historical and Ethical
1. The procedure against Naboth constitutes a turning-point in the history of Ahab, in so far as it called forth the prediction of the destruction of himself and of his house. Although it concerned but our contemporaneous people, it has nevertheless a general theocratico-historical significance in this, that a moral corruption was therein brought to light, which had seized the head and the members of the kingdom, and was the consequence of the apostasy from the God of Israel and from His law. It was a crying proof that all the evidence of divine power and grace and fidelity and long-suffering had produced no fruit. That too was the point of time when it was necessary for the prophet to appear again, of whom Sirach says (Sir 48:10), who wast ordained for reproofs in their times to pacify the wrath of the Lords judgment before it break forth into fury. and to restore the tribes of Jacob. It devolved upon him whose destination and calling it was essentially to exercise the prophetic avenging office, to bear witness agajnst apostasy, and to proclaim the judgments of Godupon him it devolved, before all things, by virtue of his position in the history of the kingdom of God (see above), to announce to the king who, with his wife, had formally introduced the apostasy, and in his procedure against Naboth had shown himself incorrigible, the final sentence of God against him and his whole house. The word of Jehovah came hence also to him, and he issued forth again from his retirement as a fire, and his word burned like a torch (Sir 48:1). He first places before the king, his crime against Naboth, and proceeds then to the announcement of his punishment for his conduct generally. The whole narration culminates in this announcement. The new criticism does not question the historical reality of the affair with Naboth: the dressing up, however, belongs to the author of the history of Elijah (Thenius, Ewald). Under this clothing (drapery) nothing else can be meant than the paragraph from 1Ki 21:17-24, which is, however, the main thing. If this be explained as unhistorical, for which no reason is at hand, the point of the whole narrative is taken away, and the high meaning disappears from the event which it has for the history of Ahab, and indirectly for the history of the kingdom of Israel generally. It becomes an isolated, ordinary, Oriental murder-tale, and ceases to be a turning-point in the history of the theocracy.
2. We are able to understand for the first time, rightly and completely, the royal couple from the present narrative. If Ahab has shown himself, thus far, to be a weak man, destitute of any religious and moral firmness, and subject to every evil influence, here this is the case so conspicuously that from feebleness and want of character he becomes a common criminal. He did not know how to devote the time of peace, after the severe pressure caused by the Syrians, to anything except to be thinking of the enlargement and beautifying of his pleasure-gardena sign that all the great experiences of his life, even the last sharp threatening at the releasing of Ben-hadad, had made no permanent impression upon him. The refusal of Naboth to cede to him his vineyard makes him angry, and excites him; but he has not force enough to make use of his mettle, and so he be-takes himself to his bed, will not eat, nor see any person, and behaves like a spoiled, ill-mannered child, which has been refused a toy. It was necessary for his wife to supply him with spirit, and to remind him that he must be a man and king. He does not interfere himself, but allows her to arrange the matter, and gives her the insignia of his royal authority, unconcerned how she may use it, or, as it almost seems, he enters into her criminal designs. When the infamous transaction was done, and she told him of it, he was not shocked; he was rather visibly pleased and satisfied (Josephus has it: he sprang up from his bed with delight), and he made haste to take possession of the property stolen and stained with blood. This blood-guiltiness rested upon him, so that the prophet could, with all propriety, call him both a murderer and a thief. In respect of Queen Jezebel, who has hitherto been portrayed only on the side of her wild fanaticism for the unchaste Baal and Astarte worship, she shows herself here in her complete moral depravity. We discover in her no trace of the feebleness and want of energy which characterized her husband. Josephus well calls her a . Her deepest traits were pride and a desire for dominion, to gratify which she shrank back from no instrumentality. Under the show and pretext of serving her husband and fulfilling his wishes, she knew how to govern him and to appropriate to herself the royal authority. She did not look at the monarchy according to the Israelitish sense, as the institution which was designed to carry out the law and will of Jehovah, but as the absolute authority over the property and lives (Gut und Blut) of the subjects. Every refusal to fulfil a royal wish, though it had been grounded in the divine law, was, in her eyes, lese-majesty, yes, as blasphemy against God, because she wished the king to be considered not as the servant, but as the representative of Deity. Right and justice, for the administering of which the monarchy exists, are to her mere forms, and she misapplies the legal organs of justice to carry out injustice. A religious solemnity must be the cloak of her lust of robbery and murder, and the people be deceived by perjured witnesses. Jezebel does all this in cold blood and with calm deliberation; yes, she congratulates herself upon it, and informs her husband of the fact with self-satisfaction, as if she had done something deserving praise and thanks. This was the royal couple at that time at the head of the people and of the kingdom. If ever at any time, certainly here, the Turkish proverb finds its application: The fish stinks first at the head.
3. The elders and nobles constituting the city tribunal at Jezreel are a worthy pendent to the royal couple. Without hesitation they carry out quickly and punctiliously the received order, and they hasten to give the queen the news of it, in order to show themselves loyal and obedient subjects. The fear and the pleasure of men are the motives for their way of acting; there is no trace of the fear of God and of conscientiousness amongst them. They knew the tyranny and the severity of the queen, and they did not dare to thwart her; they were afraid that by resistance they might lose the residence and suffer loss, or be punished in limb and body. It seems that they, as the presiding officers of the residence, gladly embraced the opportunity to please the powerful, dreaded queen, and to show their unconditional submission, in the hope of being praised and rewarded for it. Perhaps, owing to the sojourn of the court there, they had become habituated to unrighteous expectations of the sort, and that fawning and servility were no longer new to them. Certainly their whole course presupposes thorough corruption in public affairs, a natural consequence of the religious confusion which must have entered in during a reign when the covenant of Jehovah was forsaken, his law trodden under foot, and the infamous Baal and Astarte worship was introduced and patronized. For there is no more authentic sign of the decay of a kingdom than when law is deliberately debased, and murder, under the show of right, and with deference to the usual forms of law, is done by those to whom the duty of public justice is intrusted. Deliberate judicial murder is the most infamous of all, and can only take place where absolute ungodliness has broken all moral bonds, and a putrefaction has begun. Jezebel would never have dared to order such a process had she not known the people, and regarded them as capable of everything. The circumstances here were such as Micah, in 1Ki 7:2 et sq., has portrayed. When we consider that the elders who composed the local tribunal were not royal officials, but inhabitants of the place, chosen by their fellow-townsmen, and that they, one and all, as one man, perpetrated the crime, we learn how deeply the people, who had freely placed such men at their head, were sunken, and had become devoid of all fear of God. The blindness with which the false verdict was accepted, and the brutality with which it was carried out, doubtless in a tumultuous fashion, is an additional proof of what we have stated.
4. The meeting of Elijah and of Ahab in Naboths vineyard is very characteristic of the personal qualities of each. Both reappear here, such as we find them in the earlier interview in 1Ki 18:7 et sq. As there, so here, Elijah comes forth suddenly from his retirement. Like the lightning which descends from on high and strikes, he met the king, walking and enjoying himself in the stolen vineyard. Nothing was further from his thoughts than an encounter with the earnest, severe preacher of repentance, and of hearing from him the thunder-words of the Divine judgment. As there, Ahab at first blustered, and saluted the prophet with the words: Art thou here, troubler of Israel? so here he addresses him angrily: Hast thou found me, mine enemy?thou who art always in my way. But as then, so also now, the prophet did not allow himself to be imposed upon and frightened in the least. With firm words he announces the destruction of him and of his house; then the high-going man breaks down and becomes so dejected that he is bowed down and creeps along, and even sleeps in sackcloth. But the meeting is also significant in respect of the relation between the prophetic and the monarchical element. This relation is now represented in a manifold way, as that of two self-appointed powers who were in perpetual struggle with each other to gain the upper hand in the kingdom. But Elijah especially, the head and representative of the prophetic order, from whom proceeded the strife against the covenant-breaking monarchy, the most energetic and powerful of all the prophets, resolutely and sharply as he met the king, who called him his enemy, was in the greatest degree possible free from all hierarchical efforts. No one in all Israel cared less than he about having anything to do with outward power and authority. He did not, like Jeroboam, in the time of Solomon and of Rehoboam, place himself at the head of the discontented; he did not intrigue against the secular power, and mingle in political affairs; he did not live at the residence or at court; but in retirement, from which he issued only from time to time, when it was needful to resist the base misuse of the royal authority, which did not fear to revolutionize even the foundations of the people of Israel. He was not an enemy of the monarchy, but an enemy of the idolatry which was destroying both the monarchy and the national being.
5. Ahabs penitence was regarded by the older theologians as hypocritical, so that even yet all false penitence is called, proverbially, Ahabs penitence. But, according to 1Ki 21:29, it was not a sham, but an actual humiliation, which was graciously recognized by God as such. Vatablus justly says: Hc pnitentia fuit vera, sed temporaria. Owing to the feebleness of his character, which made him readily susceptible to every influence, and the rapid change of his purposes, it was very comprehensible that the word of the prophet, piercing bone and marrow, threatening him and his house with destruction, which had never yet deceived him, made an affecting impression upon him. Such a wholesome terror had never hitherto overtaken him, and might well have been able to lead him to a thorough change from his past ways. But he had no abiding conversion of heart to the living God, as the course of the history shows. As the threatened punishment did not follow immediately, he thought he had been able to ward it off by his penitential discipline, and, according to his constantly attested fickleness, he fell back again into his earlier way of life. The first thing which he should have done, had his repentance been true, to repair somehow a wrong done, he did not do, but, on the contrary, began war anew.
Homiletical and Practical
1Ki 21:1-29. The proceeding against Naboth: (a) How it was done (1Ki 21:1-16); (b) its consequences (1Ki 21:17-29)
1Ki 21:1-16).Wirth: The unrighteous acquisition of Naboths vineyard, (a) King Ahab; (b) Queen Jezebel; (c) the elders of Jezreel; (d) Naboth.Wrt Summ.:. Here we see how the children of this world use their rank; how they ruin others for the sake of their possessions, and seize upon them; they try to make them sell against their will, and wrest their property from them; if this fail, they use every false device, accuse him as an evil-doer before the authorities, and, by means of false witnesses, lead him on to misfortune, until he is compelled to sacrifice his little property to save himself, or becomes so ill that he dies of grief, and thus they obtain his property. But the Spirit denounces woe to such men (Isa 5:8). Every man should guard against such sin, but especially those in power. Let them never seize upon the property of their subjects. V. 1.Starke: It is not well to have godless neighbors, especially if they are powerful, for, loving injustice, they think nothing of over-reaching their neighbors. One should pray for industrious, pious and honest neighbors.
1Ki 21:2-4. Naboths vineyard, (a) The greed of Ahab (1Ki 21:2); (b) the denial of Naboth (1Ki 21:3); (c) the consequence of the denial upon Ahab (1Ki 21:4).
1Ki 21:2. Great lords often have fancies, which cost them more time and money than do their chief and holiest duties. Thus Ahab thought more of the enlargement and adornment of his garden, than of the good of his subjects. The desire for things which serve for pleasure is often a temptation to grievous sin. Therefore says the Scripture: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors goods, nor anything that is his. Let the needy be thy first care, not thine own pleasures. It is a great gain to be godly and contented. Watch over thine heart, for desires apparently lawful, if not resisted and denied, may lead to ruin.
1Ki 21:3. The men, are rare who, for God and conscience sake, will not yield to entreaties and offers, the granting of which would be advantageous to them, whilst the refusal would be accompanied with injury, and perhaps peril to themselves. Where fear of God and true devoutness exist, there also you will ever find that piety which holds in love and veneration everything which serves as a remembrance of parents and all other benefactors.
1Ki 21:4. Richter: Godless people regard the care taken by the pious to observe reverently the divine law, as so much useless scrupulousness.Calw. Bib: Even so, in our day, does the worldling look with an evil eye upon the Christian who, for the sake of the divine word, refuses to yield to his wishes; for either he recognizes no divine authority, or exalts his own above it. The children of this world, whose aims and designs are wholly material, will often fret and grieve for days when they are compelled to give up a temporal gain, or a promised enjoyment, whilst the condition of their souls never causes them the slightest grief.Wirth: The high and mighty ones of this world often think that all other people are placed here, simply to yield obedience to their whims. They cannot comprehend that all men are not to be bought with gold, and woe to that inferior whose refusal destroys their darling plans. Every man not rooted and grounded in God, becomes ever more and more grasping; in his vain purse-pride he thinks all the world must yield to his will, and hates bitterly him who independently and resolutely upholds his rights against him.
1Ki 21:5-16. The condemnation of Naboth. (a) Ordered by Jezebel; (b) carried out by the city ordinance; (c) joyfully received by Ahab.The apparently fortunate but really unfortunate and accursed marriage of Ahab and Jezebel. (a) She seeks the sorrowful man, shares his grief, and seeks to comfort him, as is the province of a wife; but instead of pointing him to the true Comforter, and leading his heart to higher and better thing, she strengthens him in his grasping desire after others property, and leads him on still further, (b) She reminds him that he is the lord and master, and recognizes him as such, as a wife should; but, at the same moment, she assumes the dominion, and the weak man lets her manage and rule, as if she were the man and he the woman. (c) She rejoices to accomplish an ardent wish of her husbands, and to make him a worthy present, as every faithful spouse should strive to do; but it is a blood-stained and stolen gift, obtained with deceit and falsehood, and Ahab delights in it. Thus both husband and wife, who together should be blest after Gods ordinance, together walk on to ruin and destruction.Jo. Lange: As a righteous spouse in the court of a great lord is as a sun, giving light throughout the land and doing much good work by her example, in the same proportion is an unholy woman mischievous. The example of Naboth shows what is the event where such an one rules, and its evil influence in a country.The quality (=being) of tyranny. (a) It regards sovereignty simply as unlimited might and power over the property and life of subjects; then the name of king means the power to do whatsoever a man wills, without regard to God or man; they reverse the divinely ordained subjection (Rom 13:1), and live in rebellion against God. (b) They upset justice, and convert the servants of the law, whose place it is to punish evil, into instruments of unrighteousness; they love darkness and hate the light, for they work the works of darkness (Psa 64:7). It dissembles and plays its own game with religious solemnity, and converts an oath itself into a means for its worst designs. The proceeding against Naboth is a combination of the heaviest crimes, for by it are trodden under foot the three divine commands: Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. How thankful should we be that we dwell in a land where mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other, where righteousness looks down from heaven (Psa 85:10-12).
1Ki 21:11-14. The elders and nobles of Jezreel. (a) Their conduct (they obey blindly, but God must be obeyed rather than man; power is not of man, but the minister of God, Rom 13:4, and before the commandment: Honor the king, stands that other, Fear God, 1Pe 2:17). (b) Their motives (fear of and subserviency to man, time serving and sycophancy, fruit of their desertion of the living God and of his holy word.Evil masters can ever find evil servants, who do their will from ambition or covetousness.Calw. Bib: Woe, where such things befall! and shame! that in the fairest lands, as in the plains of Jezreel, are often the worst men to be found.Godlessness and corruption in courts is a poison, which extends throughout the whole body politic, even to the lowest rank; no example is so powerful upon all classes of society. How many gross, how many refined sins are committed out of sheer complaisance to high personages, whose favor men wish to seek or preserve. Woe to those lords who find such ready tools in their servants, who will be accomplices in their misdoings, and palliate, or even laud and praise all their perverse dealings; they undermine the throne more than open enemies. The judgment and condemnation of Naboth, compared with that of our Lord. There, as in this instance, offended pride, followed by hatred, accusation of blasphemy and riot; false witnesses and vile judges; and a blind, infuriated populace crying out: Crucify, crucify!
1Ki 21:17-29. Krummacher: The mission of Elijah. (a) Its intention; (b) its aim; (c) its immediate results.Bender: Elijah and Ahab in the vineyard of Naboth. (a) The sin of the king; (b) the judgment of God.Wirth: Ahab in the vineyard of Naboth. (a) The approach of Elijah; (b) the announcement of the sentence; (c) the repentance of Ahab.
1Ki 21:17. Deceive not yourself, God is not mocked. What a man sows, that shall he reap (Gal 6:7). Menken: But though much unrighteousness and wickedness goes apparently without further evil results, and without the chastisements of the just Judge in heaven, yet still all will be demanded; and at the Divine judgment-seat everything will be discovered, and everything to the uttermost farthing accounted for.The blood of Naboth, which Ahab thought had been swallowed up by the earth, cried to heaven, and found there judgment and vengeance. Like a lightning-flash comes the word from heaven into the dark soul of Ahab, and made him feel that no net of human evil can be woven thickly enough to conceal the crime which it veils from the All-seeing Eye.
1Ki 21:18-19. It is no easy matter to say to the face of a royal robber, Thou hast stolen, and to a royal adulterer, It is not right that thou shouldst have thy brothers wife. Where to-day are the prophets who thus use the sword of the Spirit? Thou hast slain.Menken: Observe, that evil which thou couldst hinder, and didst not, and from which thou shouldst have shrunk, and for which thou didst neither exhibit horror, nor didst punishall shall, in future, be laid to thy account, as if thou hadst committed it in thine own person. Therefore warns the apostle: Neither be partaker of other mens sins (2 Tim. 5:22).
1Ki 21:20. Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? Calw. B: One can readily imagine that the hard impenitent, meeting the pious preacher and soul-director, regards the high-principled, soul-saving address of the prophet as evidence of personal enmity, and replies with personal enmity. He is not thine enemy who finds thee out, charging thee with thine unrecognized sins, with thy God-forgetting life, until thou dost think and tremblenot thine enemy, the disturber of thy peace and rest, but thy true friend, who leads thee through the narrow gates of repentance, to the way where alone true joy is to be found.I have found thee. This word of sentence must be heard by all, even by those who have come before no human tribunaloften in this world, certainly at the last day, for the Lord will bring to light, &c. (1Co 4:5), and cause every man to find according to his ways (Job 34:11). But there is also a sentence of mercy, which pursues the sinner and seeks him until it finds him (Luke 15). Well for all who have thus been caught and found and can say: Unter allen frohen Stunden, die im Leben ich empfunden. &c. He who will not be sought out by mercy, will be found by justice.
1Ki 21:20-29.Krummacher: The penitence of Ahab. (a) What called it forth; (b) what was its nature; (c) what were its consequences.
1Ki 21:21-26. The predicted judgments of God upon Ahab and his house. (a) Its cause; (b) its accomplishment (1Ki 22:38; 2 Kings 9, 10).Buying for money amongst sins. What is to be understood by this? How one can be made bought and made free (Joh 8:33 sq.; 1Co 6:20; 1Co 7:23; Rom 7:14). It is a great misfortune when one man can be bought by another as a chattel or merchandise, but a still greater one if he allows himself to be bought with a price to sin against the Lord. One may be, like Ahab, lord and king, and yet a purchased slave.
1Ki 21:25. His wife stirred him up. Menken: Woe to the man who, through the power which love gives him over the heart of another, by means of which he might become a ministering angel, is to him as a misleading fiend. How many fires of ruinous passion, of anger, of discord, of unrighteousness and of hatred, might and should be quenched and extinguished by the power of lovethe power of one heart over anotherand especially by the mildness and gentleness peculiar to woman: and yet so often, by this means, they are kindled and fanned. This belongs to the catalogue of unconfessed sins of many men, and especially of many women.What gave Ahabs repentance its worth, and wherein it was defective. (a) It was not merely ostensible, feigned; it was a wholesome dread and fear of the judgment of God which came upon him, causing him to fear and tremble; he bowed beneath the mighty hand of God, and was not ashamed to confess this outwardly, but laid aside crown and purple, and put on sackcloth, unheeding if he thus exposed himself to the scorn of the courtiers and idol worshippers. Therefore the Lord looked in mercy upon his repentance. Would that, in our day, many would go even as far as Ahab did in this case. (b) It bore no further fruits. He retained the stolen vineyard, he desisted not from idol worship, he allowed full sway to Jezebel. Everything in his house, at his court, and in his kingdom, remained as of old. He did not hunger and thirst after righteousness. Fleeting impressions and emotions are not true repentance. The tree which brings forth no fruits, is and remains a corrupt tree (Mat 3:8). How wholly different the repentance of David (Psalms 51).How many go to confession before the communion, bow the knee, and confess their sins before God and man, without being inwardly bowed down and humiliated, to bring forth fruits meet for repentance (Joe 2:13; Isa 58:5).Richter: Since God looks with pardoning mercy upon an outward humble abasement, how much more upon a righteous repentance. Therefore pray: Lord, grant true penitence and grief.Krummacher: Ahab was, and is, an example to warn us how it is possible that notwithstanding the most remarkable visitations of God, the strong est incentives, the liveliest emotions, and in spite of a certain sort of repentance and wonderful granting of prayer, a man may still, at the very last, be lost.
Footnotes:
[1]1Ki 21:1.[The Vat. Sept., which, as before noted, transposes chaps, 20. and 21., omits in consequence the mark of time at the beginning of 1Ki 21:1. The Alex. Sept., which follows the Heb. in that matter, designates Naboth as an Israelite instead of a Jezreelite, throughout the chapter.
[2]1Ki 21:2.[The Sept. omits the reason for Ahabs coveting the vineyard.
[3]1Ki 21:2.[Several MSS., followed by most of the VV., supply the word or and read .
[4]1Ki 21:4.[The Vat. Sept. gives a mere epitome of this ver.; the Alex, follows the Heb.
[5]1Ki 21:6.[The Sept. instead of vineyard here introduce from 1Ki 21:4 the inheritance of my fathers. As this phrase explains Naboths reason (see Exeg. Com.) for refusing Ahab, the addition is not likely to be right.
[6]1Ki 21:8.The ktib is to be unhesitatingly preferred to the kri . [The kri is the reading of many MSS., but the ktib reappears in the next ver. and 1Ki 21:11 unquestioned.
[7]1Ki 21:8.[The Chald. and Syr. omit this pronoun, which certainly does not seem necessary in itself; but, from its repetition in 1Ki 21:11, doubtless belongs here also.
[8]1Ki 21:16.[The Sept. here curiously interpolates the statement, he rent his clothes and put on sackcloth. And it came to pass after this that Ahab, &c. Ahab seems to have felt no need of such decent hypocrisy.
[9]1Ki 21:18.[Our author in his translation supplies the ellipsis by the verb dwelleth rather than is, since the reference must be to his dwelling-place, and at this moment he was in Jezreel.
[10]1Ki 21:19.[The Sept. considerably modifies this prophetic denunciation: In everyplace where the sows and the dogs licked the blood of Naboth, there shall the dogs lick thy blood, and harlots wash in thy blood.
[11]1Ki 21:19.[ an emphatic repetition of the pron. suff, literally and well expressed in the A.V.
[12]1Ki 21:21.[The kri gives the full form here, and ver.29, of this verb, in which there appears to be a peculiar tendency of the to fall away.F. G.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
The history of Ahab still continues a melancholy, because a sinful history; to the end. Here he is presented to us as coveting his neighbor’s vineyard. By Jezebel’s stratagem he succeeds. Elijah is sent to him with an awful message from God.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
(1) And it came to pass after these things, that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. (2) And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house: and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it; or, if it seem good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money. (3) And Naboth said to Ahab, The LORD forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee.
The sin of Ahab, in coveting this vineyard of Naboth, will not so fully appear, unless we connect with it the law of God, concerning the possessions of Israel in Canaan. The Lord had solemnly commanded, that no land in Israel should be sold off from the proprietor forever. For, even in case of extreme poverty, at the year of jubilee, if the poor Israelite’s poverty, before this year, prevented him from repurchasing it; unbought in that year, it was to revert back to the original owner again. And there can be no doubt, but that a blessed gospel mercy of redemption by the Lord Jesus Christ, was veiled under this command. Indeed the matter is so plain, that a reference only to the scriptures concerning it, will be sufficient proof: see Lev 25:23-28 . Well might Naboth therefore excuse himself, and say, The Lord forbid that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Naboth’s Vineyard
1Ki 21
We sometimes hear that Ahab was a covetous man: are we quite sure that the charge is just and that it can be substantiated? How could he be covetous? He proposed terms, saying, “Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house: and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it; or, if it seem good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money” ( 1Ki 21:2 ). The terms do not upon the face of them appear to be unreasonable or inapplicable. Surely this is not mere covetousness, if covetousness at all? The vineyard was close to the palace, and that fact was assigned as a reason for wishing to open negotiations concerning its transfer. But do we not sometimes too narrowly interpret the word covetousness? It is generally at least limited to money. When a man is fond of money, wishes to add to it, and is not scrupulous as to the means by which he seeks to enhance his fortune, we describe him as covetous. The term is perfectly applicable in such a case. But the term “covetous” may apply to a much larger set of circumstances, and describe quite another set of impulses and desires. We may even be covetous of personal appearance; we may be covetous of popular fame, such as is enjoyed by other men; we may be covetous in every direction which implies the gratification of our own wishes; and yet with regard to the mere matter of money we may be almost liberal. This is an astounding state of affairs. A man may be liberal with money, and yet covetous in many other directions. Sometimes when covetousness takes this other turn we describe it by the narrower word envy: we say we envy the personal appearance of some, we envy the greatness and the public standing of others. But under all this envy is covetousness. Envy is in a sense but a symptom: covetousness is the vital and devouring disease. Under this interpretation of the term, therefore, it is not unfit or unjust to describe Ahab as a covetous man.
Look at his dissatisfaction with circumstances. He wishes to have “a garden of herbs.” That is all! He is king of Israel in Samaria; but there is one little thing of which he has not yet possessed himself, and until he gets that into his hand he cannot rest well: there is a dream that troubles him, there is a nightmare that makes him afraid to lie down to sleep. Look at what he has: who can measure it? Who can run through the enumeration of his possessions? Who can take an exhaustive inventory of all the riches of the king of Israel? But there is one little corner that is not his, and he wants it, and until he can get it all the rest goes for nothing. The great Alexander could not rest in his palace at Babylon because he could not get ivy to grow in his garden. What was Babylon, or all Assyria, in view of the fact that this childish king could not cause ivy to grow in the palace gardens? Ahab lived in circumstances: he lived in the very narrowest kind of circumstances; as a little man, he lived in little things, and because those things were not all to his mind it was impossible for him to be restful or noble or really good. Once let the mind become dissatisfied with some trifling circumstance, and that fly spoils the whole pot of ointment. Once get the notion that the house is too small, and then morning, noon, and night you never see a picture that is in it, or acknowledge the comfort of one corner in all the little habitation: the one thing that is present in the mind throughout all the weary hours is that the house is too small. Once get the idea that the business is undignified, and you go to it late in the morning, and leave it early in the afternoon, and neglect it between times, and are ashamed to speak of it, and will not throw your whole heart and soul during business hours into its execution. Once get the notion that the neighbourhood is unfashionable, and it goes for nothing that the rooms are large and airy, that the garden is one of the best you ever had, that there is ample scope for a rich library, that all the neighbours are men of peculiar intelligence and goodness; all go for nothing, because the tempter has said, This neighbourhood is not a fashionable quarter of the town, and when people come to know that you are living here they will lose confidence in you and respect for you. If we live in circumstances, we shall be the sport of events; we shall be without dignity, without calmness, without reality and solidity of character; let us, therefore, betake ourselves into inner thoughts, into spirituality of life, into the soul’s true character, into the very sanctuary of God: there we shall have truth and light and peace; there the stormy wind cannot disturb us, and the great darkness is but an outside circumstance, for within there is the shining of the light of God.
Then notice in Ahab a childish servility to circumstances. “Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased… and he laid him down upon his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread” ( 1Ki 21:4 ). Yet he was the king of Israel in Samaria! He actually had subjects under him. He was in reality a man who could give law, whose very look was a commandment, and the uplifting of his hand could move an army. Now we see him surely at his least. So we do, but not at his worst. All this must have an explanation. We cannot imagine that the man is so simply childish and foolish as this incident alone would describe him. Behind all this childishness there is an explanation. What is it? We find it in 1Ki 21:25 : “But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up.” That explains the whole mystery. The man had sold himself to the devil. And men are doing that self-same thing every day. If it were a transaction in the market-place if the auctioneer were visibly interested in this affair, if he could call out in audible tones “so much is the price, and the man is about to take it;” people would shrink from the villainous transaction. But this is an affair which does not take place in the open market or in the open daylight. It is not conducted in words. If the men involved in such transactions could speak the words, the very speech of the words might break the spell and destroy the horrible infatuation. But the compact is made in darkness, in silence, in out-of-the-way places. It is an understanding unwritten, rather than an agreement in detail signed in the presence of witnesses. It is a mystery which the heart alone can understand, which even the preacher cannot explain in terms but he can only throw himself upon his own consciousness, and throw others upon their consciousness, and call for a united testimony to the fact that it is possible to sell one’s very soul to evil. Now we understand king Ahab better. We thought him but little, frivolous of mind, childish and petty, without a man’s worthy ambition; but now we see that all this was but symptomatic, an outward sign, pointing, when rightly followed, to an inward and mortal corruption.
Now let us look at the case of Naboth and the position which he occupied in this matter. Naboth possessed the vineyard Ahab is said to have coveted. Naboth said, “The Lord forbid” ( 1Ki 21:3 ). He made a religious question of it. Why did he invoke the Eternal Name, and stand back as if an offence had been offered to his faith? The terms were commercial, the terms were not unreasonable, the approach was courteous, the ground given for the approach was not an unnatural ground, why did Naboth stand back as if his religion had been shocked? The answer is in Num 36:7 : “So shall not the inheritance of the children of Israel remove from tribe to tribe: for every one of the children of Israel shall keep himself to the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers.” So Naboth stood upon the law. In Ezekiel, we read: “Moreover the prince shall not take of the people’s inheritance by oppression, to thrust them out of their possession; but he shall give his sons inheritance out of his own possession: that my people be not scattered every man from his possession” (xlvi. 18). So Naboth was not answering haughtily or resentfully; he was answering solemnly and religiously. When money was offered for his fathers’ inheritance, he spurned the offer. There are some things, blessed be God, we cannot pay for. When Ahab said, “I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it,” he knew not of what he was speaking. There can be no better vineyard than the vineyard of the fathers; there can be no vineyard equal to the vineyard that is sown with history, planted with associations, solemnised and endeared by a thousand precious memories. There ought to be some things we cannot barter. Surely there ought to be some things we should never try to sell. Verily when we hear propositions made to us that money shall be given in exchange for certain things, our whole soul should rise in horror and indignation, and repel the approach of a barter which itself expresses an infinite because a most spiritual injustice. So Naboth’s position was strong, and Naboth had the courage to answer the king in these terms. Kings must submit to law. Kings ought to be the subjects of their own people. Ahab was taught that there was a man in Samaria who valued the inheritance which had been handed down to him. Have we no inheritance handed down to us no book of revelation, no day of rest, no flag of liberty, no password of common trust? Do we inherit nothing? Did we make the age as it is, and is civilisation a creature of our own fashioning? And are we not bound to hand on to others what was handed to us intact and unpolluted? Let us live in a sacred past, and regard ourselves as trustees of many possessions, and only trustees, and bound to vindicate our trust, and have an ample acquittal at the last.
So Ahab lay down upon his bed, turned away his face, and would eat no bread. But there is a way of accomplishing mean desires. There is a way of obtaining what we want. Take heart! there is a way of possessing oneself of almost whatever one desires. There is always some Merlin who will bring every Uther-Pendragon what he longs to have; there is always some Lady Macbeth who will show the thane how to become king. There is always a way to be bad! The gate of hell stands wide open, or if apparently half-closed a touch will make it fly back, and the road is broad that leadeth to destruction. Jezebel said she would find the garden or vineyard for her husband. She taunted him “Dost thou now govern” throwing into the word “govern” a subtle and significant emphasis “the kingdom of Israel? Arise, and eat bread, and let thine heart be merry: I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite” ( 1Ki 21:7 ) and any number of vineyards: come to table, and be today as yesterday. How will she proceed? She will be ceremoniously religious: “Proclaim a fast”; O thou sweet, white, pure religion, thou hast been forced into strange uses! “Proclaim a fast”: lengthen your faces: mimic solemnity: promise your hunger an early satisfaction, but look as if you were fasting. It is a sure sign of mischief when certain men become serious. The moment they appear to be religious the devil is just adding the last touch to the building which he has been putting up within their souls. When they talk long words when they speak about responsibility, obligation, duty, conscience, compulsion of conviction, they are walking over tesselated pavement into the very jaws of hell. They do not mean their words; they do but use them: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” First of all, then, be ceremoniously religious, Jezebel; then trample down truth: “Set two men, sons of Belial, before him, to bear witness against him, saying, Thou didst blaspheme God and the king” ( 1Ki 21:10 ). Falsehood is always ready. A great black lie is always willing to be loosed and to be set going in the minds of men to pervert them and mislead them. It is always open to the bad heart to speak the untrue word. Nor is the untrue word always frankly and broadly spoken. If so, it could be answered in some cases. The false word is hardly spoken at all; it is uttered in a whisper; falsehood is made to use signs, gestures: even silence is made to bear witness to falsehood. Truly again we may say, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” Tell a lie big enough about any man, and it will be difficult, if not impossible, to do away with the consequences of the false accusation. People will always be found to say, There must be something in it; it may not be just as rumour has it, but surely a statement of that kind never could have been invented; allowing a good deal for exaggeration, there must be something in it. Nor is it always possible to get even righteous men to purge their minds of that damnable sophism. Men who ought to stand up and say, “No, there is nothing in it,” hang down their heads, and with a coward’s gesture let the lie pass on. This is how men insult the Son of God, and crucify the Man of truth. They will not be thorough, bold, fearless, and make the enemy ashamed of himself for either having invented or repeated a falsehood. Nor may the man escape because he says he heard the lie. Tell him he may have heard it, but he is responsible for repeating it: he may have no control over the hearing, but the moment he repeats it, he adopts it, and renders himself amenable to the Eternal Righteousness. Make the very law into an instrument of injustice! Charge this man with blasphemy and treason, and then take him out and stone him, that he may die! Do not give him time to speak; do not ask for his defence; do not give him an opportunity of interrogating the witnesses. But who would cross-examine two “sons of Belial”? Better almost to die than to taint the hands and eyes with the touch and look of such children of blackness!
“Then they carried him [Naboth] forth out of the city, and stoned him with stones, that he died” ( 1Ki 21:13 ). It is all over! Jezebel did this Jezebel a woman, a king’s wife, did this. High position goes for nothing when the heart is wrong. Great influence means great mischief when the soul is not in harmony with the spirit of righteousness. Is Naboth quite dead? Yes, he is dead. Take the vineyard take possession of it instantly! Now grow herbs, and grow them plentifully. The vineyard is now at liberty take it! “Ahab rose up to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it” ( 1Ki 21:16 ). But who is this that looms in the distance? Is it Naboth? No. How comes this man to be here just now ay, just now? How the end is marked off into points, and how does providence reveal itself at unexpected times and in ways unforeseen! Who is this? He looks stern. He has an eye of fire. His lips are shut as if they could never be opened. He does but look! Who is it? “Elijah the Tishbite.” He has a message: “Thus saith the Lord, Hast thou killed, and also taken possession?… Thus saith the Lord, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine” ( 1Ki 21:19 ). A sad walk! Ahab went down to take possession of a vineyard, and a death-warrant was read to him! After all, it is safe to live in this universe: there is law in it, there is a genius of righteousness, there is a Force that moves onward towards noble issues. “And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? And he answered, I have found thee: because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord,” and such and such judgment shall befall thee.
Ahab went out to take possession of a garden of herbs, and there he stands face to face with righteousness, face to face with honour, face to face with judgment. Now take the vineyard! He cannot! An hour since the sun shone upon it, and now it is black as if it were part of the midnight which has gathered in judgment. There is a success which is failure. We cannot take some prizes. Elijah will not allow us! When we see him we would that a way might open under our feet that we might flee and escape the judgment of his silent look. If any man is about to take unholy prizes, let him remember that he will be met on the road by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of righteousness. If any man is attempting to scheme for some little addition to his position or fortune, in the heart of which scheme there is injustice, untruthfulness, covetousness, or a wrong spirit, let him know that he may even kill Naboth, but cannot enter into Naboth’s vineyard.
What shall we do, then? Let us turn away from this evil spirit. “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts.” A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked. “Be content with such things as ye have.” Having bread and water, let us be therewith content. “I have learned;” says the Apostle Paul, “in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” How long shall we live in circumstances, in mere external conditions? So long as we live in the present, we shall exhibit all the littlenesses of children without any of their simplicity and pureness. We are called to greater things even to life in the Lord Jesus Christ, and to the possession of an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away: an amaranthine Paradise, for ever green, for ever unstained by sin. Crush beginnings of evil. Resist beginnings. Your heavenly Father knoweth what things ye have need of. If you want a little corner added to your estate, let the Lord find it for you, and it will be done in a way in which no man will be injured, but in which the spirit of righteousness will be honoured. If you have too much, he will take part of it away and give it to another. We have not learned of Christ, unless we can say, “Not my will, but thine, be done: give me little, or give me much, as it may please thee, only take not thy Holy Spirit from me; give me to feel that all I have I hold as steward, and to thy call I am alone amenable.” He who lives in this way may not have much to show of an external kind that can be represented in arithmetical numerals, but he will have a soul peopled with angels, a mind full of bright thoughts, a heart living with sweet charities; and as for his outlook, surely he will be a man of expectations: in his thought here he will have the peace of God, and by-and-by will be “homed and heavened” in the very heart of his Father.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
VIII
ELIJAH ALONE AGAINST THE WORLD
1Ki 17:1-21:29
Elijah the Tishbite is the most dramatic personage in all history. He has left an ineffaceable impress on the imagination of the men of all times. He appears on the stage of action suddenly, rarely, startlingly, and disappears as suddenly and dramatically for long intervals of time, in which he is completely hidden from public sight. The ordinary life of the man never becomes commonplace because never familiar by association with the people. His successor lived much in a city, and never in seclusion, so that his everyday life was in the full glare of publicity. This intensely dramatic way of appearing, when coupled with his strange garb, stern manners and ascetic life, naturally impresses the imagination. We are not disappointed in the reasonable expectation that such a career would breed many traditions. Long after he passed away we find the Jews continually expecting his return. At the observance of the passover the door is left open that Elijah may enter if he should suddenly come, and a vacant chair is reserved for him at the circumcision of a child. When lost goods are discovered and the owner cannot be found, they are set aside until Elijah comes to identify the owner. In New Testament times, the Jews, unable to account for Jesus of Nazareth, supposed that he was Elijah, and when Christ cried out in the extreme agony of his crucifixion they supposed he was crying for Elijah.
In harmony with his marvelous career, we find the biblical period of his history the richest in homiletical value of all the scriptures. All the great preachers in the world have found thrilling themes in the incidents of Elijah’s life, and not only the great preachers, but the preachers generally throughout the ages have gone into this deep rich mine for sermon themes. Perhaps no man in all the ministry’ and throughout all the ages entirely omitted the life of Elijah in selecting topics for pulpit discussions. It would be quite easy to name at least fifty texts for sermons in this part of the Bible. The Scripture books which treat of this remarkable man are 1 Kings, 2 Chronicles, Malachi, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Romans and James. The intense interest in his career is just as fresh and strong in our own time as in previous ages. Such long continued interest cannot wholly arise from the dramatic setting of his life. There must be some profounder reason for his unshaken hold on the imagination and thought of the religious world. We find that interest arising from the great world crisis of his time and his method of meeting it. Once only before, and never since, has true religion been in such danger of utter extinction as in Elijah’s time. We may therefore properly inquire: What were the elements of this crisis and what effective measures employed by him in meeting its necessities?
Briefly stated, the elements of this crisis were:
1. Ahab’s marriage with Jezebel, the Tyrian princess.
2. The marriage of Jezebel’s daughter with Jehoram, prince royal of Judah.
3. The consequent unhallowed alliance between Judah and Israel.
4. The consequent establishment of Baal worship in both kingdoms.
5. The consequent and extraordinary persecution of the true religion and its prophets in both kingdoms.
6. The same murderous extinction of the seed royal of David by Athaliah’s husband, the daughter of Jezebel until one child alone is left of all the male progeny of David.
7. The consequent eminent hazard of the extinction of the true religion in the world.
Elijah himself thus expresses the situation: “The children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thy altars and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life to take it away.” It is true, in the great depression of his mind following his flight from Jezebel, while under the juniper tree he prayed that he might die, feeling that his life had been a failure, that he exaggerated through ignorance his extreme loneliness. Some of the prophets had been saved alive by Obadiah, and the Almighty whose omniscience can read the hearts of the people in the most secret hiding places, assured him that there was a remnant according to grace of 7,000 who had not bowed the knee to Baal. But he knew nothing of this secret following of Jehovah. His voice was the only voice in the whole wide world lifted up in favor of Jehovah, so that with some measure of truth he might well say: “Alone, alone, alone, one man against the world.” In the days of Noah the remnant was even smaller than in the days of Elijah, but there has never been a period since his time when the true religion was reduced to as few flickering sparks.
After the revolt of the ten tribes under Jeroboam and the establishment of the dynasty of Omri and the marriage of Ahab, Omri’s son, with Jezebel, the Tyrian princess, and the adoption of her Baal worship in the place of the worship of Jehovah, the doom of the ten tribes was fixed, and all the) voices of the prophets could only briefly delay the swiftly coming ruin. One weak woman brought about the fall of the race, and this strong, cruel woman, Jezebel, could nearly bring about a second destruction. And when she had succeeded through her daughter, Athaliah, in establishing the Baal worship in Judah as well as in Israel, both streams of the national life became intensely corrupt. We are accustomed to admire the heroism of any sixteenth century reformer, who dared to lift his voice against the prevailing religious corruption of Romanism, but in no period of either pagan or papal persecution have the Christians been reduced to such small numbers and such scanty influence as in the days of Elijah. Neither Savonarola, nor Huss, nor Jerome, nor Prague, nor the Waldenses, nor Luther, nor Calvin, nor John Knox nor the Dissenters in the days of the Stuarts nor John Bunyan, nor Spurgeon was ever subjected to the extreme loneliness that afflicted the heart of Elijah. It is easy to go with the multitude, or even stand against the multitude if only a few stalwart friends unflinchingly support us, but when one man has to put himself against the whole world, the swelling tide of public opinion, the inquisition of hate, the devouring power of persecution with no reserve to fall back on except his own unconquerable spirit; then when such a man stands like a rock against which the billows dash themselves in vain, he is a hero indeed. No man can make such a stand apart from the divine call and support. In his case, as in the case of all trials of religious heroes, the Scripture is fulfilled: “When the enemy comes in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord lifteth up a standard against him.” In our admiration of this man’s greatness and in our gratitude for the redemption wrought through his heroic courage and fidelity, we should not lose sight of the God-prompted measures employed by him to effectively stem the encroaching tide of evil.
THE EFFECTIVE MEASURES EMPLOYED BY ELIJAH Briefly speaking, these were:
1. In his meeting with Ahab he startles the irreligious world with the announcement of a drought of three and a half years, which should not be broken except at his word, and then as suddenly as the drop of the curtain hides the arena of a theater from the sight of the people, he disappears and is lost to public view until the time comes for the breaking up of the drought. His name is unknown to history up to this sudden appearance with this awful denunciation. We know nothing of his father or his mother, or his kindred, or any of the early stages of his life. He emerges from total obscurity to stand as the mouthpiece of Jehovah, and then to be swallowed up into that obscurity for three and a half years more. The ravens knew the place of his retirement and furnished him food in his solitude, and a widow in the borders of Jezebel’s home country sheltered him from human sight. He had said that at his word only the drought should be broken; he was gone and no one knew where, and the consuming drought kept up its burning logic of opposition to idolatry. No soothsayer, no diviner, no rainmaker, no god of the heathen could even fleck the burning sky with a spot of cloud. While the ground parched and the water courses dried up, and all vegetation withered, and even kings spent their time in finding enough water to support the cattle of the royal household, well might the world wonder when this dramatic man would reappear and speak the word for rain to come. May we not account for Ahab’s worldwide search for him, by the desire that he would come and break up the drought by a word, before the nation perished? This measure was exceedingly effective in stemming the tide of irreligion, and in destroying public confidence in the powerless heathen gods.
The method of his own nourishment during the famine of the drought adds much to the character of the test between opposing deities. Jehovah miraculously provides for his prophet. There is nothing too hard for him. He may employ ravens or widows as instruments. We may not attempt to shut out a miracle by different vowel pointing of the word “raven.” The word is “ravens” and not angels, nor merchants, nor Arabs. These birds probably nested in the caves where Elijah went, and may have brought the food for their young. But that conjecture could not meet the Septuagint rendering: “They brought him bread in the morning and flesh in the evening.” The God whose spirit assembled the animals in the ark could influence ravens. Elijah is called the first apostle to the Gentiles because of his saving sojourn with the widow of Zarephath. The fact that Jezebel’s own country nourished the prophet adds emphasis to the test between opposing deities and as history counts it this widow is higher than Jezebel. The saving of the widow’s son led to her own salvation: many widows in Israel perished, but electing love reached out its saving hand to this widow in Jezebel’s country, as it did again in our Lord’s day. Jewish tradition represents this restored boy as becoming a follower of Elijah and identifies him with the prophet Jonah, the second foreign missionary.
Toward the end of this drought period, when its lessons of preparation have been well learned, and when messengers had vainly sought for Elijah throughout the habitable world, he reappears with all the dramatic power of his first appearance, and his second meeting with Ahab introduces his next effective measure of opposition to the irreligious life of his time.
2. He openly challenges Ahab to bring all the prophets of Baal together to put themselves against him alone in order to determine which god had the power to break this drought. The earth had never before seen such a single public test of the power of opposing deities. Elijah thus puts the case: “And Elijah came unto all the people and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. But the people answered him not a word. Then said Elijah unto the people, I, even I only, remain a prophet of the Lord, but Baal’s prophets are four hundred and fifty men. Let them, therefore give us two bullocks; and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and cut it in pieces and lay it on the wood and put no fire under; and I will dress the other bullock and lay it on wood and put no fire under, and call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord; and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken.” Thousands of sermons have been preached on these thrilling words of Elijah. The first one my own boyish mind can recall was by my own father upon this theme. The demonstration of Elijah was complete, and all the people said, “Jehovah, he is God.” In spite of their wickedness they found it impossible to blot out from their memories and from the memories of the race this great demonstration of divine power. And while the great reformation thus introduced seemed to be short-lived for these people, yet we, nearly 3,000 years later, feel the impress of the triumph of that day. Very rarely in a Bible story does a man of God indulge in sarcasm. The literature of the world cannot surpass this mockery of the false prophets of a false god: “And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is musing, or he has gone aside, or he is on a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth and must be awaked.” Certain heathen authors have imitated Elijah’s mockery of false gods; for example:
“Jove went yesterday across the ocean to banquet with the Ethiopians.” HOMER. Jove on his couch reclined his awful head, And Juno slumbered on the golden bed.
“It is no wonder that the temple of Diana was burned; since she was absent at the time, employed in bringing Alexander into the world.” PLUTARCH.
” ‘Tis plain that the gods are not at home, and probably have taken a voyage to attend the feasts of Ethiopia’s blameless race, for they are in the habit of inviting themselves as guests to those honest folks.” (Lucian, Testimony of the Ages, p. 307.) Fire from heaven having attested the truth of Elijah and demonstrated the falsehood of Baal, the lying prophets were all slain at the word of Elijah and in the presence of the panic-stricken Ahab, Elijah went up to the top of Carmel, overlooking the sea, and prayed seven times for rain. What a lesson on the importunity of prayer, and what a text for another sermon on the little cloud no larger than a man’s head at first, but rapidly darkening the heavens, and oh, the rain, the blessed rain that followed! At the word of Elijah the drought was broken. Though a man of like passions with ourselves, so great was his power of prayer, his pleadings attracted and condensed the clouds of the heavens, and the rain fell in torrents. The parched earth rejoiced under its downpour, the dying roots of vegetation revived, and burst forth in blade and bloom and fruit, and even men were not unmindful in at least their temporary gratitude for the relief that came to assuage their burning thirst. In every subsequent drought and thirst men remember Elijah and pray as Elijah prayed that God might relieve the suffering world. The lesson is titanic and far-reaching in its influence. It demonstrates that man’s extreme need is God’s opportunity. It uncovered to all human sight a throne of grace approached by human and suffering suppliants. Hundreds of thousands in the passing ages have Carmel to look on the sight of those great happenings. They put their feet where the old altar of Jehovah stood, which Jezebel destroyed, and Elijah here reconstructed. Even Tacitus, the Roman historian, ages afterward speaks of Garmel’s strange altar. These same thousands have climbed Carmel’s crest, and marked the crest where Elijah, looking out over the Mediterranean Sea, by importunate prayer, called up the cloud.
It is true that at this high tide of this reformation, the daring and cruel Jezebel affrighted Elijah, and shook for the first and only time in his history his self-reliant spirit, and drove him in abject fear to another and distant retirement. But not even Jezebel could blot out the lesson. The wilderness has swallowed Elijah like the brook Cherith once hid him from sight. Under the juniper tree he may wish to die. In the cave of Horeb he would hear the howling of the storm, feel the shock of the earthquake, see the devouring fire, and listen again to the still small voice of God. Men may say that Elijah was defeated, that he was thoroughly panic-stricken. He is gone, but he will come again out of the silence of the desert, and the opposition will hear his voice again.
The record of this disappearance of Elijah is more marvel-ous than the first. That despair under the juniper tree; that voice of God: “What doest thou here, Elijah?” that deep sleep; that angel food in the strength of which he fasted forty days, like Moses before him and his Lord after him all in that same desert, the visit to Sinai, and the voice again: “What doest thou here, Elijah?” the theme of so many sermons. Spurgeon says of himself that when a boy, seeing a deacon in a questionable place, put his finger on his shoulder and startled him with, “What doest thou here, Elijah?”
3. Just as suddenly as on the previous occasion he appears before Ahab in Naboth’s vineyard, and evokes from the trembling lips of the startled king: “Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?” How grim is his response: “I have found you.” And then comes the next measure to stem the tide of irreligion. As an oracle of God he denounced the doom of the house of Ahab. It shall perish root and branch; man, woman, nor child shall be left, and Jezebel) though she may array herself in royal apparel and paint her face and attire her head, yet shall the dogs eat her flesh. The word that had shut up the heavens, the word that had opened the heavens; that word now pronounces the downfall of this entire iniquitous house as certain and irrevocable. There is not space to rehearse the details of the execution of this doom. The records show that not a word of Elijah failed. The whole house of Ahab is blotted out and that lesson has power today. Even men who mock at God and deny the supernatural, and wade through blood to attain the goal of a tyrant’s ambition, yet tremble when they read the record of the fall of the house of Ahab. The miser, the covetous man who is an idolater, the individual land grabber, and the corporation thief of national territory may well cherish the experience of Elijah when in the vineyard of Naboth. The quiver of Elijah is not yet empty; another shaft is fitted to his bow of Death.
4. The son of Ahab is on the throne, and he is sick unto death. He had not forgotten the power of the word of Elijah. Let all sons of tyrants remember it. There is ever some weak or broken lattice to cause a fall that brings on the sickness unto death. And this man would inquire of Baal whether he would recover, but from out of his obscurity Elijah intercepts the messenger of inquiry and sends him back with the message of death. The affrighted man inquires of the messenger the appearance of the man who sends him this awful message: “What manner of man was he that came up to meet you and told you these words?” And they answered him: “He was a hairy man, and girt with a girdle of leather about the loins, and he said, ‘It is Elijah the Tishbite.'” The message was more impressive than the garb of the one who sent it and both are always recognizable by tyrants. The unhappy king seeks to arrest the prophet, but when two companies of fifty men have been consumed by fire, the man of God appears before the dying tyrant: “Thus saith Jehovah, forasmuch as thou hast sent messengers to enquire of Baalzebub the God of Ekron, is it because there is no God in Israel to enquire of his word? therefore, thou shalt not come down off that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die.” So he died according to the word of Jehovah which Elijah had spoken. How significant this terrible lesson! Not even the sick and dying shall inquire of another God but Jehovah! It was a lesson worthy of association with the lessons of the drought and the rain, and the fire from heaven, and of the vineyard of Naboth. Some men for a time, may forget this lesson, but mankind as a rule never forgets it. The oracles of the heathen have been abandoned to the moles and bats. The lesson of Elijah falls from many lips since his time, and we hear it thus from the lips of Isaiah: “And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto the wizards that chirp and mutter; should not a people seek unto their God? On behalf of the living should they seek unto the dead? To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” But the effective measures of Elijah have not reached their climax. The leaven of the Baal worship had spread through Jezebel’s daughter to the neighboring kingdom of Judah, and while Elijah’s mission was to Israel, or to the ten tribes, yet he has a measure for the kindred nations.
5. And this is his letter to Jehoram, king of Judah, the husband of Jezebel’s daughter. We have known Elijah as a man of deeds and of mighty words. We have not known him as a writer, but we do know that in this one case where he could not appear in person before the king of Judah, he wrote a letter, which, though not delivered until after his going away, yet found its object and was a posthumous bolt of lightning. This is the letter: “And there came a writing to him from Elijah the prophet, saying, Thus saith the Lord, the God of David thy father, Because thou hast not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat thy father, nor in the ways of Asa king of Judah; but hast walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and hast made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to go a whoring, like to the whoredoms of the house of Ahab; and also hast slain thy brethren of thy father’s house, which were better than thyself: behold, with a great plague will the Lord smite thy people, and thy children, and thy wives, and all thy goods: and thou shalt have great sickness by disease of the bowels, until thy bowels fall out by reason of the sickness, day by day.” This word was as much a missive of death as the word to Ahaziah, and is a demonstration that Elijah, though alone against the world, is still triumphant in the great war against the house of Ahab and the Baal worship. Ahab, Jezebel, Ahaziah, and Jehoram, are gone. Jezebel’s daughter and all the other offenders will follow later.
6. The sixth measure, God-prompted, which Elijah employed was even more powerful than the preceding ones. It is the measure of perpetuity. He is already informed that the time is at hand when he must leave the earth, and before leaving he must take steps to provide for the full prosecution of his work. This measure consists of a triple anointment. He anoints Elisha to be his own successor. He anoints Hazael, king of Syria, to afflict the idolatrous Israelites, and he anoints Jehu, king of Israel, to be his executor of all the remnants of the house of Ahab, so that his translation from this world to the one above does not put a stop to the effectiveness of the redemption of his race, and to the growth of the true religion. It seems to me however great things one may achieve in the short time of his earthly life, they cannot possibly be equal in effectiveness to those measures which provide for the successors and the perpetuity of the good work when one is gone. Only those who can leave behind them others to take up the work where they left it and who, through organizing power, can provide for an endless succession of workers only these are the great men of the world. It matters little if Christ is crucified if he left apostles and if these were empowered to institute a larger ministry, so that Paul might commit his work to Timothy, and Timothy in turn to faithful men after him, and thus secure a perpetuity of ministers. Whitefield was a great orator in his day, but his day passed. Wesley was a great organizer, and through his organization he lived long after Whitefield passed away.
7. Elijah has yet one arrow in his quiver; he will not die at all; God will translate him. Not even the sons of the prophets can find him when they search for him. No spot on earth holds his remains; no tombstone marks his resting place, and thus we come to his last effective measure.
He so went away as to create an expectation of his return. The expectation is voiced in these words of Malachi, which is the closing paragraph of the Old Testament: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers; lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”
When we come to the New Testament, the angel thus carries on the closing thought of the Old Testament to Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist: “For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb. And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” The words of our Lord give the interpretation of Malachi’s prophecy and of the angelic message to Zacharias. Concerning John the Baptist, Jesus said, “And if ye will receive it, this is Elijah which was to come.” “And they asked him saying, Why say the Scribes that Elijah must first come? And he answered and told them, Elijah verily cometh first, and restoreth all things, and how it is written of the son of man, that he must suffer many things and be set at naught. But I say unto you, that Elijah is indeed come, and they have done unto him whatsoever they listed, as it is written of him.”
We have thus found the elements of the crisis in Elijah’s time to be:
(1) Ahab’s marriage with Jezebel, the Tyrian princess.
(2) The marriage of Jezebel’s daughter with Jehoram, prince royal of Judah.
(3) The consequent unhallowed alliance between Israel and Judah.
(4) The consequent establishment of Baal worship in both kingdoms.
(5) The consequent and extraordinary persecution of the true religion and its prophets in both kingdoms.
(6) The murderous extinction of the seed royal of David by Athaliah, the daughter of Jezebel, until one child alone is left of all the male progeny of David.
(7) The consequent imminent hazard of the true religion and its prophets in the world.
And we have found Elijah’s effective measures of resistance to be:
(1) The sending of the drought at his first meeting with Ahab.
(2) The triumph over the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, and the breaking of the drought.
(3) His confronting Ahab in the stolen vineyard of Naboth and denouncing the doom of all his house.
(4) His interception of the message of Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, and his denunciation of the doom of the wicked king.
(5) His letter to Jehoram, king of Judah.
(6) His appointment of successors to carry on his work.
(7) His departure from the earth in such a way as to create an expectation of his return in any similar crisis in the world’s history.
Such a man not only left his impress in Jewish traditions, but supplied some of the most important New Testament lessons. The most notable of these are the following:
Christ’s lesson from Elijah’s time in his sermon at Nazareth: “And he said, Verily I say unto you, no prophet is accepted in his own country. But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land) but unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city near Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow.” This important lesson itself has been the theme of many a timely sermon. The lesson is one of extreme sadness. It carries back the mind to that awful drought when the stock were suffering, and the poor widows suffering most of all. It establishes the truth that any starving, dying woman of Israel could have found relief in an appeal to God’s prophet, but only a far-off stranger in Jezebel’s country had the faith to make the appeal and be saved from distress.
The next great lesson is the reappearance of Elijah at Christ’s transfiguration, where, with Moses, he appears in glory, and communes with the great Redeemer concerning his approaching death at Jerusalem (Mat 17:3 ). So that Elijah not only fulfilled the public expectation in coming again in the person of John the Baptist, who had his spirit and his power, but he comes in his own person from the high courts of heaven to confer with our Lord concerning his expiatory death. What a lesson is this when the living apostles are protesting against his death; when the murderers are expecting his death to cut off his influence and stop the progress of his principles I From the realms of the invisible world, the great law giver and the great prophet appear to find in that death the world’s only hope of salvation.
Another important New Testament lesson is Paul’s use of the remnant of 7,000 in Elijah’s day in discussing the great doctrine of “Election” (Rom 11:2 ). And what a lesson of comfort this is when we feel our isolation and loneliness; when the reformers in the ages of corruption become discouraged, to look back to Elijah, and see him under the juniper tree wishing he might die in the thought that his life was a failure, and hear the words of God: “I have reserved for myself seven thousand that have not bowed the knee to Baal.” In the times of great moral and spiritual corruption we know that there is hidden away, known only to the omniscient sight, many men and women true to what is right, though the great centers of influence become corrupt and though the great leaders turn away from the simple truth as it is in Jesus.
Another important lesson is given by James the brother of our Lord: “Elijah was a man of like passions with us, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain; and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.” What a lesson is here for human feebleness and doubt as to the power of prayer, and how much does the world need this lesson! Particularly is it helpful just now when it has become fashionable among the literary great to decry the power of prayer, when unsanctified science, falsely so-called, rebukes the helpless when they sink down on bended knee in dire extremities, saying, “It is vain to pray: all things move according to natural law. It is useless to cry unto God. What profit shall we have if we pray unto him?”
One other New Testament lesson which I refer to Elijah’s time, is very sweet. We find the record of it in Mat 10:41-42 . Jesus had been saying that whosoever giveth even a cup of cold water to a disciple in the name of a disciple shall receive a disciple’s reward, or whosoever shall receive a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward. There seems to be allusion to the words of Elijah addressed to the widow of Sarepta, words spoken in times of famine and drought and thirst: “And give me, I pray thee, a cup of cold water.” This lesson speaks to the lowliest and the poorest, those who have the least, and shows the mercy and grace of God in permitting the children of poverty even to find a blessing in helping somewhat the cause of the blessed God.
So that whether we consider the crisis of this man’s time or the effective measures adopted by him to stem the tide of religious corruption, or the New Testament lessons borrowed from the record of his life, or consider his period as an inexhaustible mine for digging up precious themes of pulpit power, we find Elijah and his times as supremely worthy of human study in any age. Such are some of the lessons to be learned from the man who stood alone against the world.
QUESTIONS
1. What is the theme and text of this lesson?
2. How do you account for the ineffaceable impress on the imagination of succeeding generations made by the life of Elijah?
3. Cite some of the traditions suggested by his life.
4. What is the relation of this life to homiletics and what books of Scripture furnish the material for the life of Elijah?
5. What proves that the abiding interest in Elijah is not due exclusively to the dramatic character of that life appealing to the imagination?
6. Give briefly the elements of the world crisis in his time,
7. How does Elijah himself express the situation?
8. How does Jehovah correct the exaggeration of this statement due to ignorance and morbid depression of mind?
9. Cite instances, apart from Jezebel’s case, of great harm coming from a woman’s influence, and then cite instances of great good resulting from a woman’s influence.
10. “There is a Jewish proverb: “When the tale of brick is doubled, then cornea Moses.” What scripture embodies the thought?
11. What was Elijah’s first measure of meeting the world crisis and how did it fairly test the opposing religions and deities?
12. Why did Ahab send all over the world to find Elijah?
13. How and where did Elijah hide himself during the three and a half years of the drought and how was he nourished?
14. Was his food supply at the brook Cherith brought by angels, Arabs, or birds?
15. What poor woman of this story eclipses Jezebel, and how did this incident add emphasis to the test between opposing deities?
16. Why is Elijah called the first apostle to the Gentiles?
17. What is the proof that this heathen woman was saved by Elijah’s ministry?
18. What is the Jewish traditions about this woman’s son?
19. What was Elijah’s second test?
20. What is the meaning of the word “bait” in “How long halt ye between two opinions?”
21. What heathen authors have imitated Elijah’s sarcasm and mockery of a false god?
22. How did Jezebel turn the tables on Elijah?
23. Have you read Henry Ward Beecher’s sermon on this panic of Elijah?
24. What great lesson of the juniper tree and the cave in Horeb?
25. What was the third measure of Elijah?
26. What were the great lessons from it?
27. What was the fourth measure?
28. And what was its lesson?
29. What was the fifth measure and its lesson?
30. What was the sixth?
31. What was the seventh and last?
32. Restate the seven elements of the crisis and the seven measures opposing.
33. Cite five New Testament lessons from his life.
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
1Ki 21:1 And it came to pass after these things, [that] Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which [was] in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria.
Ver. 1. And it came to pass after these things. ] After the two victories over the Syrians; not before, as Josephus will have it.
Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard.
Hard by the palace of Ahab.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
1 Kings
ROYAL MURDERERS
1Ki 21:1 – 1Ki 21:16
There are three types of character in this story, all bad, but in different ways. Ahab is wicked and weak; Jezebel, wicked and strong; the elders of Jezreel, wicked and subservient. Amongst them they commit a great crime, which was the last drop in the full cup of the king’s sins, and brought down God’s judgment on him and his house.
I. We have to look at the weakly wicked Ahab. His wish for Naboth’s vineyard was a mere selfish whim. He was willing to give more for it than it was worth. It suited his convenience for a kitchen-garden. In the true spirit of an Eastern despot, he expected everything to yield to his caprice, and did not think that a subject had any rights. What business has a poor man with sentiment? Naboth is to go, and a handful of silver will set all right. Samuel’s warning of what a king would be and do was fulfilled. This highhanded interference with private rights was what Israel’s revolt had led to. The sturdy Naboth was influenced not only by love for the bit of land which his fathers had cultivated for more years than Ahab had reigned days, but by obedience to the law of God; and he was not afraid to show himself a Jehovah worshipper, by his solemn appeal to ‘the Lord,’ as well as by the fact of his refusal. The brusque, flat refusal shows that some independence was left in the nation.
The weak rage and childish sulking of Ahab are very characteristic of a feeble and selfish nature, accustomed to be humoured and not thwarted. These fits of temper seem to have been common with him; for he was in one at the end of the preceding chapter, as he is now. The ‘bed’ on which he flung himself is probably the couch for reclining on at table, and, if so, the picture of his passion is still more vivid. Instead of partaking of the meal, he turns his face to the wall, and refuses food. ‘No meat will down with him for want of a salad, because wanting Naboth’s vineyard for a garden of herbs.’ As he lies there, like a spoiled child, all because he could not get his own way, he may serve for an example of the misery of unbridled selfishness and unregulated desires. An acre or two of land was a small matter to get into such a state about, and there are few things that are worth a wise or a strong man’s being so troubled. Hezekiah might ‘turn his face to the wall’ in the extremity of sickness and earnestness of prayer; but Ahab in doing it is only a poor, feeble creature who has weakly set his heart on what is not his, and weakly whimpers because he cannot have it.
To be thus at the mercy of our own ravenous desires, and so utterly miserable when they are thwarted, is unworthy of manhood, and is sure to bring many a bitter moment; for there are more disappointments than gratifications in store for such a one. We may learn from Ahab, too, the certainty that weakness will darken into wickedness. Such a mood as his always brings some Jezebel or other to suggest evil ways of succeeding. In this wicked world there are more temptations to sin than helps to virtue, and the weak man will soon fall into some of the abundant traps laid for him. Unless we have learned to say ‘No’ with much emphasis, because we are ‘strong in the Lord,’ we shall fall. ‘This did not I because of the fear of the Lord.’ To be weak is to be miserable, and any sin may come from it.
II. Jezebel is a type of a different sort of wickedness. She is wicked and strong. Notice how she takes the upper hand at once, in her abrupt question, not without a spice of scorn; and note how Ahab answers, bemoaning himself, putting in the forefront his fair proposal, and making Naboth’s refusal ruder than it really had been, by suppressing its reason. Then out flashes the imperious will of this masterful princess, who had come from a land where royalty was all-powerful, and who had no restraints of conscience. She darts a half-contemptuous question at Ahab, to stir him to action; for nothing moves a weak man so much as the fear of being thought weak. ‘Dost thou govern?’ implies, ‘If thou dost, thou mayest trample on a subject.’ It should mean, ‘If thou dost, thou must jealously guard the subject’s rights.’ What a proud consciousness of her power speaks in that ‘I will give thee the vineyard’! It is like Lady Macbeth’s ‘Give me the dagger!’ No more is said. She can keep her own counsel, and Ahab suspects that some violence is to be used, which he had better not know. So, again, his weakness leads him astray. He does not wish to hear what he is willing should be done, if only he has not to do it. So feeble men hoodwink conscience by conniving at evils which they dare not perpetrate, and then enjoying their fruits, and saying, ‘Thou canst not say I did it.’
Jezebel had Ahab’s signet, the badge of authority, which she probably got from him for her unspoken purpose. Her letter to the elders of Jezreel speaks out, with cynical disregard of decency, the whole ugly conspiracy. It is direct, horribly plain, and imperative. There is a perfect nest of sins hissing and coiled together in it. Hypocrisy calling religion in to attest a lie, subornation of evidence, contempt for the poor tools who are to perjure themselves, consciousness that such work will only be done by worthless men, cool lying, ferocity, and murder,-these are a pretty company to crowd into half a dozen lines. Most detestable of all is the plain speaking which shows her hardened audacity and conscious defiance of all right. To name sin by its true name, and then to do it without a quiver, is a depth of evil reached by few men, and perhaps fewer women.
The plot gives a colour of legality, which is probably often unobserved by readers. Naboth was to be accused of treason: ‘renouncing God and the king’; and that was, according to the law of Moses, a charge which, if proved, merited capital punishment. But it is Satan accusing sin for Jezebel, the Baal worshipper, who had done her best to root out the name of Jehovah, to accuse Naboth of departing from God. Much highhanded oppression must have gone before such outspoken contempt of justice; and, if Ahab represents the fatal connection of weakness and wickedness, Jezebel is an instance of the fatal audacity with which a strong character may come, by long indulgence in self-willed gratification of its own desires, to trample down all obstacles and go crashing through all laws, human and divine. The climax of sin is to see a deed to be sinful, and to do it all the same. Such a pre-eminence in evil is not reached at a bound, but it can be reached; and every indulgence in passion, and every gratifying of desire against which conscience protests, is a step toward it. Therefore, if we shrink from such a goal, let us turn away from the paths that lead to it. ‘No mortal man is supremely foul all at once.’ Therefore resist the beginnings of evil. Elijah was strong by natural temperament, and so was Jezebel. But the strength of the prophet was hallowed by obedience, and, like some great river, poured blessings where it flowed. Jezebel’s strength was lawless, and foamed itself away in fury, like some devastating torrent that spreads ruin whithersoever it bursts out. ‘Be strong’ is good advice, but it needs the supplement, ‘Let all your deeds be done in charity,’ and the foundation,’ Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might.’
III. The last set of actors in this pitiful tragedy are the subserviently wicked elders. The narrative sets their slavish compliance in a strong light. It puts emphasis on the tie between them and Naboth, in that they ‘dwelt in his city,’ and so should have had neighbourly feeling. It lays stress on their cowardly motive and their complete execution of orders, both by reiterating that they acted ‘as Jezebel had sent’ and ‘as it was written,’ and by taking the letter clause by clause, in the narrative of the shameful parody of justice which they acted. It suggests both their eagerness to do her pleasure, and her impatient waiting, in her palace, by the message sent in hot haste as soon as the brave peasant proprietor was dead. ‘It is ill sitting at Rome and striving with the Pope,’ as the proverb has it. No doubt these cowards were afraid for their own necks, and were too near the royal tigress to venture disobedience. But their swift, unremonstrating, and complete obedience indicates the depth of degradation and corruption to which they and the nation had sunk, and the terror exercised by their upstart king and his Sidonian wife.
Cowardice is always contemptible, and wickedness is always odious; but when the two come together, and a man has no other reason for his sin than ‘I was afraid,’ each makes the other blacker. Israel had cast off the fear of the Lord, which would have preserved it from the ignoble terror of men, and the consequence was that it trembled before an angry, unscrupulous woman. It had revolted from Rehoboam and his foolish bluster about whips and scorpions, and the consequence was a worse slavery. If we fear God, we need have no other fear. The sun puts out a fire. If we rebel against Him, we do not become free, but fall under a heavy yoke. It is never prudent to do wrong. The worst consequences of resistance to powerful evil are easier to bear than those of compliance, though it may seem the safer. Better be lying dead beneath a heap of stones, like the sturdy Naboth, who could say ‘No’ to a king, than be one of his stoners, who killed their innocent neighbour to pleasure Jezebel!
Her indecent triumph at the success of the plot, and her utter callousness, are expressed in her words to Ahab, in which the main point is the taking possession of the vineyard. The death of its owner is told with exultation, as being nothing but the sweeping aside of an obstacle. Ahab asks no questions as to how this opportune clearing away of hindrance came about. He knew, no doubt, well enough that there had been foul play; but that does not matter to him, and such a trifle as murder does not slacken his glad haste to get his new toy. There was other red on the vines than their clustering grapes, as he soon found out, when Elijah’s grim figure, like an embodied conscience, met him there. Whoever reaches out to grasp a fancied good by breaking God’s law, may get his good, but he will get more than he expected along with it,-even an accusing voice that prophesies evil. Elijah strides among the leafy vines in the field bought by crime. Ahab meant to make it a garden of pot-herbs. ‘Surely the bitter wormwood of divine revenge grew abundantly therein.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
Chapter 21
Now it came to pass after these things, that there was a fellow by the name of Naboth who had a vineyard, down in the area of mount Gilboa ( 1Ki 21:1 ).
And it was an excellent vineyard and it was next to property that Ahab owned, and Ahab desired Naboth’s vineyard.
And so he came to him and he said, I’d like to buy your vineyard, name your price ( 1Ki 21:2 ).
And Naboth said, Hey, it’s the family’s. If I sell it, then I’m selling that which is the family’s property. I don’t want to sell you the vineyard. It’s not for sale. And so the guy started pouting. He was so upset, just sitting there pouting and someone has crossed me. Can’t have his way. And so he’s pouting and his wife says, “What in the world’s wrong with you?”
And he said, “Oh, I just can’t stand it. I want that vineyard of Naboth.
And she says, “Well, quit your pouting. I’ll get you the vineyard if you want the vineyard.” And so she ordered the men of the city to gather together and she hired a couple of guys to lie against Naboth. So the elders were gathered together and Naboth was there. And these two men came in and they bore false witness.
They said, “We heard this man curse the king and curse God.” And so the penalty for cursing God, of course, was being stoned to death. And so with the two men bearing witness against him, lying as they did, they killed Naboth and of course, Jezebel just moved in and took his vineyard and gave it as a present to her husband.
So the word of the Lord came to Elijah saying, Arise, and go and meet Ahab the king of Israel, which is in Samaria: he’s in the vineyard of Naboth, he’s gone down to possess it. And you shall speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the LORD, Have you killed, and taken possession? And you shall speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the LORD, In the place where the dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall the dogs lick thy blood, even thine. So Ahab said unto Elijah, have you found me, my enemy? And he answered, I have found you; because you have sold yourself to work evil in the sight of the LORD. Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and will take away your possession, and cut off from Ahab all of his descendants. And I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like Baasha ( 1Ki 21:17-22 ).
In other words, the dynasty, the family dynasty is going to be gone.
And he also spake against Jezebel, saying, The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel. And him that dies of Ahab in the city the dogs will eat; him who dies in the field the fowls of the air or the vultures will eat. And there was none like unto Ahab, who did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the LORD, whose wife Jezebel stirred him up ( 1Ki 21:23-25 ).
There is none any worse than this king.
They did very abominably in following idols, according to all the things that the Amorites had done before them, the people that the LORD had cast out of the land. Now it came to pass, when Ahab heard these words, that he began really to live more carefully, he put on sackcloth, he fasted, and he lived very carefully. And so the LORD came to Elijah and said, These things will not happen in his days but in the days of his children ( 1Ki 21:26-29 ). “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
This is a story in the private life of Ahab. Next to his own broad and rich possessions was a vineyard, the inheritance of a man who by comparison with Ahab was poor. Naboth, loyal to the law of God, and standing within his own personal rights, declined to part with his vineyard. Once more we read that the king was sad and angry. But again his heart was not right with God, and consequently he lacked the one sufficient inspiration of rectitude in conduct toward his brother.
His brooding sadness arrested the attention of Jezebel, and he left himself in her hands. The result was the dastardly crime of Naboth’s murder.
Then we see Ahab in Naboth’s vineyard, apparently in possession. Men, however, do not so easily possess the things they obtain by unrighteous methods. Right there in the coveted garden, with startling abruptness, the rough prophet of Horeb, Elijah, stood before Ahab. One can imagine the mixture of terror and passion in the voice of Ahab as he cried, “Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?” Here again Elijah rose to the dignity of the true prophetic office as in words that must have scorched the inner soul of Ahab he pronounced the doom for his terrible wrongdoing. Filled with fear, Ahab assumed the external attitude of penitence, which in all likelihood was as selfish as was his sin. Yet even this was enough to stay the hand of judgment for the moment.
God never smites while the faintest chance remains.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
a Prosperous Nation
1Ki 4:1-7; 1Ki 20:1-43; 1Ki 21:1-29; 1Ki 22:1-53
What a picture is here given of national contentment and prosperity! We can almost hear the gladsome voice of the myriad-peopled land, teeming with young life and laden with golden harvests. It was the summer of their national existence. The sacred scribe enumerates first the high officials of the court, then the daily provision of the king, his studies, and his fame. Abundant proof was yielded by all these circumstances to the manner in which God kept the pledges which had been made to David, his father.
Here is Solomon in all his glory, but as we turn from him to the lowly Carpenter of Nazareth, who had nowhere to lay His head; who found His friends among the poor; and who ultimately laid down His life a ransom for many, we realize that, even apart from His divine nature, His was the nobler ideal and the richer existence. A greater than Solomon is here. Who can measure His empire or resources? What tongue can recount His wisdom? Happy and safe are they that sit at His table, hear His words, and are joint-heirs with Him in His Kingdom! Rom 8:17.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
1Ki 21:2-3
From this story we learn: (1) what a sacred thing property is; that a man’s possessions (if they be justly come by) belong to him, in the sight of God as well as in the sight of man, and that God will uphold and avenge the man’s right. Naboth loved his own land, and therefore he had a right to keep it. We may say that it was but a fancy of his, if he could have a better vineyard, or the worth of it in money. Remember, at least, that God respected that fancy of his, and justified it, and avenged it. When Elijah accused Ahab in God’s name, he put two counts in the indictment, for Ahab had committed two sins. “Hast thou killed and also taken possession?” Killing was one sin; taking possession was another. And so Ahab learned that God’s law stands for ever, though man’s law be broken or be forgotten by disuse. (2) We learn further that if we give way to our passions, we give way to the devil. Whenever any man gives way to selfishness and self-seeking, to a proud, covetous, envious, peevish temper, the devil is sure to whisper in his ear thoughts which will make him worse than he ever dreamt of being. Ahab knew that he was wrong; he dare not openly rob Naboth of his property; and he went to his house heavy of heart, and refused to eat; and while he was in such a temper as that the devil lost no time in sending an evil spirit to him. It was a woman whom he sent, Jezebel, Ahab’s own wife; she tempted him through his pride and self-conceit; she taunted him into sin. Ahab seems to have taken no part in the murder of Naboth, but by taking possession of his vineyard, and so profiting by the crime, he made himself a partaker in that crime, and had to hear the terrible sentence, “In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, dogs shall lick thy blood, even thine.”
C. Kingsley, Sermons for the Times, p. 164.
1Ki 21:10
Ahab is akin, both in his sin and his recovery, to the mass of mankind. He has neither sinned like Saul, nor will he mourn like David. He has been pusillanimous in his sin, and he will not be other than faint-hearted in his return to God. He moves, on the whole, in that middle sphere of moral life which is at best never heroic, and at worst something better than detestable, and which is, after all, the sphere of the mass of humankind.
I. Observe, first, that the repentance of Ahab, so far as it went, was a real repentance. (1) There is evidently in him a measure of that fear of God which is the beginning of true spiritual wisdom. (2) He does not attempt to palliate his sin. He is silent, not because he has nothing to acknowledge, but because he knows himself to be so simply and altogether wicked that he has nothing to say.
II. Wherein was Ahab’s penitence deficient? At what point does he cease to be an example and become a terrible warning?
There is nothing in Ahab’s subsequent conduct to show that he had attained to anything deeper than a fear of God’s judgments and an acknowledgment of his own guilt. He feared the consequences of sin, but that by loving God he hated sin itself is more than we can venture to suppose. For: (1) A true hatred of past sins will at all cost put them away and cut off the occasions which led to them. (2) The contrite sinner is concerned for the glory of God, which he has obscured. But with Ahab self was the centre still. He trembled at judgments which would light upon himself; and, on the same principle, he was unequal to sacrifices which were painful to self, however necessary to his Master’s honour.
III. The paramount influence upon Ahab’s mind came from without, and not from within, him. Jezebel stands behind him as an incarnation of the evil one. If Ahab ever struggled to maintain his fear of God, he soon sank vanquished by the more than human energy of his foe, to await his final reprobation.
H. P. Liddon, Oxford Lent Sermons; 1858, No. 10.
References: 1Ki 21:13.-J. M. Ashley, A Festival Year with Great Preachers, p. 30. 1Ki 21:19, 1Ki 21:20.-C. Kingsley, Town and Country Sermons, p. 317.
1Ki 21:20
In this story there are three things to be noticed:-
I. The cowardice of guilt. Ahab quailed before Elijah like a coward and a slave. A guilty conscience can make a coward even of a king.
II. Friends mistaken for enemies. Ahab called Elijah his enemy. He thought him his enemy because he did not encourage him in his sins, as others did, but reproved him and tried to turn him from them. There are people who take God for their Enemy, just as Ahab called Elijah by this name. Surely sin can never deceive us so completely as when it leads us to this horrible mistake.
III. Enemies disguised as friends. Ahab thought Jezebel his friend when she got him the vineyard he coveted. He thought the magistrates his friends who so basely put Naboth to death. He thought the prophets of Baal his friends who feasted at his table and flattered him with their smooth tongues. He thought them his friends, but they were his worst enemies. You may be sure he is a false friend who encourages you to act contrary to the wishes of your parents and to the wishes of your Father in heaven.
J. Stalker, The New Song, and Other Sermons for the Children’s Hour, p. 181.
I. We see here, in the first place, this broad principle.: pleasure won by sin is peace lost. While sin is yet tempting us it is loved; when sin is done, it is loathed. Naboth’s blood stains the leaves of Naboth’s garden. Elijah is always waiting at the gate of the ill-gotten possession.
II. Sin is blind to its true friends and its real foes. Elijah was the best friend Ahab had in the kingdom. Jezebel was the worst tempter that hell could have sent him. This is one of the certainest workings of evil desires in our own spirits, that they pervert to us all the relations of things, that they make us blind to all the truths of God’s universe. Sin, perverted and blinded, stumbles about in its darkness, and mistakes the friend for the foe and the foe for the friend. Sin makes us fancy that God Himself is our Enemy.
III. The sin that mistakes the friendly appeal for an enemy lays up for itself a terrible retribution. Elijah comes here and prophesies the fall of Ahab. The next peal, the next flash, fulfil the prediction. In Jezreel Ahab died; in Jezreel Jezebel died. If we will not listen to God’s message and turn at its gentle rebuke, then we gather up for ourselves an awful futurity of judgment.
A. Maclaren, Sermons Preached in Manchester, 1861, p. 265 (see also 1st series, p. 222).
Here we see God’s providential care even of such a person as Ahab, so utterly given up to all manner of wickedness. It is a very fearful picture, yet full of mercy and encouragement to true repentance.
I. In God’s dealings with Ahab we see a great law of His universal providence: not usually to leave sinners at ease in their sins. This is His great and unspeakable mercy to those who least seem to deserve it. Left to themselves, they must surely perish, but God does not leave them to themselves.
II. Neither need we doubt what His meaning is in so doing. He wills them to repent; He would not have them die. The untoward accidents, the unexpected turns, the strange and sudden failures, which happen to them, are so many checks from His fatherly hand, so many calls to a better mind.
III. Even Ahab’s small beginning of repentance is so far pleasing to Almighty God that in consideration of it He promises to bring the destruction of his house, not in Ahab’s days, but in his son’s days. Who knows how much greater mercy might have been shown him had his repentance continued and grown deeper? God finds us, as Elijah found Ahab, not as an Enemy, though His first sternness may well alarm such as we are, but as our true and only-sufficient Friend.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to “Tracts for the Times” vol. viii., p. 158 (see also J. Keble, Sermons for the Christian Year: Sundays after Trinity, Part I., p. 383).
I. That which first of all blinded Ahab to the true character and extent of his responsibility for the death of Naboth was the force of desire. A single desire, long dwelt upon, cherished, and indulged, has a blinding power which cannot easily be exaggerated. Desire is not always wrong in its early stages, and so long as it is under control of principle it is a useful motive power in human life. But when it finds itself in conflict with the rights of other men and, above all, in conflict with the laws and with the rights of God, it must be suppressed, unless it is to lead to crime. When Naboth declined to sell or exchange his vineyard, Ahab should have ceased to desire it. Desire is to the human soul what gravitation is to the heavenly bodies. In St. Augustine’s memorable words, “Quocumque feror amove feror.”
II. A second cause which may have blinded Ahab to the true character of his responsibility for the murder of Naboth was the ascendant influence and prominent agency of his queen, Jezebel. Ahab was bad and weak; Jezebel was worse and strong. Ahab could not have enjoyed the results of Jezebel’s achievement and decline the responsibility for it; yet no doubt he was more than willing to do this, more than willing to believe that matters had drifted somehow into other hands than his, and that the upshot, regrettable, no doubt, in one sense, but in another not altogether unwelcome, was beyond his control. False conscience constantly endeavours to divest itself of responsibility for what has been done through others, or for what others have been allowed by us to do.
III. The third screen which may have blinded Ahab to the real state of the case was the perfection of the legal form which had characterised the proceedings. The old religious forms had been respected; the constitutional authorities had put the law in motion. Nothing could have been so very far wrong when ancient rule and living administration combined to bring about a practical result, and Ahab might well let the matter rest and enjoy the vineyard of Naboth.
Law is a great and sacred thing; but when the machinery of law is tampered with, as was, no doubt, the case with Jezebel, its remaining force is the exact measure of its capacity for mischief and for wrong. Then, indeed, if ever, “summum jus summa injuria.”
From this story let us carry away two lessons: (1) the first to keep all forms of desire well under control; (2) for us Christians, the event or the man who discovers us to ourselves should be held to be, not our enemy, but our friend.
H. P. Liddon, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxii., p. 113.
It is thus that sinners regard God’s messenger. He is their enemy. He may be discharging a solemn duty reluctantly, unwillingly, with great pain to himself and kindness in his heart; it matters not if he carries God’s message, if he speaks the truth, if he loves righteousness, he is regarded as an enemy by one who will not be saved.
I. God’s messengers to us are various. Sometimes He sends a man to us, addresses the sinner by a human voice, and confronts him face to face with the minister of righteousness. When the Christian pastor seeks to speak in God’s behalf to persons sunk in sin and to warn them, as they would escape from the wrath to come, to cleanse themselves while they can from that which is provoking God’s judgment every day, how often is he reminded in his own experience of Ahab’s speech to Elijah! “Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?” may be the language of the manner, if not of the lips.
II. But God’s messengers are not all men; and the chief power of the human messenger lies in his close connection with another, not of flesh and blood. The prophet was Ahab’s enemy just because he was in concert with an enemy. The real enemy was not he, but conscience. Once let a man break loose from God, once let him give himself up to his self-will, lead him where it may, and forthwith increasingly, at last utterly, he will find his conscience his foe.
III. If it seems strange that any one should count his own conscience as an enemy, is it not yet more wonderful that the same feeling should ever be shown towards the very Gospel of grace, towards the Saviour of sinners Himself? Yet there are multitudes of persons who pass through life regarding our Lord Jesus Christ as an Enemy. They are afraid of Him, and therefore they keep Him at a distance; they know that one day they will want Him, but they almost deliberately defer seeking Him till the late hour of a deathbed repentance.
IV. Human nature, and each several part of it, has an enemy; but it is just that one which counterfeits the voice and professes the interest of a friend. That one enemy is sin. If Ahab had said to Jezebel when she came to tempt him, “Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?” he would have had no cause to say it to Elijah when he came to judge.
C. J. Vaughan, Lessons of Life and Godliness, p. 186.
References: 1Ki 21:20.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xi., p. 18; J. Edmunds, Sixty Sermons, p. 326. 1Ki 21:20-25,-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 101.
1Ki 21:25
If the reign of Ahab had been written in any book save the Bible, far less heavy would be the thunder-clouds which gather round his name. Even the Bible gives a hint of better things: “The ivory houses that he made and all the cities that he built, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?” But it is the history of religion in Ahab and under Ahab that the Bible would teach us; and so the fairer side, which is the world’s side, only shows itself to render more oppressive the moral midnight which settles upon his name as one who sold himself, more than any other, to work evil in the sight of the Lord.
Notice:-
I. Ahab’s general conduct as revealing the essential character of his mind. The clue to the career of Ahab is to be found in the counter-influences of Jezebel and Elijah. Ahab was a man weakly wicked. Alike to evil and to good, he was led on by stronger wills than his own. In his ivory palace Jezebel bowed him to her false worship, and to a participation in her enormous crimes; but no sooner did he meet Elijah than the great prophet asserted over the unstable king all the majestic might of holiness. Ahab’s history demonstrates that there may be intense sinfulness before God without any deliberate design. From very weakness of character he sold his own soul.
II. Ahab’s repentance. At Elijah’s words of righteous wrath which accused him of the murder of Naboth, the king’s heart was for a while broken; for a moment he seems to have caught a glimpse of the greatness of his sin. The incompleteness of his repentance suggests the two main causes of the frequent incompleteness of repentance among ourselves: (1) the infirmity of will which so often leaves a man at the mercy of whoever will take the trouble to lead him, and (2) his repentance was partial, not comprehensive; it had reference to a portion of his sins, not the whole. He seems to have endeavoured to couple humiliation to the true God with the tacit retention of idol-worship.
Bishop Woodford, Oxford Lent Sermons, 1858, No. 9.
References: 1Ki 21:25.-R. Heber, Parish Sermons, vol. ii., p. 118; I. Williams, Characters of the Old Testament, p. 215; R. Twigg, Sermons, p. 117; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 417. 1Ki 21:29.-J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes, 2nd series, p. 22; H. Thompson, Concionalia: Outlines of Sermons for Parochial Use, vol. i., p. 371; Homiletic Magazine, vol. xv., p. 164. 1Ki 21-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vi., p. 91. 1Ki 21-W. M. Taylor, Elijah the Prophet, p. 165; Parker, vol. viii., p. 51. 1Ki 22:1-41.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. v., p. 22.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
CHAPTER 21Naboths Vineyard
1. Naboths refusal (1Ki 21:1-4)
2. Jezebels wicked deed (1Ki 21:5-16)
3. Elijah pronounces divine judgment (1Ki 21:17-24)
4. Ahabs wickedness and confession (1Ki 21:25-27)
5. The LORDs mercy (1Ki 21:28-29)
No comment is needed on the story of Naboths vineyard. Jezebel, the wicked, and Ahabs submission to her was his ruination. On her Satanic suggestion one of the most wicked deeds recorded in Bible history is done. Naboth is murdered to obtain his vineyard. The measure of Ahabs apostasy and wickedness is now filled to overflowing. For the wicked king the tidings of Naboths death were welcome tidings. No inquiry follows, but in self-satisfaction he goes to take possession of the beautified vineyard of Naboth. But his enjoyment, as it is always with the enjoyment of sin, did not last very long. No sooner had the innocent blood been spilt, than Jehovah, who saw and knew the foul deed, sent Elijah with the final message of doom and judgment for the guilty pair. Ahab was still in the vineyard. His eyes still feasted on the beautiful scene before him. His thoughts were occupied with the pleasures of sin when suddenly Elijah appeared. I have found thee, were the prophets first utterances. Be sure your sin will find you out. Then follows the sentence already indicated in the words of the disguised prophet in the previous chapter. I will make thine house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Abijah, for the provocation wherewith thou hast provoked Me to anger, and made Israel to sin. And of Jezebel also spake the LORD, saying, The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel. Him that dieth of Ahab in the city the dogs shall eat; and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat. How literally this sentence was carried out we shall find in the subsequent history. But Ahab having humbled himself hears a merciful message from Elijahs lips. Because he humbled himself before Me, I will not bring evil in his days, but in his sons days will I bring evil upon his house. How merciful the Lord is to all who humble themselves!
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
am 3105, bc 899
after: 1Ki 20:35-43, 2Ch 28:22, Ezr 9:13, Ezr 9:14, Isa 9:13, Jer 5:3
Jezreel: 1Ki 18:45, Jos 19:18, Jdg 6:33, 1Sa 29:1, Hos 1:4, Hos 1:5
Reciprocal: Deu 5:21 – General Jos 7:21 – I coveted Jos 17:16 – Jezreel 1Ki 21:8 – the nobles 2Ki 9:21 – the portion of Naboth Hos 10:7 – Samaria Rom 7:7 – Thou shalt
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
1Ki 21:1-3. Which was in Jezreel Where one of Ahabs palaces was, as the other was in Samaria. That I may have it for a garden of herbs For a flower-garden, as some understand it. Ahab made a fair proposal for it, but the law was against Naboths alienating his vineyard from his family and tribe. The Lord forbid it me, &c. For God had expressly, and for divers weighty reasons, forbidden the alienation of lands from the tribes and families to which they were allotted. And although these might have been alienated until the jubilee, yet he durst not sell it to the king for that time: because, he supposed, if once it came into the kings hand, neither he nor his posterity could ever recover it; and so he should both offend God, and wrong his posterity.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
1Ki 21:3. The Lord forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers. Moses forbids the sale of an inheritance. Lev 25:23. Naboth had sons, it is presumed, and the sale would have robbed them; another vineyard would not have been the inheritance of their fathers. As Naboth knew the character of the reigning family, this refusal was an act of high heroic fortitude.
1Ki 21:8. She wrote letters in Ahabs name: a crime which would have forfeited the life of another.
1Ki 21:9. Proclaim a fast, because of the greatness of the sin in blaspheming God and the king. Moses directs that a man who curses his father shall die; and the king is the father of his country. Jezebel is now a saint of the first order; she makes no mention of Baal, but is zealous for the law of the Lord! Naboth and his sons were stoned and died. 2Ki 9:26.
1Ki 21:19. Hast thou killed, and also taken possession. Ah, clergy, clergy, who roll in ecclesiastical affluence; how few among you ever ventured to lay the axe to the vices of a court!
REFLECTIONS.
The land of Israel, after five years, had somewhat recovered the effects of the famine; and Ahab having twice by the singular aid of heaven defeated Benhadad, now thought of aggrandizing his palace by gardens and pleasuregrounds. Naboth of Jezreel had a smiling vineyard contiguous to the kings estate, and it was suggested that this vineyard would add a spacious and splendid appearance to his improvements. Ahab therefore offered Naboth an equivalent in money or in land. How cautious should mortals be of coveting what belongs to another. Why want the house, the shop, or the land of our neighbour, when he is not disposed to let it go? Perhaps, like Ahab, we have not long to live. Perhaps we shall get it with a curse; and then we shall wither, and droop, and die. If it be offered for sale, or offered to let, then every man is at liberty to bid. But the whole tenure of this world is so uncertain, that every earthly good, yea life itself purchased with sin, is bought too dear. In Naboths refusal of the overture, we see a fine example of paternal fidelity. The Lord had said, the land is mine: it shall not be sold for ever. Lev 25:23. This vineyard having been in Naboths family since the lot in Joshuas time, he considered himself the trustee and guardian of the Lords inheritance. Let us learn of this upright man to hold fast the word of truth which has been entrusted to us by the Lord, for ourselves and for our children; and which is able to build us up to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away. This is the Lords inheritance, and we must not surrender our little for the best vineyard which this world can possibly give.
The sorrow of this world worketh death. Ahab went home so depressed that he could not take his food; because he was denied one vineyard, he seemed not to have a single comfort in which he could rejoice. He was so afflicted that Jezebel came to see him; and what can be more dangerous than the consolations of the wicked? Ah alas, how many grieve like Ahab, because they are denied that share of fortune, of splendour and dress, which their foolishness and pride would prompt them to ask. Mercies are heaped upon them; and yet when denied one favourite object, they are gloomy and depressed, and angry with heaven and earth.
In this Jezebel we have a character consummately wicked, very instructive to mankind. She had been educated in the Zidonian school, and was fully initiated into every mystery of impiety and wickedness. She had been long accustomed to shed innocent blood; yea the blood of prophets with impunity. Now she scorned reproof, and mocked at vengeance. Haughty and indignant she would bear no restraint; and to accomplish her purpose she never made a scruple of the most atrocious crimes; for with her there was no crime so great as the obstruction of her pleasure. From nature she had derived a fine understanding, and her personal charms were almost without a rival; but now every vestige of sound wisdom and real humanity she had extinguished from her breast. She had passions at command, had vanquished conscience, and opened her bosom wide to every maxim of infernal policy. Naboths fall and Ahabs grief were to her equal subjects of diversion. Habituated to intrigue she wantonly obtruded her services in the tragic and daring plot, which was entirely her own. Having forged the kings name and applied his seal, she commanded the judges of Jezreel to select two men, well instructed for Naboths ruin; and to impress the public by proclaiming a fast, for the worst of men are ready to avail themselves of religion when it will serve their purpose; she joined them in expressing the deepest concern that the land might be purged of such daring and atrocious crimes. She commanded them in particular to accuse Naboth of blasphemy against God, which would forfeit his life; and of blasphemy against the king, which would forfeit his lands. How cautious, how guarded was this scheme; and to be sure, nobody would think of calling the king to an account, or of asking him for evidence; and of the queen, no one would think her worse, or ever dream that she was privy to the plot.Rejoice wicked woman; rejoice in the most successful of thy plans. Thou hast triumphed in the sight of heaven and earth; religion and law have favoured thy designs. Naboth is dead, and the vineyard is thine own: send now thy husband to take possession. But know a maxim, a thousand years more ancient than thou: know that the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment. Know that thy plot, so complete in thy esteem, contained an important oversight. Thy letter was not against Naboth; he is taken from the evil to come, and out of thy power; it was a sentence against thyself, for in the place where the dogs licked up his blood, they shall lick up thy blood!
In Ahab we see that they who are partakers of other mens sins, shall be partakers of other mens punishments. Ahab complied with his wife; he went down to his vineyard, and tasted the forbidden fruit. He was surrounded with his flattering courtiers, and with a multitude of workmen. He was busy in executing the most approved plans. Unwilling to consult his title, he looked forward solely to improvements, and anxiously anticipated the extended beauties and retiring graces of his palace. Thus was Ahab employed when Elijah obtruded among the throng; when he thunder-struck and appalled the crowd by unravelling all the nefarious mystery, justifying the innocent Naboth, and denouncing against the guilty king the most terrific sentence of the Almighty. Hast thou killed and taken possession! Behold, in the place where the dogs licked up the blood of Naboth shall they lick up thy blood, even thine! Oh what silent but expressive looks would the poor now cast on Elijah, on Ahab, and on one another. And from this prophet, let christian ministers learn to strike at all reigning and recent vices in the places where they exercise their ministry, and let them not fear the rank and influence of those who offend, for God requires fidelity in his servants.
Wicked men generally resent the first and more poignant strokes of the rod. The king, with all the revoltings of an indignant pride, said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, oh mine enemy? Yet, on a moments reflection, vanquished by the weight of shame and guilt, he rent his splendid robe, put on sackcloth, fasted, and walked with a dejected countenance: and humbling his soul like the men of Nineveh, the Lord, after a while, graciously deferred, during his life, the evils denounced against his family. Yet after all, his repentance was defective: he still doted on his Jezebel, hated the prophets, and ultimately fell without leaving his country one ray of hope that he died in peace.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
1Ki 21:1-29. The Story of Naboth.This is evidently not a part of the Elijah story of 1 Kings 17-19. There are certain differences of style; e.g. Ahab is described as king of Samaria (1); and Elijah does not, as in 1 Kings 17-19, occupy the central place. Nor does the story come in a very suitable place between 1 Kings 20 and 1 Kings 22, which have points in common. In the LXX it occurs before 1 Kings 20. It is probably, though not certainly, an independent narrative about Elijah. Ahab, as is usual. is not represented in the worst possible light; the great offender is Jezebel, who acts not as a Baal worshipper so much as a queen of Israel. Some critics (e.g. Burney) connect this passage with 2 Kings 9 f., the story of the destruction of the house of Omri by Jehu, where the mention of the burden laid on Ahab on that occasion demands the recital of thesecircumstances. Naboth refused to sell his vineyard because it was his ancestral property (1Ki 21:3). The Priestly Code forbids the alienation of land, and probably reflects a strong prejudice in favour of not surrendering an inheritance (Lev 25:23, Num 36:7). Naboth was falsely accused of blasphemy and treason (1Ki 21:10), cursing (lit. blessing, i.e. bidding farewell to or renouncing, but see Job 1:5*) God and the king. According to the LXX Ahab (1Ki 21:16) was horrified at the crime, and put on sackcloth on hearing of Naboths death, but nevertheless took possession of the vineyard (1Ki 21:18 f.). Elijah did not foretell that the place of the destruction of Ahabs family would be on Naboths land, but this is implied in 2Ki 9:36. The incident may not be placed in its true historical position, and there is no hint that Jezebel or Ahab represented a false religion, and Elijah the true. Nevertheless the conduct of those concerned may shew how the Baal worship had corrupted the morals of the times. The elders of Jezreel came no better out of the transaction than Ahab or even Jezebel herself. It has been maintained that this crime more than idolatry caused the ruin of the house of Omri.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
THE COLD-BLOODED MURDER OF NABOTH
(vs.1-16)
When one adopts a sullen, sulking character, it is likely to develop more seriously. Ahab illustrated this in his dealings with Naboth the Jezreelite. He coveted what belonged to Naboth and offered him either money or another vineyard for Naboth’s vineyard, since it was near Ahab’s property (v.2). But Naboth had received the vineyard as an inheritance from his father, and told Ahab that his conscience toward the Lord would not allow him to give up that inheritance (v.3).
There was certainly no right reason that this should have affected Ahab so badly, but he went home again sullen and displeased, as he had before. He laid on his bed sulking, even refusing to eat (v.4). When he told Jezebel the reason for his sulking, she immediately knew what to do, and told him she would give him the vineyard of Naboth. She had no hesitation in using Ahab’s name in her heartless abuse of authority. She wrote letters in his name and sealed them with his seal. Why was Ahab’s seal available to her? But he made no objection, therefore he was just as guilty as she.
The letters were blatantly bold, demanding that Naboth be apprehended and two men of low character hired to bear false witness against him, to the affect that he had blasphemed God and the king (v.10). Of course the evil men were paid for their lies. The elders of the city were just as guilty as Jezebel and Ahab, for they knew that Naboth was accused falsely, but no one would make any protest. Jezebel had already decided that Naboth must die by stoning and this horrible injustice was quickly carried out (v.13).
The cold-blooded wife of Ahab then told him to take possession of Naboth’s vineyard, for Naboth was dead (v.15). Ahab’s conscience should have warned him that he would have to give account to God of the murder of Naboth, but he ignored his conscience and went down to take possession of Naboth’s vineyard.
GOD SENDS ELIJAH TO AHAB
(vs.17-29)
At this point God intervened. He sent Elijah to meet Ahab in the vineyard of Naboth, with the message, “Have you murdered and also taken possession?” and “Thus says the Lord, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, dogs shall lick your blood, even yours.” Ahab’s response, “Have you found me, 0 my enemy?” indicates that he had tried to hide his works from the Lord but had been found out. Therefore Elijah speaks the words of the Lord to Ahab, “I have found you, because you have sold yourself to do evil in the sight of the Lord: Behold, I will bring calamity on you. I will take away your posterity, and will cut off from Ahab every male in Israel, both bond and free. I will make your house like the house of Jereboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah, because of the provocation with which you have provoked Me to anger, and made Israel sin” (vs.20-22).
What could Ahab say? His kingly dignity could not intimidate Elijah, and the moral force of Elijah’s words compelled Ahab to listen. More than this, Ahab was also told, “The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel” (v.23). Elijah had before run away from Jezebel because of her vicious threat (ch.19:2-3), but he delivers the announcement of her end with no fear whatever Thus God had recovered him from his fear.
As to Ahab’s family, he is told that the dogs would eat any of those who died in the city and the birds would eat any who died in the field (v.24). None of them would be allowed the dignity of a burial. What a message for a king of Israel to receive!
Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible
Ahab’s disregard for Yahweh’s authority 21:1-16
Even though Jezebel was behind the murder of Naboth, God held her husband Ahab responsible (1Ki 21:19). Jezebel’s evil influence over her husband stands out in this story. [Note: Alexander Rofe, "The Vineyard of Naboth: The Origin and Message of the Story," Vetus Testamentum 38:1 (January 1988):102.] Ahab was willing to murder a godly Israelite to obtain a mere vegetable garden.
"A vineyard, like an olive-orchard, is not just land that may have been in the family for a long time: it represents a high investment in many years of unfruitful care before it reaches maturity." [Note: Auld, p. 137.]
Naboth sought to live by the Mosaic Law (1Ki 21:3; cf. Lev 25:23-28; Num 36:7). Ahab’s "sullen and vexed" feelings (1Ki 21:4; cf. 1Ki 20:43) were the result of his perception that Naboth’s position was unassailable legally. Compare Saul’s moodiness following his disobedience and sentence.
Jezebel believed Ahab was the supreme authority in Israel (1Ki 21:7), an opinion he shared (cf. 1Ki 20:42). This was the root of many of Ahab and Jezebel’s difficulties (cf. Saul and his daughter Michal, and Ahab and his daughter Athaliah). They failed to acknowledge Yahweh’s sovereignty over Israel. Jezebel obviously knew the Mosaic Law (1Ki 21:10). It required two witnesses in capital offense cases (Deu 17:6-7). Cursing God was a capital offense (Lev 24:16). Jezebel elevated cursing the king to a crime on the same level with cursing Yahweh (1Ki 21:10). This was inappropriate but consistent with her concept of Israel’s king. She formed her plot in conscious disobedience to God’s revealed will.
The elders and nobles of Jezreel were under Jezebel’s thumb (1Ki 21:11). They were not faithful to Yahweh. They probably could not have been to stay in office under Ahab. Jezebel also executed Naboth’s sons (2Ki 9:26). When Ahab heard what his wife had done, he did not reprove her but took advantage of her actions and in doing so approved them (1Ki 21:16). Naboth’s vineyard was in Jezreel, not Samaria. [Note: B. D. Napier, "The Omrides of Jezreel," Vetus Testamentum 9 (1959):366-78, clarifies the confusing references to Jezreel and Samaria in the Naboth story. ]
"The most heinous act of Ahab came in the matter of Naboth. A king’s primary responsibility was to render justice in the land. Ahab egregiously violated this requirement by stealing from a man he had murdered (through Jezebel)." [Note: Heater, p. 134.]
Compare Saul’s unjustified attempts to kill David.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
NABOTHS VINEYARD
1Ki 21:1-29
“The triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the godless is but for a moment.”
– Job 20:5
“If weakness may excuse,
What murderer, what traitor, parricide,
Incestuous, sacrilegious, but may plead it?
All wickedness is weakness.”
– Samson Agonistes.
The chief glory of the institution of prophecy was that it rightly estimated the supremacy of the moral law. The prophets saw that the enforcement of one precept of righteousness involved more true religion than hundreds of pages of Levitic ritual. It is the temptation of priests and Pharisees to sink into formalism; to warp the conceptions of the Almighty into that of a Deity who is jealous about inconceivable pettinesses of ceremonial; to think that the Eternal cares about niceties of rubric, rules of ablutions, varieties of nomenclature or organization. In their solicitude about these nullities they often forget, as they did in the days of Christ, the weightier matters of the law, mercy, judgment, and truth. When religion has been dwarfed into these inanities the men who deem themselves its only orthodox votaries, and scorn all others as “lax” and “latitudinarian,” are not only ready to persecute every genuine teacher of righteousness, but even to murder the Christ Himself. They come to think that falsehood and cruelty cease to be criminal when practiced in the cause of religious intolerance.
Against all such dwarfing perversion of the conceptions of the essential service which man owes to God the prophets were called forth to be in age after age the energetic remonstrants. It is true that they also had their own special temptations; they, too, might become the slaves of shibboleths; they might sink into a sort of automatic or mechanical form of prophecy which contented itself with the wearing of garbs and the repetition of formulae long after they had become evacuated of their meaning. {Zec 13:4} They might distort the message “Thus saith Jehovah” to serve their own ends. They might yield to the temptations both of individual and of corporate ambition. They might assume the hairy garb and rough locks of Elijah for the sake of the awe they inspired while their heart “was not but for their own covetousness.” {Jer 22:17} They might abuse their prestige to promote their own party or their own interests. They were assailed by the same perils to which in after days so many monks, hermits, and religious societies succumbed. Many a man became a nominal prophet, as many a man became a monk, because the office secured to him a maintenance-
“Twas not for nothing the good bellyful, The warm serge and the rope that goes all round, And day long blessed idleness besides”;
and also because it surrounded him with a halo of imaginary sanctity. The monks, we know, by their turbulence and partisanship, became the terror of the fourth century after Christ, and no men more emphatically denounce their mendicancy and their impostures than the very fathers who, like St. Jerome and St. Augustine, were most enamored of their ideal. As for the hermits, if one of them securely established a reputation for abnormal austerities he became in his way as powerful as a king. In the stories even of such a man as St. Martin of Tours we detect now and then a gleam of hauteur, of which traces are not lacking in the stories of these nameless or famous prophets in the Book of Kings.
No human institution, even if it be avowedly religious, is safe from the perilous seductions of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Perpetually
“The old order changeth, giving place to new, And God fulfils Himself in many ways Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.”
Mendicant brotherhoods and ascetic communities were soon able by legal fictions, to revel in opulence, to steep themselves in luxury, and yet to wield a religious authority which princes envied. When we read what the Benedictines and the Minorites and the Carthusians often became we are the less surprised to find that even the Schools of the Prophets, while Elijah and Elisha yet lived, could abdicate as a body their best functions, and deceiving and deceived could learn to answer erring kings according to their idols.
But the greatest and truest prophets rose superior to the influences which tended to debase the vulgar herd of their followers in days when prophecy grew into an institution and the world became content to side with a church which gave it no trouble and mainly spoke in its own tones. True prophecy cannot be made a matter of education or “tamed out of its splendid passion.” The greatest prophets, like Amos and Isaiah, did not come out of the Schools of the Prophets. Inspiration cannot be cultivated, or trained to grow up a wall. “Much learning,” says Heraclitus very profoundly, “does not teach; but the Sibyl with maddening lips, uttering things unbeautified, unperfumed, and unadorned, reaches through myriads of years because of God.” The man whom God has summoned forth to speak the true word or do the heroic deed, at the cost of all hatred, or of death itself, has normally to protest not only against priests, but against his fellow-prophets also when they immorally acquiesced in oppression and wrong which custom sanctioned. {see Jer 23:20-40} It was by such true prophets that the Hebrews and through them the world were taught the ideal of righteousness. Their greatest service was to uphold against idolatry, formalism, and worldliness, the simple standard of the moral law.
It was owing to such teaching that the Israelites formed a true judgment of Ahabs culpability. The act which was held to have outweighed all his other crimes, and to have precipitated his final doom, was an isolated act of high-handed injustice to an ordinary citizen.
Ahab was a builder. He had built cities and palaces, and was specially attached to his palace at Jezreel, which he wished to make the most delightful of summer residences. It was unique in its splendor as the first palace inlaid with ivory. The nation had heard of Solomons ivory throne, but never till this time of an “ivory palace.” But a palace is nothing without pleasant gardens. The neighborhood of Jezreel, as is still shown by the ancient winepresses cut out of the rock in the neighborhood of its ruins, was enriched by vineyards, and one of these vineyards adjoining the palace belonged to a citizen named Naboth. It happened that no other ground would so well have served the purpose of Ahab to make a garden near his palace, and he made Naboth a fair offer for it. I will give you, he said, “a better vineyard for it, or I will pay you its full value in ingots of silver.”
Naboth, however, was perfectly within his rights in rejecting the offer. It was the inheritance of his fathers, and considerations nothing short of sacred-considerations which then or afterwards found a place in the written statutes of the nation-made it wrong in his judgment to sell it. He sturdily refused the offer of the king. His case was different from that of the Jebusite prince Araunah, who had sold his threshing-floor to David, and that of Shemer, who sold the Hill of Samaria to Omri. {1Ki 16:24}
A sensible man would have accepted the inevitable, and done the best he could to find a garden elsewhere. But Ahab, who could not bear to be thwarted, came into his house “heavy and displeased.” Like an overgrown, sullen boy he flung himself on his divan, turned his face to the wall, and would not eat.
News came to Jezebel in her seraglio of her lords ill-humor, and she came to ask him, “What mutiny in his spirit made him decline to take food?”
He told her the sturdy refusal of Naboth, and she broke into a scornful laugh. “Are you King of Israel?” she asked. “Why this is playing at kinghood! It is not the way we do things in Tyre. Arise, eat bread, be merry. I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.”
Did he admire the mannish spirit of the Syrian princess, or did he secretly shrink from it? At any rate he let Jezebel take her own course. With intrepid insolence she at once wrote a letter in Ahabs name from Samaria, and sent it sealed with his signet to the elders of Jezreel. She ordered them to proclaim a fast as though to avert some public calamity, and-with a touch of dreadful malice as though to aggravate the horror of his ruin-to exalt Naboth to a conspicuous position in the assembly. They were to get hold of two “sons of worthlessness,” professional perjurers, and to accuse Naboth of blasphemy against God and the king. His mode of refusing the vineyard might give some colorable pretext to the charge. On the testimony of those two false witnesses Naboth must be condemned, and then they must drag him outside the city to the pool or tank with his sons and stone them all.
Everything was done by the subservient elders of Jezreel exactly as she had directed. Their dawning readiness to carry out her vile commands, the deadliest incidental proof of the corruption which she and her crew of: alien idolaters had wrought in Israel. On that very evening Jezebel received the message, “Naboth is stoned and is dead.” By the savage law of those days his innocent sons were involved in his overthrow, {2Ki 9:26} and his property, left without heirs, reverted by confiscation to the crown, {2Sa 16:4} “Arise,” said the triumphant sorceress, “and take possession of the vineyard you wished for. I have given it to you as I promised. Its owner and his sons have died the deaths of blasphemers, and lie crushed under the stones outside Jezreel.”
Caring only for the gratification of his wish, heedless of the means employed, hastily and joyously at early dawn the king arose to seize the coveted vineyard. The dark deed had been done at night, the king was alert with the morning light. He rode in his chariot from Samaria to Jezreel, which is but seven miles distant, and he rode in something of military state, for in separate chariots, or else riding in the same chariot, behind him were two war-like youths, Jehu and Bidkar, who were destined to remember the events of that day, and to refer to them four years afterwards, when one had become king and the other his chief commander. {2Ki 9:25; 2Ki 9:36}
But the kings joy was short-lived!
News of the black crime had come to Elijah, probably in his lonely retreat in some cave at Carmel. He was a man who, though he flamed out on great occasions like a meteor portending ruin to the guilty, yet lived in general a hidden life. Six years had elapsed since the calling of Elisha, and we have not once been reminded of his existence. But now he was instantly inspired to protest against the atrocious act of robbery and oppression, and to denounce upon it an awful retribution which not even Baal-worship had called forth.
Ahab was at the summit of his hopes. He was about to complete his summer palace and to grasp the fruits of the crime which he had allowed the wife to commit. But at the gate of Naboths vineyard stood the swart figure of the Prophet in his hairy garb. We can imagine the revulsion of feeling which drove the blood to the kings heart as he instantly felt that he had sinned in vain. The advantage of his crime was snatched from him at the instant of fruition. Half in anger, half in anguish, he cried, “Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?”
“I have found thee,” said the Prophet, speaking in Jehovahs name. “Thou hast sold thyself to work evil before me, and I will requite it and extinguish thee before me. Surely the Lord saw yester night the blood of Naboth and the blood of his sons. Thy dynasty shall be cut off to the last man, like that of Jeroboam, like that of Baasha. Where the dogs licked the blood of Naboth, the dogs shall lick thine. The harlots shall wash themselves in the water which thy blood has stained. Him that dieth of thee in the city the dogs shall eat, and him that dieth in the field shall the vultures rend, and the dogs shall eat Jezebel also in the moat of Jezreel.”
It is the duty of prophets to stand before kings and not he ashamed. So had Abraham stood before Nimrod, and Moses before Pharaoh, and Samuel before Saul, and Nathan before David, and Iddo before Jeroboam. So was Isaiah to stand hereafter before Ahaz, and Jeremiah before Jehoiachin, and John the Baptist before Herod, and Paul before Nero. Nor has it been at all otherwise in modern days. So did St. Ignatius confront Trajan, and St. Ambrose brave the Empress Justina, and St. Martin the Usurper Maximus, and St. Chrysostom the fierce Eudoxia, and St. Basil the heretic Valens, and St. Columban the savage Thierry, and St. Dunstan our half-barbarous Edgar. So, too, in later days, Savonarola could speak the bare bold truth to Lorenzo the Magnificent, and Knox to Mary Queen of Scots, and Bishop Ken to Charles II. But never was any king confronted by so awful a denunciation of doom. Probably the moment that Elijah had uttered it he disappeared; but could not a swift arrow have reached him from Jehus or Bidkars bow? We know how they remembered two reigns later the thunder of those awful words, but they would hardly have disobeyed the mandate of their king had he bidden them to seize or slay the Prophet. Nothing was further from their thoughts. Elijah had become to Ahab the incarnation of his own awakened conscience, and it spoke to him in the thunders of Sinai. He quailed before the tremendous imprecation. We may well doubt whether he even so much as entered again the vineyard of Naboth; never certainly could he have enjoyed it. He had indeed sold himself to do evil, and, as always happens to such colossal criminals, he had sold himself for naught-as Achan did for a buried robe and a useless ingot, and Judas for the thirty pieces of silver which he could only dash down on the Temple floor. Ahab turned away from the vineyard, which might well seem to him haunted by the ghosts of his murdered victims and its clusters full of blood. He rent his clothes, and clad himself in sackcloth and slept in sackcloth, and went about barefooted with slow steps and bent brow, a stricken man. Thenceforward as long as he lived he kept in penitence and humiliation the anniversary of Naboths death, as James IV of Scotland kept the anniversary of the death of the father against whom he had rebelled.
This penitence, though it does not seem to have been lasting, was not wholly in vain. Elijah received a Divine intimation that, because the king troubled himself, the threatened evil should in part be postponed to the days of his sons. The sun of the unfortunate and miserable dynasty set in blood. But though it is recorded that, incited by his Tyrian wife, he did very abominably in worshipping “idol-blocks,” and following the ways of the old Canaanite inhabitants of the land, none of his crimes left a deeper brand upon his memory than the judicial seizure of the vineyard which he had coveted and the judicial murder of Naboth and his sons.
How adamantine, how irreversible is the law of retribution! With what normal and natural development, apart from every arbitrary infliction, is the irrevocable prophecy fulfilled: “Be sure your sin will find you out.”
“Yea, he loved cursing, and it came unto him; Yea, he delighted not in blessing, and it is far from him Yea, he clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment, And it came into his bowels like water, like oil into his bones.” {Psa 109:17-18}
Ahab had to be taught by adversity since he refused the lesson of prosperity.
“Daughter of Jove, relentless power,
Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge and torturing hour
The bad affright, afflict the best,
Bound in thine adamantine chain
The proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple tyrants vainly groan
With woes unfelt before, unpitied and alone.”
But as for Elijah himself, he once more vanished into the solitude of his own life, and we do; not hear of him again till four years later, when he sent to Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, the message of his doom.