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Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Kings 16:29

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And in the thirty and eighth year of Asa king of Judah began Ahab the son of Omri to reign over Israel: and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty and two years.

29 33. Ahab king of Israel. His excess of wickedness (Not in Chronicles)

29. And in the thirty and eighth year of Asa ] Here the LXX. gives ‘in the second year of Jehoshaphat.’ This is in harmony with the inserted passage just noticed, but of course disagrees with the date in 1Ki 22:41 both in the LXX. itself and in the Hebrew text.

and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel ] These words are omitted by the LXX.: as are the words ‘the son of Omri’ in the next verse.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Twenty and two years – Rather, from a comparison between 1Ki 15:10 and 1Ki 22:51, not more than 21 years. Perhaps his reign did not much exceed 20 years.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

29-33. Ahab the son of Omri did evilin the sight of the Lord above all that were before himTheworship of God by symbols had hitherto been the offensive form ofapostasy in Israel, but now gross idolatry is openly patronized bythe court. This was done through the influence of Jezebel, Ahab’squeen. She was “the daughter of Eth-baal, king of theZidonians.” He was priest of Ashtaroth or Astarte, who, havingmurdered Philetes, king of Tyre, ascended the throne of that kingdom,being the eighth king since Hiram. Jezebel was the wicked daughter ofthis regicide and idol priestand, on her marriage with Ahab, neverrested till she had got all the forms of her native Tyrian worshipintroduced into her adopted country.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

And in the thirty fifth year of Asa king of Judah began Ahab the son of Omri to reign over Israel,…. At the latter end of it, the same year his father died, see 1Ki 16:23

and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty two years; the same number of years Jeroboam did, 1Ki 14:20.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

The ascent of the throne of Israel by Ahab (1Ki 16:29) formed a turning-point for the worse, though, as a comparison of 1Ki 16:30 with 1Ki 16:25 clearly shows, the way had already been prepared by his father Omri.

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

Ahab’s Reign.

B. C. 925.

29 And in the thirty and eighth year of Asa king of Judah began Ahab the son of Omri to reign over Israel: and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty and two years. 30 And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD above all that were before him. 31 And it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him. 32 And he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. 33 And Ahab made a grove; and Ahab did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him. 34 In his days did Hiel the Beth-elite build Jericho: he laid the foundation thereof in Abiram his firstborn, and set up the gates thereof in his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake by Joshua the son of Nun.

We have here the beginning of the reign of Ahab, of whom we have more particulars recorded than of any of the kings of Israel. We have here only a general idea given us of him, as the worst of all the kings, that we may expect what the particulars will be. He reigned twenty-two years, long enough to do a great deal of mischief.

I. He exceeded all his predecessors in wickedness, did evil above all that were before him (v. 30), and, as if it were done with a particular enmity both to God and Israel, to affront him and ruin them, it is said, He did more purposely to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger, and, consequently, to send judgments on his land, than all the kings of Israel that were before him, v. 33. It was bad with the people when every successive king was worse than his predecessor. What would they come to at last? He had seen the ruin of other wicked kings and their families; yet, instead of taking warning, his heart was hardened and enraged against God by it. He thought it a light thing to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, v. 31. It was nothing to break the second commandment by image-worship, he would set aside the first also by introducing other gods; his little finger should fall heavier upon God’s ordinances than Jeroboam’s loins. Making light of less sins makes way for greater, and those that endeavour to extenuate other people’s sins will but aggravate their own.

II. He married a wicked woman, who he knew would bring in the worship of Baal, and seemed to marry her with that design. As if it had been a light thing to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, he took to wife Jezebel (v. 31), a zealous idolater, extremely imperious and malicious in her natural temper, addicted to witchcrafts and whoredoms (2 Kings ix. 22), and every way vicious. The false prophetess spoken of Rev. ii. 20 is there called Jezebel, for a wicked woman could not be called by a worse name than hers; what mischiefs she did, and what mischief at last befel her (2 Kings ix. 33), we shall find in the following story; this one strange wife debauched Israel more than all the strange wives of Solomon.

III. He set up the worship of Baal, forsook the God of Israel and served the god of the Sidonians, Jupiter instead of Jehovah, the sun (so some think), a deified hero of the Phoenicians (so others): he was weary of the golden calves, and thought they had been worshipped long enough; such vanities were they that those who had been fondest of them at length grew sick of them, and, like adulterers, much have variety. In honour of this mock deity, whom they called Baal–lord, and for the convenience of his worship, 1. Ahab built a temple in Samaria, the royal city, because the temple of God was in Jerusalem, the royal city of the other kingdom. He would have Baal’s temple near him, that he might the better frequent it, protect it, and put honour upon it. 2. He reared an altar in that temple, on which to offer sacrifice to Baal, by which they acknowledged their dependence upon him and sought his favour. O the stupidity of idolaters, who are at a great expense to make one their friend whom they might have chosen whether they would make a god of or no! 3. He made a grove about his temple, either a natural one, by planting shady trees there, or, if those would be too long in growing, an artificial one in imitation of it; for it is not said he planted, but he made a grove, something that answered the intention, which was to conceal and so countenance the abominable impurities that were committed in the filthy worship of Baal. Lucus, a lucendo, quia non lucet—He that doeth evil hateth the light.

IV. One of his subjects, in imitation of his presumption, ventured to build Jericho, in defiance of the curse Joshua had long since pronounced on him that should attempt it, v. 34. It comes in as an instance of the height of impiety to which men had arrived, especially at Bethel, where one of the calves was, for of that city this daring sinner was. Observe, 1. How ill he did. Like Achan he meddled with the accursed thing, turned that to his own use which was devoted to God’s honour. He began to build, in defiance of the curse well known in Israel, jesting with it perhaps as a bugbear, or fancying its force worn out by length of time, for it was above 500 years since it was pronounced, Josh. vi. 26. He went on to build, in defiance of the execution of the curse in part; for, though his eldest son died when he began, yet he would proceed in contempt of God and his wrath revealed from heaven against his ungodliness. 2. How ill he sped. He built for his children, but God wrote him childless; his eldest son died when he began, the youngest when he finished, and all the rest (it is supposed) between. Note, Those whom God curses are cursed indeed; none ever hardened his heart against God and prospered. God keep us back from presumptuous sins, those great transgressions!

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

Evil Reign of Ahab, Verses 29-34

The forty-one year reign of Asa in Judah extended from the reign of Jeroboam, the first king of Israel, to Ahab, the eighth. This indicates the unstabilized conditions that existed in the northern kingdom because of the sin of Jeroboam in leading them to depart from God’s true worship. Each king seemed to bring Israel into a worse and worse spiritual condition. Ahab on the contrary should have brought about better conditions there, for he was allowed twenty-two years on the throne, and even then was cut short by death on the battlefield. However, his reign turned out to be the worst of the lot.

Ahab not only continued the practices of calf worship instituted by Jeroboam, but married a wicked, idolatrous seductress from Zidon. Jezebel, his wife, was the daughter of Eth-baal, the king of Zidon, a notorious center of Baal worship. Jezebel was totally devoted to the worship of Baal, and by her uncanny influence over her husband set herself on a program to impose Baal worship as the official religion of Israel. She prevailed upon Ahab to erect a Baal temple in Samaria. He also established a grove for the occultic prostitution which was related to it. For all this the divine record proclaims that Ahab did more to provoke God than all the kings before him, from Jeroboam to his own father, Omri.

As an indication of the extent to which men were willing to go to defy God and ignore His word the account of the rebuilding of Jericho is related. When the city fell to Israel as the first obstacle faced by them after they crossed the Jordan (Jos 6:26), Joshua had uttered a curse on any man who rebuilt (that is, refortified) it. Certainly people had lived in it as an unwalled town heretofore, but none had dared turn against the Lord in again strengthening it by raising its walls.

The man who did this was Hiel, the Bethelite. His town of nativity seems to indicate that he was an adherent of the calves, placing no faith in the true God of Israel. The curse said that he who rebuilt Jericho would lay the foundation in his firstborn and raise the gates in his youngest, which means that these sons would die during the time of these events. Some commentators say the prophecy indicates that all the builder’s sons would perish in the course of the building, beginning with the oldest and ending with the younger. Still others point out the probability that the sons were sacrificed by their father on these occasions in open defiance of God and in keeping with his pagan, occultic worship.

Hiel definitely opposed God. He should have been well familiar with God’s curse, and even if ignorant is inexcusable in his having neglected to learn the will of God. On the other hand he portrays many fathers stubbornly bent on their own careers to the loss of sons and daughters to all sorts of evils of the present day. The admonition of the law (De 6:6-9) was ignored by Hiel; And that of Paul (Eph 6:4) is ignored by men today.

Lessons: 1) Men who refuse to profit from other men’s mistakes are destined to suffer the same judgment; 2) God does not condone sin in any sense, but He allows it to run its course against those who are unrepentant; 3) a nation which allows bad rulers to hold power can expect to share in their evil judgment; 4) division in a nation which should promote harmony for the sake of the unit will ultimately destroy it; 5) those who put personal advancement ahead of God and family will destroy themselves at last.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.

1Ki. 16:30. Ahab, the son of OmriA name fraught with woe for Israel!

1Ki. 16:30. Took to wife JezebelEthbaal, her royal father, murdered his own brother (king Philetos), was a priest also of Baal. Fit parent of this woman.

1Ki. 16:32. Reared up an altar for BaalFully handed over his kingdom to the Tyrian idolatry. is the Phnician sun-god; the altar, , was a pillar or image (comp. Notes on 1Ki. 14:23).

1Ki. 16:33. And Ahab made a groveThe Ashterah (see on 1Ki. 14:15). Thus Jehovahs worship ceased by royal encouragement and example, if not by edict, and Jezebel saw the idolatry of her own people established in Israel.

1Ki. 16:34. Hiel the Bethelite built JerichoMore than 500 years intervened between the curse (Jos. 6:26) and its literal fulfilment. Ahab, having repudiated Jehovah as an object of personal and national worship, further showed his defiance of God in rearing this city, whose overthrow was a memorial of Israels salvation by Jehovah. Whether Hiels sons perished by violence during the erection of Jericho is unknown; the fact alone is here preserved that the curse was literally fulfilled.W. H. J.

HOMILETICS OF 1Ki. 16:29-34

THE REJECTION OF GOD THE ACME OF WICKEDNESS

THE beginning of Ahabs reign commences a new epoch in the history of Israel; new, not so much in the flagrant forms of wickedness that manifest themselves, as in the relative importance of the kingdom of Israel during the reigns of Ahab, Ahaziah, and Jehoram. With the exception of Jeroboam, the reigns of Ahabs predecessors are very briefly noticed, occupying but parts of two chapters; but the incidents of the three following reigns, embracing a period of about thirty-five years, extend from this passage to the tenth chapter of 2 Kings. During this period the kingdom of Judah receives comparatively little notice, and then only as an ally of the Northern kingdom, which stands out predominantly as the mightiest ruling power in the land. During the same period appeared those greatest, sternest, most mysterious of prophets, Elijah and Elisha, whose lives and acts, with strange romantic blendings, present on the one hand the fierce vindictiveness of the theocratic spirit towards sin, and, on the other, the tender and shrinking humanity which shows them up as men of like passions with ourselves. By means of Jezebel, the Sidonian princess, Phenician idolatry is introduced and sanctioned in the kingdom, and Baals prophets are multiplied by hundreds. A fierce persecution arises against the worshippers of Jehovahfaithfulness to the Lord God of Israel being by the court regarded as disaffection to the government and its measures. Wars, attended with varying fortunes, are carried on with several hostile kingdoms, while within the land the few pious weep in desolate sadness, and hide themselves in caves and dens of the earth. Israel seemed to reach the summit of its wickedness during the reign of Ahab. Observe

I. That a wicked son may exceed the iniquity of a wicked father. And Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him (1Ki. 16:30). The name of Ahab has attained an evil eminence in the worlds history. Like Antiochus Epiphanes, and Nero, he had a love of art, and he was not destitute of generous impulses; but he stands forth an example of the lengths of wickedness to which a weak selfishness may be driven by the influence of a stronger will. The great sin of Ahabthat by which he differed from all his predecessors, and exceeded them in wickednesswas his introduction of the worship of Baal, consequent upon his marriage with Jezebel, a name even more infamous than his own; and his formal establishment of this gross and palpable idolatry as the religion of the state. He was but carrying out to its inevitable results the vile policy of his father. It is an unspeakable curse to be under the training of a wicked father; and it is no wonder if a son thus trained should outvie his father in vice and profanity.

II. That a wicked wife may exert a still more baneful influence over a wicked husband (1Ki. 16:31). The marriage of Ahab with this princess, writes Stanley, was one of those turning points in the history of families where a new influence runs like poison through all its branches, and transforms it into another being. Jezebel was a woman in whom, with the reckless and licentious habits of an Oriental queen, were united the fiercest and sternest qualities inherent in the old Semitic race. Her husband, in whom generous and gentle feelings were not wanting, was yet of a weak and yielding character, which soon made him a tool in her hands. Even after his death, through the reigns of his sons, her presiding spirit was the evil genius of the dynasty. This is the first recorded instance of an Israelitish king choosing his chief wife from among the cursed Canaanitish race, and both king and people had good reason for bitterly repenting the choice. The character of Jezebel, as portrayed in the following chapters, is an embodiment of all that is most awful and terrible in the Clytemnestra of the Greek tragedians, and in the Lady Macbeth of Shakespeare. Woe to the man who is under the thumb of a clever, designing, enterprising, but radically wicked wife!

III. That the public sanction and practice of idolatry amounts to a total rejection of God (1Ki. 16:32). Hitherto the Israelites had not cast off their allegiance to Jehovah, nor ceased to worship Him, though their worship was damaged by the presence of unworthy emblems, and degraded by maimed rites and an unlawful priesthood. But in the dark times of Ahab and Jezebel, while they did not in so many specific terms formally renounce Jehovah, they did what was practically the same by setting up other gods besides Him, and holding Him of no more account than them. Baal-worship became the fashionable and court religion; and the mass of the people, prepared by the idolatrous experiences of previous reigns, would readily adopt it. Baal was the chief male divinity among the Phenicians, as Ashtoreth was their female divinity. Jehovah can tolerate no rival; and a divided worship cannot be acceptable to Him. If idolatry is preferred, then Jehovah is rejected; and the result is misery and death.

IV. That the rejection of God is the very acme of wickedness (1Ki. 16:33). Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him. We can be guilty of no greater sin than to reject God and the salvation He has provided through His son. This is the condemnation, &c. (Joh. 3:19 compared with Joh. 3:36). It is not the enormity or number of our sins which causes our condemnation; but the unbelieving rejection of the Divine Redeemer. When we give up God, we give up everythingall help, all hope, all happiness, and, like a rudderless and sailless vessel, drift towards the gloomy rocks of destruction.

V. That in a time of abounding wickedness the most presumptuous acts are attempted (1Ki. 16:34). The attempt to rebuild Jericho is adduced as a proof of the general impiety of Ahabs time. The curse of God against the man who should rebuild that city (Jos. 6:26) had hitherto been believed and respected, and several hundred years had passed with no one so impious as to despise that curse. The place had been inhabited, but no one had ventured to fortify it and set up the gates. But now faith in the old religion had so decayed that Joshuas malediction, terrible as it was, no longer exercised a deterrent power. Hiel, a Bethelitea native of that city which had so long been the scene of Israelitish calf-worship, and, perhaps, a despiser of Jehovah and His lawsundoubtedly a man of wealth and station, perhaps instigated by Ahab, undertook to restore the long ruined fortress, in spite of Joshuas menace. But he suffered for his temerity. In exact accordance with the words of Joshuas curse, he lost his firstborn son when he began to lay anew the foundations of the walls, and his youngest when he completed his work by setting up the gates, and, it is supposed, all-his other children between. Of all sins, presumptuous sins are most offensive to God, and never fail to meet with their due meed of punishment. But when man abandons God, there is no degree of wickedness of which he is not capable. Hiel paid dearly for his presumption. He sought for a name, but he left it for a curse (Isa. 65:15). The man who defies the Almighty must bear the consequences.

LESSONS:

1. It is a life-long plague for any man to be united to a wicked and abandoned woman.

2. If the idolater spares no expense or labour in serving his abominations, with what generosity and zeal ought the Christian to serve his God.

3. Idolatry has degrees of wickednessthe highest is reached when God is rejected.

AHAB AND BAAL

I. The worship of the calves which Jeroboam set up in Bethel and in Dan is carefully distinguished in Scripture from the worship of Baal which was introduced by Ahab into Samaria. Jeroboam wished to separate the ten tribes from those which followed the house of David, by giving them sacrifices and priests of their own. From the words which he is said to have usedThese are thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee out of the land of Egyptit is probable that he affected to restore the idolatry which Aaron had sanctioned in the wilderness. He or his priests would suggest the thought to the people, or their own hearts would suggest it to them, that what the high priest approved could not be very wrong, that Moses had no right to break the calf in pieces, that the people in Jerusalem who followed the law of Moses were really departing from a good old example, that they were returning to a national service. The step from this ultra local worship to a foreign Phnician worship seems a very long one, yet it was natural and easy. We cannot tell exactly what the calf signified to the Egyptian, still less what it signified to the Hebrew slave in the desert, or to the revolted tribes. It may have been merely adopted as a traditional symbol, no special force being attached to it. But a people trained in the law of Moses must have associated some recollection of an unseen Being even with the most worthless image. How strong such associations may be in any mind, how long they may continue, we have happily no means of determining. We only know that the conscience of the idolater becomes at once stupefied and sensitive; more and more incapable of appreciating moral distinctions; more and more alive to terrors. The thought of a righteous being is appalling; from an object of trust he passes into an object of horror. How to appease Him is the question. The old forms may not be the right. Other nations which seem happier and more prosperous, have other gods and sacrifices. It might be well to try them. The most powerful neighbour must be most worthy of imitation.

II. A king like Ahab meets the demand of a people in this state. The Scripture which speaks of the cities which he built, and his ivory house, and his might, and the wars which he warred, leaves the impression upon us that he was intellectually superior to his predecessors, of a higher ambition, less narrow in his notions. He had not the dread which Jeroboam felt of intercourse with Jerusalem, he cultivated the friendship of Jehoshaphat. At the same time he took to wife Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians, and with her he naturalized a worship certainly more imposing and august than that which had been practised by the kings that were before him. There may, or may not, have been animal forms connected with the service of this God of Ekron. The name would seem only to impart a comprehensive notion of lordship, a notion which might express itself in a number of different symbols, which certainly would not be as limited to the one of the calf, or be likely to adopt that as its favourite. Baal would become Baalim, the general lord or ruler would soon be multiplied and divided into a number of lords and rulers; but there would be attached to them all a much grander feeling of dominion than could ever have entered into the mind of one who was bowing to the likeness of a calf which eateth hay.
III. Ahab would therefore seem to himself, as well as to a great many of his people, an improver and expander of the popular faith. Foreign priests with much more knowledge, probably, than those lowest of the people whom Jeroboam had consecrated, would come into the land. A number of the native priests would be quite ready to adopt the worships which the king and queen favoured. Though they might have some new rites to learn, though they might not like the strangers, or might be despised by them, yet they would not be conscious of any great change in themselves or their devotions. In their groves, on their hill altars, they had been seeking to propitiate some unknown fearful divinity. For that divinity they had now found a name. The Egyptian idol might suggest thoughts sometimes of the dark power, sometimes of Him who had made a covenant with their fathers; the Phnician taught them to understand the distinction, to feel and know that they were invoking another than the Lord God whose presence Solomon had prayed might fill His temple.
IV. You see, then, why Ahab is said to have provoked the Lord God of Israel more than all that were before him. The Baal worship was essentially the worship of mere power. I do not say that abstractedly or originally it was the worship of an evil power; but it was the worship of power; therefore, of that which man sees without him in nature, not of that which he feels within speaking to himself. When we think that the things themselves exercise the power, and do not receive it from One in whom dwells eternal justice and rectitude, forms which denote the most violent and inexplicable outbursts of fury, the fire and the tempest, are speedily thought to represent the nature of the Baal or Baalim of the lord or lords of the universe. At all events, these are what man must address himself to. Some joyous feasts may be celebrated with wild and reckless licence to the gentler and humaner power which manifest themselves in the propitious breeze, the quiet evening, the sun that ripens the autumn fruits; but the most serious services, the sacrifices which those very enjoyments have made necessary, the libations of blood, must be presented to some malevolent nature which would destroy unless it were soothed. Thus the worship of power becomes literally the worship of evil. By a regular and awful process, Baal or Baal-zebud became in the minds of his devout servants what his name imported to Jews of later timethe Prince of the Devils.Maurice.

GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES

1Ki. 16:29-34. The king Ahab. I. His union with Jezebela marriage contracted not in obedience to Gods holy will, but merely upon worldly grounds and political considerations, and was, therefore, the source of great mischief to himself and to his people. II. The uplifting of idolatry over the religion of the country. The calf-worship was merged in the Baal-worship. The greatest tyranny is the tyranny over conscience, which pretends to rule also over belief. The worst rule is that which, instead of demanding recognition of the truth, substitutes lies and errors, and exercises its power in aid of unbelief and of superstition. III. The rebuilding of Jericho. By means of faith the walls of Jericho fell (Heb. 11:30). Idolatry will build them up again; but the curse rests upon them. He who builds up what the Lord has destroyed, falls under His judgment. Julian, who rebuilt the heathen temple, and the Jews, who rebuilt the temple of Jerusalem, were confounded and brought to shame.Lange.

1Ki. 16:30. And what manner of man was hethis Ahab, son of Omriwho gave his royal countenance and sanction to all these doings? Excuse is sometimes made for him as not an essentially wicked, but only a weak man, overborne by the powerful will of a resolute woman. But all wickedness is weakness, and it is also true, that all weakness is wickedness, and most of all in a king. He to whose care the welfare of a nation has been entrusted, has no right to be weak. The weakness ascribed to Ahab seems to us merely indolence of character, a love of ease, an indisposition to exertion, unless when thoroughly roused by some awakening stimulus. He was such a man as would rather allow what he feels to be wrong, for the sake of a quiet life, than take the trouble of asserting what he knows to be right. To shake off, to battle against this sloth of temper, which made him the tool of others, and rendered him impotent for all good, was his duty as a man, and tenfold more his duty as a king; and to neglect that duty was wickedness, was ruin. And it ended, as all such neglect does, in bringing down upon him tenfold the trouble and disturbance of ease which he had striven to avoid. Anything for an easy life, seems to have been Ahabs rule of conduct. But a king has no right to an easy life. It is hard work to be a king. Especially is it hard work in an Eastern country, where, on the person of the sovereign, are devolved many duties of decision, of judgment, and of action which, in Western countries, he assigns to his advisers and ministers.Kitto.

The progress of wickedness. I. Rapid. II. Encouraged by notorious examples. III. Begets an emulation to outstrip all predecessors. IV. Sinks a nation into moral degradation and ruin.

Moral corruption the cause of decay. I. That the judgments of God upon the wicked are not arbitrary, but are regulated by law. Nothing whimsical or arbitrary may be ascribed to Him who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, and who sees the end from the beginning. The idea that God is variable in His doings has, like all false things, created a reaction which threatens to be serious. The changing notions of theology have stirred the thoughts of men outside the theological circle, and led to the earnest study of these positive sciences which reveal the order and regularity of all Gods works. From this source has sprung a doctrine of God which represents Him as so fixed and changeless that it is painful from its very immutability. Even from this teaching of the Positivists we may learn that which may help our faith and clear our conceptions of God. In the physical world, God rules by lawlaw fixed and changelesssince the perfection of His wisdom forbids the necessity of change. May we not learn thence, that in the moral and spiritual world the same order will be observed, the same plan of government carried on? This thought is strengthened when we remember that the two worlds are ultimately one; the physical is only the type of the spiritual. The one plan of government pervades the whole. Effects follow causes in the sphere that belongs to the soul, as punctually as in the world of matter. If you break loose from the Divine plan of spiritual life, or refuse to be loyal to the spiritual laws of the kingdom, it is at your peril. II. The illustrations of this law which the history of the world presents. History, when written and read rightly, corroborates the declarations of the Word of God. Think of the time when the young world was filled with wickedness: the eternal laws of right and goodness were trampled under foot; God was forgotten, and human nature exasperated by its own rebellion. The punishment did not tarry long after the sin. So was it in like manner with the cities of the plain. So was it with the Jews. The cup of their iniquity was full. Through the ages their rebellion had been great. They obtained times for repentance without number, but always fell back to their old sin. With the Jews all life of the highest kind was gone; every inspiration to nobleness was eaten up. Only the carcase of a dead people was left, and where that is, there will the eagles be gathered together. What is to be said of all those empires, kingdoms, and people which made such progress for a season, and whose glory filled the habitable globe? Where are Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage? In proportion as the conscience of a people is true to its own ideas of right and wrong will the energy of the people increase and their existence be prolonged; when it is otherwise, decay and death are certain. Let us not tempt God as did the Jews. O! do not continue in sin; do not play with the poison, lest it eat out the life, deaden your sensibility to God and right, leave you with your virtue utterly ruined, your God offended, your destiny lost.J. Coyle.

1Ki. 16:31. Jezebel was just the woman to manage such a man; and she soon found how to manage Ahab as she pleased, and to become, in fact, through him, the regnant sovereign of Israel, while on him devolved the public responsibility of her acts. It was not by imperious temper, though she was imperious, nor by palpable domineering, that she managed this. No. She made herself necessary to himnecessary to his ease, his comfort, his pleasures. She worked for him, she planned for him, she decided for him. She saved him a world of trouble. She taught him to consider the strength of her will necessary to supply the weakness of his ownnecessary to save him the labour of exertion and thought. Prompt in decision, ready in resource, quick in invention, ruthless in actionshe saw her way at once to the point at which she aimed, and would cut with a sharp stroke through knotty matters which the king shrunk from the labour of untying. She was thus often enabled to secure for her husband the object of his desires which he himself hesitated to pursue, or despaired to obtain; and in accepting it from her hands, he cared not too nicely to enquire whether it were not stained with blood, or whether it heaped not upon his head coals of fire which would one day consume him.Kitto.

A native of Zidon and the daughter of its king, from the very first hour Jezebel set foot in Israel she became its poison and curse; and, indeed, among all who have disgraced the name of woman, she must ever hold a loftily inglorious rank. We place her on the same platform with Lucretia Borgia, who shrank from no crime; with Mary, the daughter of Henry VIII., who sent Cramner, Latimer, Hooper, and Ridley to the stake; with Catherine de Medici, the real author of Black Bartholomew, when, in one single night, 70,000 Huguenots perished; with Lady Macbeth, the original of whom, it is believed by many, our national dramatist found in Jezebel. There is something in the very sound of that name that makes one scared and cold. What mother would call her daughter Jezebel? What epithet of more utter scorn, of more withering contempt, could be applied to any woman, the worst and most wicked? Even in her own day the character of Jezebel became a national byeword and proverb, and to the end of time her memory will rot as rotted her body when, trampled by horse and licked by dogs, they buried what remained, unwept, in a dishonoured grave.H. T. Howat.

An unholy alliance. I. Would never be entered into if the soul were not first demoralized. II. Yields the ascendency to the strongest will. III. Is a terrible weapon of mischief where a bad woman is the ruling genius.

Mixed marriages eminently inexpedient and dangerous. Whether Scripture speaks or is silent, the facts of life cannot be denied. They abundantly testify that a want of mutual religious convictions between husband and wife injuriously affects their sacred relationship. True marriage rests on common admiration and sympathy, it is the union of hearts in the bonds of holiest love. If, however, religion, which concerns the deepest emotions and noblest thoughts, is excluded, the union of the two natures is disastrously incomplete, the real foundation of married life becomes fearfully inseeure. A husband may love his wife because of her beautiful face or figure, her gentle manners, her intellectual gifts, her housewifely skill; but that love is meagre, partial, unsatisfactory; the richest chords of the soul remain untouched. If he be a devout man, serving Christ, that which he esteems the best thing in life she does not possess. The same is true on the other side. A Christian woman may feel that her husband is a noble man, but if he be not religious, he is not everything to her; she is perpetually craving sympathy which he cannot give. There is no union of soul. Then the hindrances and sorrows that spring from this spiritual isolation are incalculable. Man and wife do not understand each other, they look at numberless experiences from opposite standpoints, words of strife often follow, motives are imputed, sometimes sneers at saintliness are given on the one side and denunciations of godlessness on the other, which leave wounds behind them not soon healed. It is no secret, but a well-known fact, that multitudes of family quarrels arise because of this want of spiritual union, and the highest aspirations of the godly soul are perpetually thwarted by it. Then how perplexing is the education of the children. The parents are not at one, and while the example of one would lead them to an early consecration, the conduct of the other nullifies the intended result. If children, with their keen eyes and sure instincts, see one parent indifferent to religion, they will naturally conclude that they may neglect it too. To marry an unbelieving husband or wife may involve the future destiny of the offspring! if the children of such a union grow up in the fear of God it will be in spite of the bad example of one parent at home.W. Braden.

1Ki. 16:32-33. A false worship. I. Is expensive. II. Is strengthened by organization. III. Becomes more pernicious the longer it is tolerated. IV. Gradually supplants and then persecutes the true worship. V. Is specially offensive to God.

1Ki. 16:34. The audacity of unbelief. I. An inevitable result when idolatry is in the ascendant. II. Not intimidated by the most awful imprecation. III. Meets with the punishment it defies.

The victims of sin a warning to others. I. A warning against the commission of sin. II. A warning against associations with sinners. III. A warning against tempting others.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

THE BEGINNING OF AHAB’S REIGN, 1Ki 16:29-34.

Critics have not failed to notice that with the beginning of Ahab’s reign commences a new epoch in the history of Israel: new, not so much in the more flagrant forms of wickedness that manifest themselves, as in the relative importance of the kingdom of Israel during the reigns of Ahab, Ahaziah, and Jehoram. With the exception of Jeroboam the reigns of Ahab’s predecessors are very briefly noticed, occupying but parts of two chapters; but the incidents of the three following reigns, embracing a period of about thirty-five years, extend from this passage to the tenth chapter of 2 Kings. During this period the kingdom of Judah receives comparatively little notice, and then only as an ally of the northern kingdom, which stands out predominantly as the mightiest ruling power in the land. During this period appeared those greatest, sternest, most mysterious of prophets, Elijah and Elisha, whose lives and acts, with strange romantic blendings, present on the one hand the fierce vindictiveness of the theocratic spirit towards sin, and on the other the tender and shrinking humanity which shows them up as men of like passions with ourselves. By means of Jezebel, the Zidonian princess, Phenician idolatry is introduced and sanctioned in the kingdom, and Baal’s prophets are multiplied by hundreds. Wars, attended with varying fortunes, are carried on with several hostile kingdoms, while within the land the few pious weep in desolate sadness, and hide themselves in caves and dens of the earth.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

An Initial Summary Of The Reign Of Ahab ( 1Ki 16:29-34 ).

The account of Ahab’s reign commences with an initial summary of his reign indicating its corruption in the eyes of YHWH. We can compare the initial summary that opened Solomon’s reign in 1Ki 3:1-4. In this summary it is made clear that Ahab ‘did what was evil in the eyes of YHWH above all who were before him’, and this is expanded by reference not only to following in the sins of Jeroboam with his syncretistic Yahwism, but also to his willingness on behalf of his wife Jezebel to encourage the distinctive worship of Baal.

Analysis.

a And in the thirty and eighth year of Asa king of Judah, Ahab the son of Omri began to reign over Israel, and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty and two years (1Ki 16:29).

b And Ahab the son of Omri did what was evil in the sight of YHWH above all who were before him (1Ki 16:30).

c And it came about, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him. And he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria (1Ki 16:31-32).

b And Ahab made the Asherah, and Ahab did yet more to provoke YHWH, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him (1Ki 16:33).

a In his days did Hiel the Bethelite build Jericho. He laid its foundation with the loss of Abiram his first-born, and set up its gates with the loss of his youngest son Segub, according to the word of YHWH, which he spoke by Joshua the son of Nun (1Ki 16:34).

Note that in ‘a’ Ahab reigned over Israel, and in the parallel the depths to which his reign fell was that child sacrifices were offered in Israel. In ‘b’ he did evil in the sight of YHWH above all who went before him, and in the parallel he provoked YHWH to anger more than all the kings who were before him. Centrally in ‘c’ he instituted full Baal worship in Samaria.

1Ki 16:29

‘ And in the thirty and eighth year of Asa king of Judah Ahab the son of Omri began to reign over Israel, and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty and two years.’

Ahab came to the throne in the thirty eighth year of Asa of Judah, and reigned over Israel in Samaria for twenty two years. The name Ahab means ‘brother-father’, or ‘Abba is my brother’. This may have been a throne name claiming close association with Baal, or with El (as father), chief of the Canaanite pantheon. The Assyrians called him ‘Ahab the Israelite’ (Ahabbu (mat) sir’ilaia).

1Ki 16:30

‘ And Ahab the son of Omri did what was evil in the sight of YHWH above all who were before him.’

Ahab sank to a depth that none other had before him. The previous kings had bastardised Yahwism by making it syncretistic. Ahab, heavily under the influence of his wife Jezebel, sought to introduce pure Baalism and thus oust Yahwism altogether.

1Ki 16:31

‘ And it came about, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him.’

Ahab no longer followed the syncretism of Jeroboam the son of Nebat. He had married Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal the king of the Sidonians (i.e. of Tyre), and under the influence of his wife sought to dispense with Yahwism altogether as far as the court were concerned, for he ‘went and served Baal and worshipped him’.

This was not just a contest about two different perceptions of the living God. It was a battle to decide whether men would look to the God of creation, who was concerned for men, and required them to walk righteously before Him, and called them to account when they fell short, or would look to the forces of nature, which they could manipulate and turn to their own advantage, while living as immorally as they liked. Baalism was a nature religion. Baal represented the source of storm and rain, and the crude openly sexual ‘worship’ was with a view to persuading him and his consort Asherah to make the land fruitful and supply plentiful rain. The people of Israel had cause to be aware of what the lack of rain did. Every hot summer everything around them would die, apart from what was artificially watered. But then the rains came and life sprang up everywhere. They saw in this the results of the activity of ‘the gods’. And their aim was to stimulate these gods (who they otherwise considered had little concern for them) into action by simulating their behaviour.

Ahab’s marriage to Jezebel was clearly a political one, sealing a treaty between Israel and Tyre, securing for Israel a market for their agricultural produce and their olive oil, and for Tyre the supply of these products on a permanent and lasting basis. But there is no doubt that Ahab was enamoured of his wife, and deeply influenced by her and her worship of Baal Melkart.

Ethbaal is probably a transliteration of ‘Itto-baal’ (Baal is alive) based on the cry to Baal , ‘Baal the Mighty is alive, the Prince, Lord of the earth exists’, which occurred each year when Baal was seen as coming back to life as the crops began to grow and the trees became fruitful. Eth-baal was king of Tyre and its surrounding area, taking for himself the ancient title ‘king of the Sidonians’, as Hiram II would later, and ruling for thirty two years (c.887-856 BC).

Jezebel was probably in Canaanite ’i-zebul (‘where is the Prince?’) with ‘zebul’ altered by the author or his source to ‘zebel’ (dung). This too arose from the cry to Baal, ‘Where is Baal the Mighty, where is the Prince (’i-zebul), Lord of the earth?’ as the worshippers sought to stir him back into life by their own sexual antics with cult prostitutes.

1Ki 16:32

‘ And he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria.’

Indeed Ahab raised up an altar to Baal in a temple which he built for Baal in Samaria. This may have been as a temple for his wife to worship in but it would seem to many as though Baalism was now launched as the official religion of the king, and all those who wanted to please him served Baal. Samaria had become the centre for Baal worship, just as Jerusalem was the centre for YHWH worship. Ahab, however, continued also to recognise YHWH as is apparent from the names of his sons. He found himself on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand was Yahwism, his ancestral religion (as distorted by Jeroboam), of which he was king-priest as Jeroboam had been, and on the other was the influence of his wife (again it was the curse of foreign princesses as it had been with Solomon). Unlike Jezebel Ahab appears to have been torn between the two. The kingdom of Israel can therefore be seen as being split into three groups, with Ahab hovering between them, those who worshipped God truly under the guidance of the prophets, those who worshipped God in a half-hearted and diluted way in the sanctuaries set up by Jeroboam, and those who were whole-hearted for Baal. In fact we learn later that his wife Jezebel recognised this, and instituted a persecution of the prophets of YHWH, seeking to have them all put to death (1Ki 18:13). Things were getting very serious.

This did not, of course, mean that the whole nation necessarily worshipped only Baal. A whole nation could not be persuaded to drop its old, deep-rooted traditions at the whim of a king and queen. Those who engaged in the syncretistic worship of YHWH outside of Samaria would continue to do so, and Jeroboam’s centres and high places would carry on as usual. What Jezebel was concerned about, and was attacking, was pure Yahwism, with its rejection of all other gods. For she recognised the potential that it had to destroy Baalism. As Elijah did she recognised that you could not really worship YHWH and Baal.

1Ki 16:33

‘ And Ahab made the Asherah, and Ahab did yet more to provoke YHWH, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him.’

Ahab also made the Asherah-images, which were symbols of the goddess Asherah/Ashterah who was a consort to Baal, and these were set up along with the pillars and images of Baal. Thus Ahab provoked YHWH to righteous anger more than any other king before him.

1Ki 16:34

‘ In his days did Hiel the Bethelite build Jericho. He laid its foundation with the loss of Abiram his first-born, and set up its gates with the loss of his youngest son Segub, according to the word of YHWH, which he spoke by Joshua the son of Nun.’

The depths to which things had fallen in Israel came out in that a man who wanted to rebuild Jericho felt that he could reverse Joshua’s curse by sacrificing his two sons, presumably to Baal, knowing that no one would do anything about it. Things were at a very low ebb.

In Jos 7:26 Joshua gave this charge after the destruction of Jericho – “cursed be the man before YHWH who rises up and builds this city Jericho. With the loss of his firstborn will he lay its foundation, and with the loss of his youngest son will he set up its gates.” It was on this basis that Hiel, probably stirred by religious fervour for Baal, behaved as he did. There are a number of theories about this. Some have argued that all it meant was that his sons died as a result of accidents during the building. But that is unlikely, simply because the curse was taken seriously, and no father would under those conditions have allowed his sons to be involved in the building of the city, and especially not after he lost the first. Besides the reason for mentioning the incident here was in order to bring out the depths to which Israel had sunk under Ahab.

It should be noted that Joshua’s purpose had not been to encourage such a situation (i.e. the sacrifice of two sons, which to him would have been an horrific thought). His aim had been to prevent the rebuilding of Jericho at all, and he had succeeded in that while the hill of Jericho had been at times inhabited, it had never again become a walled city.

The Rise And Credentials Of Elijah The Tishbite, The Prophet Of YHWH ( 1Ki 17:1 to 1Ki 18:2 a).

Having surveyed the lives of eight kings after Jeroboam and Rehoboam (two in Judah, and six in Israel including Ahab) it is almost incredible to stop and consider that only one hundred years have passed since the death of David, when the kingdom of Israel/Judah was at the height of its power, and YHWH reigned supreme in the land, and only seventy six years since the completion of the Temple and Solomon’s palace complex. And now, while the southern kingdom of Judah had prospered in its worship of YHWH under Asa, in the northern kingdom the true followers of YHWH were being hunted to their deaths, and there remained only ‘seven thousand men’ who had not bowed the knee to Baal (many, of course having fled to the south). This was not so much the action of Ahab, who appears to have hovered between Baalism and Yahwism, as of a rampant Jezebel.

It was at this crisis point that God raised up a man of God who would to some extent turn the tide, and whose successor would even be consulted by kings. His name was Elijah, and he came from Transjordan where he had taken refuge with may worshippers of YHWH in Gilead (‘the sojourners of Gilead’).

Suddenly and unexpectedly he strode into the presence of the mighty Ahab, recognisable as a prophet by his garb, and declared to him without fear or favour that no rain would henceforth fall in Israel until he gave the word. This was a startling and most significant statement. Rain was seen by Baalism as the prerogative of Baal, god of rain and storm. Who then was this man who claimed that he could override Baal and prevent his activity? It was a challenge on a huge scale. Let Elijah be proved wrong, and Yahwism would be discredited.

But Elijah was not proved wrong, for Israel entered into a period of famine the like of which had not been seen for many a long day. The result was that Israel enjoyed neither Summer dew nor Autumn and Spring rains. Inevitably, having made such an announcement, Elijah had to go into hiding. Until his word proved true it could only sound like treason and blasphemy. And the punishment for such attitudes was death.

One outstanding emphasis in the passage is that of ‘the word of YHWH’ and its equivalent (seven times in the passage 1Ki 17:2 ; 1Ki 17:5; 1Ki 17:8; 1Ki 17:14 ; 1Ki 17:16; 1Ki 17:24; 1Ki 18:1, and forty six times in the whole of Kings). Here especially, and throughout the book, YHWH is seen as acting in power through His word. The Creator, Who created by His word, stands in stark contrast to the feeble Baal who cannot resist His word.

Chapter 1Ki 17:1 to 1Ki 18:2 a form a united narrative within an inclusio (1Ki 17:1 and 1Ki 18:1-2 a), consisting of three vignettes, the first two illustrating how Elijah was sustained through the famine, and the third revealing his power to raise the dead. Such miracles as this occur only at times of great stress and unusual difficulty. Scripture does not see miracles like this as the norm. They occurred during the deliverance from Egypt. They will occur here while the faith of Israel is being dragged back from the brink. And they would occur again when God’s Son came into the world and his followers went out to win the world for Christ. Otherwise miracles are rare.

Analysis.

a And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the sojourners of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As YHWH, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there will not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word” (1Ki 17:1).

b Elijah is fed by the ravens at the Brook Cherith (1Ki 17:2-7).

c Elijah is sustained by a jar of meal and a cruse of oil which did not fail (1Ki 17:8-16).

b Elijah raises the widow’s son to life (1Ki 17:17-24).

a And it came about after many days, that the word of YHWH came to Elijah, in the third year, saying, “Go, show yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the earth. And Elijah went to show himself to Ahab” (1Ki 18:1-2 a).

Note that in ‘a’ rain in Israel will be dependent on the word of Elijah as the representative of the living God of Israel, and in the parallel YHWH sends Elijah to declare to Ahab that the rains will come again. In ‘b’ Elijah’s life is restored daily by ravens, and in the parallel the life of the widow’s son is restored by Elijah. Centrally in ‘c’ Elijah, and the household with whom he was living, are sustained by God’s miraculous provision.

What then was the significance of these miracles, and why should the prophetic author have include them here?

The first miracle demonstrated YHWH’s total control of nature in that He could even use scavenger birds in order to feed His servant. It demonstrated that all creation was under His control and did His bidding. By this it was made clear that He is the Lord of creation and Controller of all things to such an extent that while Baal could do nothing for his worshippers, the servant of YHWH was fully provided for by nature.

The second miracle demonstrated that even in the midst of famine, when Baal worshippers found their gods powerless to help them in their need, YHWH ‘the God of Israel’ (emphasised) was able satisfactorily to give a full supply to His servant. He was not dependent on rain. He could produce grain and oil by a word.

The third miracle demonstrated that he was the Lord of life and death. While all was dying around Elijah, he was able to impart life to the widow’s son, simply because he served the Lord of life.

Thus these miracles were a testimony to Baal’s helplessness and YHWH’s total sovereignty over event. But they only accomplished that because they happened.

1Ki 17:1

‘ And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the sojourners of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As YHWH, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there will not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.’

As so often with the prophets of YHWH in Kings, Elijah (‘my God is YHWH’) suddenly strides unexpectedly onto the scene (compare 1Ki 13:1), and by his appearance and declaration Baalism, with its emphasis on Baal the god of rain and storm, is blatantly revealed as powerless to stand against YHWH, the living God of Israel, and against His word through His representative Elijah. Elijah’s promise was that from this moment on, whatever Baal may do, there would be no dew or rain in Israel except at Elijah’s word. It was a direct challenge to Baal (which will be even more vividly portrayed in chapter 18) to demonstrate that he could counter YHWH’s ban, if indeed he could. The famine may well have already been in progress when Elijah appeared, with Elijah appearing in order to emphasise what the source of the famine was. It would continue on into ‘the third year’ (1Ki 18:1).

While clearly aimed at the royal court, (also as a direct challenge), we must not see this judgment of famine as limited to them, for the people of Israel as a whole were mainly involved in seeking to ensure rain from Baal/YHWH by perverted sexual behaviour. They were all involved in sin against YHWH and were all therefore about to learn the folly of what they were doing. The withholding of rain is regularly depicted as pointing to the sin of those who suffer from it (1Ki 8:35; Lev 26:4; Lev 26:19-20; Deu 11:17; Deu 28:23-24; Amo 4:7-8).

Note the emphasis of Elijah on the fact that this would be evidence that YHWH, the God of Israel, was a living God Who could act in situations as He wanted, and that he himself was the personal emissary and chosen servant of YHWH (‘before Whom I stand’). Note also that the dew here was almost as important as the regular rains. The dew in the hot summers formed a valuable source of moisture on the mountains. (Interestingly the dew is not mentioned in the warnings either of Leviticus or of Deuteronomy, although its contribution to the fruitfulness of the earth is described in Gen 27:28; Gen 27:39. Compare also Deu 32:2; Deu 33:28; 2Sa 1:21).

Such a famine as is predicted here (had it been usual it would have demonstrated nothing) was a rare occurrence in Palestine. An even worse one had occurred while Joseph was Prime Minister of Egypt centuries before, which had caused Israel to seek refuge in Egypt, and a similar one had stirred up the conscience of Israel about the behaviour of Saul’s house towards the Gibeonites (that had been ‘three years, year after year’ – 2Sa 21:1). But this one was to be severe enough for it to be seen as warranting Elijah’s death, for we learn later that Ahab constantly had his spies out making a thorough search for Elijah so that he could put him to death (1Ki 18:10). This was why God made provision for his safety in unusual ways.

Of course the famine’s worst effects would only be introduced slowly. Once the rains failed to come the seed that had been stored ready for planting would be carefully preserved, and would be used as it became necessary. While this would limit the stocks of grain available when the rains actually came (which themselves would be used when things became desperate) it would mean that people could survive, even though at a low level. Furthermore people who lived in such circumstances would know the water sources that were available and where water could be found in limited amounts once the need got to great, and they would be carefully preserving the water in their cysterns. They were experts at conserving water, and the animals would be allowed to die first. Thus it would only be as the famine entered its third year that things began to get really desperate. But recovery from such extensive famines could occur very speedily once the rains came.

Menander also records a severe famine around this time which he claimed lasted a year and affected Phoenicia under Ittobal of Tyre, but he may well have underestimated the famine (when after all does a famine start?), and the mountain ranges of Lebanon may also have ensured a shorter famine in that area.

Elijah would appear to have come from Tishbe in Gilead (Transjordan) and the description of him as a ‘sojourner in Gilead’ may suggest that he was there as a refugee from the persecution rampant west of the Jordan (compare Jdg 17:7).

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

EXPOSITION

THE REIGN OF AHAB.With the accession of Ahab a new main section of our history beginsthe section which has its close in the destruction of the house of Omri by Jehu, as related in 2Ki 10:1-36. And this reign is recorded at unusual length; in fact, it occupies nearly all the remaining portion of this volume, whereas the reigns of preceding kings have in several instances been dismissed in a few verses. It owes this distinction to the ministry of the great prophet Elijah by which it was marked, and, indeed, was profoundly influenced; but this ministry, it must be remembered, was necessitated by the critical circumstances of the time. It may be that “every age thinks itself a crisis,” but no one can fail to see that this was one of the veritable turning points of Jewish history. One of the real “decisive battles of the world”that between the Lord and Baalwas then fought out. No wonder that our historian felt constrained to chronicle at length the transactions of a reign so pregnant both with good and evil for the people of the Lord and for the faith with which they had been put in trust. Indeed, the same guiding principle which led him to devote so many of his pages to the reign of Solomon, when the theocratic kingdom was at its highest, impelled him to linger over the reign of Ahab when religion was at its lowest ebb. The secular historian, too often like the sundial which “counts no hours save those serene,” draws a veil over the time of his country’s decadence, or touches its misfortunes with a light hand. It is only in the inspired records that we have an impartial register both of the glory and shame of a common. wealth.

1Ki 16:29

And in the thirty and eighth year of Asa king of Judah [see notes on 1Ki 16:23] began Ahab [“Father’s brother.” The name is apposite. He was Omri’s alter ego in impiety] the son of Omri to reign over Israel: and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty and two years.

1Ki 16:30

And Ahab the son of Omri [The repetition is noticeable. It is possible that the preceding verse has been revised by a chronologer. The LXX. text is much more condensed] did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him. [The same words are used of his father in 1Ki 16:25. It is not difficult to see in what way Ahab’s rule was worse even than Omri’s. The latter had gone beyond his predecessors in the matter of the calf worship. See note on 1Ki 16:25. But the calf worship, however it may have deteriorated in process of timeand it is the tendency of such systems to wax worse and worsewas nevertheless a cult, though a corrupt, and unauthorized, and illicit cultus, of the one true God. Under Ahab, however, positive idolatry was established and fostered the worship of foreign and shameful deities.]

1Ki 16:31

And it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him [Heb. as marg. was it a light thing? Ewald explains this to mean “because it was.” But it seems better to understand, “was it such a light thing that he must needs also?” etc.] to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat [i.e; the sins of heresy and schism], that he took to wife Jezebel [= “Without cohabitation,” “chaste,” Gesenius, who compares it with Agnes. It is hardly the original of Isabella] the daughter of Ethbaal [= “With Baal.” The Greek form or , found in Jos; Ant. 8.13.1; cf. Contr. Ap. 1.18, suggests as its original i.e; “with him is Baal.” In either case the name well became him, for, according to Menander (apud Jos. l.c.), he was the priest of Astarte, who gained for himself the throne of the Zidonians by the assassination of Pheles. He is further said to have reigned thirty-two years, and to have lived sixty-eight years. He would therefore be thirty-six years old at the time of his accession. It does not appear that (Keil) he was the brother of Pheles. Pheles, however, was certainly a fratricide. (Rawlinson reminds us that Jezebel was great-aunt to Pygmalion and Dido.) This statement helps to explain Jezebel’s fierce and sanguinary character, and at the same time accounts for her great devotion to the gods of her country, and for her determined efforts to establish their impure rites in her husband’s kingdom. It was only what one would expect from the child of such a parent] king of the Zidonians [This alliance, it is extremely probable, was made for purely political reasons, as a counterpoise against the active, ambitious, and encroaching power which had arisen in Damascene Syria. The army which had already humbled Omri (ch. 20:34) could not fail to be a source of danger to Tyre], and went and served Baal [Heb. the Baal, i.e; the lord or master; cf. . The name appears among the Babylonians as Bel (Isa 46:1)Greek . Reference has already been made to the frequent recurrence of the word in different compound names, and in different parts of Palestine, as showing how widespread must have been his worship at an earlier age. We are also familiar with the word in the names Hannibal, Hasdrubal, etc. Baal was the supreme male god of the Canaanitish races, as Ashtoreth was their great female divinity. The former was regarded, not only as the possessor, but as the generator, of all], worshipped him

1Ki 16:32

And he reared up an altar for Baal in [Heb. omits in; cf. 1Ki 15:15, etc.] the house of Baal [A temple, we can hardly doubt, of considerable splendour. Jezebel would not be satisfied with less], which he had built in Samaria [According to 2Ki 3:2, 2Ki 10:27, he also raised a pillar (A.V. image) in the house of Baal. We learn from Dius and Menander that Hiram had raised a golden pillar to Baal in Tyre. Perhaps Ahab may have copied this. But it is probable that this image, which represented the generative powers of nature, was an essential part of the impure worship of Baal. The house and its contents alike were destroyed by Jehu (2Ki 10:27).

1Ki 16:33

And Ahab made a grove [Heb. an Asherah, i.e; image of Astarte, a female figure corresponding to the male effigy just described. See note on 1Ki 14:23]; and Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.

1Ki 16:34

In his days did Hiel the Bethelite [Observe the form , and see note on 1Ki 2:8. It is noticeable that it was reserved for a man of Bethel to commit this act of impiety. It was to such results the worship of the calves contributed] build [i.e; rebuild, fortify, as in 1Ki 12:25; cf. 1Ki 9:17. It is clear from Jdg 3:13 and 2Sa 10:5 that it had not been entirely uninhabited. But the Arab village was now converted into a town with gates and bars] Jericho [We learn from Jos 18:21 that Jericho then belonged to Benjamin. It had evidently passed, however, at this date into the possession of Israel. It has been suggested that the transference took place in the reign of Baasha (Rawlinson). But it would seem that from the very first, parts of Benjamin (notably Bethel, Jos 18:13) belonged to the northern kingdom. See Ewald, “Hist. Israel,” Jos 4:2, Jos 4:3. It is not quite clear whether the rebuilding of Jericho is mentioned as a proof of the daring impiety of that age and of the utter contempt with which the warnings of the law were treated, or as showing the ignorance and consequent disregard of law which prevailed. But, on the whole, it seems to be implied that Hiel knew of the threatening of Joshua, and treated it with defiance. It has been suggested that the rebuilding had really been instigated by Ahab, and for his own purposes, hoping thereby to “secure to himself the passage across the Jordan” (Keil), but the text affords but slight warrant for this conjecture]: he laid the foundation thereof in Abiram his firstborn [i.e; at the cost of, in the life of, Abiram], and set up the gates thereof in his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the Lord [Jos 6:26], which he spake by Joshua the son of Nun. [The exact fulfilment of the prophecy is mentioned, as showing that even in those dark and troublous times God did not leave Himself without witness, and that law could never be violated with impunity.]

HOMILIES BY J.A. MACDONALD

1Ki 16:23-28

Omri’s Reign.

After a four years’ contest with Tibni, the son of Ginath, for the crown of Israel, the followers of Omri prevailed over the adherents of his rival. The issue, then, was that “Tibni died and Omri reigned.” Whether Tibni died in battle, or whether, when his followers were overcome, he was taken and put to death, is not written; but the record illustrates how in the revolutions of the wheel of fortune the fall of one makes way for the rise of another. Let us now view this new monarch

I. IN HIS PALACES.

1. “Six years reigned he in Tirzah.”

(1) This was once a lovely palace. Beautiful for its situation like Jerusalem (Son 6:4), and beautified during the reign in it of all the earlier kings of Israel. For it was the third and last palace built by Jeroboam, the first of these kings, to which he removed from his palace at Penuel.

(2) But it was now damaged by fire. When Zimri shut himself up in it as his defences were driven in by the forces of Omri in the siege of the city, he set it on fire and perished in the conflagration. Thus in a moment the labour of years was demolished. Destruction is easier than construction. This principle also holds in morals.

(3) Still for six years Omri held his court in this city. Whether he occupied a portion of the palace which escaped the flames, or resided temporarily elsewhere in the city, is not revealed. The omissions of Scripture are instructive. Things of minor importance must not be allowed to divert attention from momentous things.

2. Six years he reigned in Samaria.

(1) The origin of this new capital is here recorded (1Ki 16:24). Seven hundred pounds of our money seems a small price for a hill considerable enough to be the site for the capital of a kingdom. Perhaps Shemei was animated by public spirit when he disposed of his hill for so trifling a sum. Perhaps he did so to perpetuate his name. His motive is withheld from us. Herein also is instruction. We are not judges of the motives of our fellows. God surveys the motives of all hearts.

(2) Henceforth Samaria figures prominently in the history of Israel. It gives its name to the middle portion of Canaan. Tirzah, Penuel, Shechem, are henceforth little heard off Men give importance to places rather than places to men. The importance even of heaven will be rather that of its inhabitants than of its situation. Learn the paramount value of spiritual qualities,

II. AT THE ALTAR.

1. “He walked in all the ways of Jeroboam.”

(1) This means that he encouraged the worship of the calves, if not that he even appeared at the altar as high priest (see 1Ki 12:33; 1Ki 13:1).

(2) It means further that he was moved by the same state policy. He desired to keep his people from Jerusalem lest they should repent of their revolution from the house of David.

(3) Note: Satan has his opportunities. While the pride of Israel smarted under the insolence of Rehoboam, Jeroboam could impose his calves upon them. Had he missed that opportunity, it might have been impossible afterwards to have effected his purpose. Omri could not have done it. We should be wise as serpents, viz; in avoiding the snare of the devil, in availing ourselves of our opportunities for good.

2. He “did worse than all that were before him.”

(1) He “made Israel to sin” as Jeroboam did, persuading them to halt at Bethel or visit Dan, for that Jerusalem was too far from them. Persuading them also that his calves were images of the true God (see 1Ki 12:28).

(2) He bound them by statute to worship the calves (compare Mic 6:16). In this he went farther than Baasha, who had set about building Ramah to prevent the people from going to Jerusalem (2Ch 16:1).

III. IN HIS EXIT.

1. He “was buried.”

(1) He had a state funeral. Money might procure that. He left a son to succeed him on the throne who would pay this public respect to his remains.

(2) How variously is the same subject viewed by men in the flesh, and by the inhabitants of the spiritual world! The funeral of the corpse is the event upon earth; the destiny of the spirit is the event yonder.

2. He “slept with his fathers.”

(1) This expression does not mean that he was buried with them in their sepulchre, for Omri was buried in Samaria, a city which had no existence in the days of his fathers. Of Baasha also it is said that he “slept with his fathers, and was buried in Tirzah” (1Ki 16:6), though there is no evidence that any of his fathers were buried in Tirzah.

(2) It seems to import that he died upon his bed, as the generality of mankind finish their course. This expression does not appear to be used when any die by the hand of violence as a judgment of the Lord upon their sin.

(3) Yet a violent death was deserved by Omri, as it was also by Baasha and Jeroboam, who, like him, came peacefully to the grave. They laid up sin for their posterity (see Job 21:19). But are they thus to escape the punishment of their own iniquity 2 Surely there must be a “judgment to come!”J.A.M.

1Ki 16:29-34

EXPOSITION

1Ki 16:29

1Ki 16:30

1Ki 16:31

1Ki 16:32

1Ki 16:33

1Ki 16:34

HOMILIES BY E. DE PRESSENSE

1Ki 16:29-33; 1Ki 17:1

Ahab represents the culminating point of the perversity of the kingdom of Israel. At once more able and more profane than his predecessors, he fostered to an unprecedented degree the corruption of morals, private and public injustice, and idolatrous practices. Ahab, prompted by Jezebel, became the more dangerous enemy of the cause of God. At this period of the national history arose the greatest of the prophets, Elijah, who well bore out his namethe strength of Godand who was the faithful type of John the Baptist, the immediate forerunner of Christ. In the coming of Elijah at such a crisis, we have an illustration of a general and permanent rule of God’s kingdom. The excess of evil calls out the strongest manifestations of good. Never was the power of Satan more rampant than at the time when the Son of God appeared upon earth. So in the end of time, the day of Antichrist will be also the day in which Christ will intervene most directly in the great drama of history. Let us not, then, yield to a hopeless pessimism when the powers of darkness seem to be let loose, for the two following reasons:

I. THE LETTING LOOSE OF EVIL BRINGS ITS OWN CONDEMNATION. By showing its true nature it passes sentence on itself, and brings to maturity all the seeds of death latent within it. Ahab, casting off all restraints and rushing recklessly on his ruin, writes his own condemnation.

II. AN AHAB ALWAYS CALLS FORTH AN ELIJAH. Whenever the army of God seems on the verge of defeat, its Divine leader takes the direct command. Reflections like these may reinforce our courage in view of the giant evils of our own day.E. de P.

HOMILIES BY A. ROWLAND

1Ki 16:30-33

Moral Ruin through Moral Weakness.

This was the turning-point in the history of the kingdom of Israel. Till now the people had professedly worshipped Jehovah under the symbol of the calf. Now idolatry of a grosser kind was avowedly set up as the national religion, on a scale of great magnificence. The text, therefore, is worthy of our study as the record of an event of deep historic significance, but we propose to consider it as a suggestive example of the way in which a man of moral weakness may be betrayed into the worst depravity, to the undoing of himself and others. We learn the following lessons from Ahab s life, of which a summary is given here:

I. THAT A FOOLISH CHOICE MAY RESULT IN LASTING DISHONOUR. Ahab’s marriage was the cause of his ruin. Jezebel, his wife, was the daughter of Ethbaal, who had Been the high priest of Astarte, but was led by his ambition and unscrupulousness to usurp his brother’s throne. Her parentage and her surroundings would have been a sufficient warning to a prudent king. But besides these Ahab had the Divine law before him (Exo 34:16), which distinctly forbade union with the Canaanites. Such a marriage was unprecedented in the kingdom of Israel, and was the more fatal because of the character of the queen, the Lady Macbeth of Scripture. She was reckless and licentious, fanatical and cruel, with a temper as vindictive as her will was resolute. Her husband became a mere tool in her hands. He could not foresee all the issues of his choice, but he knew the choice was sinful. Show from thisillustrating by example

1. How one wrong step leads to another. This marriage to the establishment of idolatry. Indicate the nature of the false religion set up.

2. How companionship influences character. The stronger moulding the weaker. “A companion of fools shall be destroyed.”

3. How personal fascination may cause men to swerve from rectitude. Jezebel’s fascinating power was regarded as witchery and became proverbial (Rev 2:20).

4. How young people should be warned against unholy alliances. Marriage makes or mars character, hope, and blessedness (2Co 6:14). “Be ye net unequally yoked together with unbelieverses”

II. THAT EASY GOOD NATURE MAY PROVE THE SOURCE OF DEEP DEGRADATION. Ahab was not destitute of good feelings and right impulses. Had he been firm instead o! pliable, and resolutely refused to gratify the queen by the establishment of idolatry, he might, with God’s help, have neutralized the effect of the false step he had taken. But he was of a yielding nature, while she was resolute; and so, like Samson, he lost his kingliness. Point out the special dangers of those who are kindly and genial. Their unwillingness to disoblige, their wish to be popular, their dread of derision, their love of ease and pleasure, etc; may have fatal issues.

III. THAT BRILLIANT TALENTS WILL NOT COMPENSATE FOR MORAL WEAKNESS. This king was gifted with military skill, with artistic taste, etc; but these could net help him in the hour of spiritual conflict. Give examples from history of the careers of clever but unprincipled men, their meteoric success, their future punishment, here or hereafter; e.g; Napoleon I. Many men of genius have been ruined by drunkenness, and often high education has served only to alter the form and increase the influence of the sin. The clever forger is worse than the common thief; the viciousness of a leader of society does more injury than the licentiousness of an ignorant peasant.

IV. THAT ARCHITECTURAL SPLENDOURS AND MILITARY VICTORIES ARE NOT PROOFS OF NATIONAL PROSPERITY. Describe Ahab’s magnificent buildings, his ivory house, his daring restoration and fortification of Jericho, his palace and park in Jezreel, which became to Samaria what Versailles once was to Paris. Show how often in history such costly expenditure has been a sign of decay. Extravagance and luxuriousness are omens of ruin to a people. “The Decline and Fall” of the Roman Empire is an abiding illustration of this. Nor will successful wars give stability to a kingdom. Ahab’s victories were great military achievements, but of what avail to him and to his house? “The throne must be established in righteousness.”

V. THAT AMPLE POSSESSIONS DO NOT CONTENT AN UNQUIET HEART. In Jezreel, the perfection of taste, Ahab was wretched, because he wanted Naboth’s vineyard. (Read that story.) It is not in the power of earthly things to satisfy a hungering soul. The richest man is not content if he has only his riches, nor will any addition to them give him satisfaction. “Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” (Luk 12:15). “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” God “satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.”

VI. THAT PARTIAL REPENTANCE DOES NOT AVERT GOD‘S PUNISHMENT OF SIN. Ahab “put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly,” when he heard Elijah’s final threat; but, though this first sign of penitence was graciously encouraged by a promise, the change went no further He dreaded punishment, but his heart did not turn from sin, and therefore, though he disguised himself in the battle, the arrow “shot at a venture” was winged by Divine retribution to his heart. God is our Judge, as well as our King. For the impenitent there will be no escape. In vain will they “call on mountains and rocks to fall on them, and hide them from the wrath of God.” Now in this day of mercy, God calls on all to repent, and find pardon and hope in Him, who has come “to seek and to save that which was lost.”A.R.

HOMILIES BY J.A. MACDONALD

1Ki 16:29-33

Ahab’s wickedness.

The evil genius of the son of Omri appeared

I. IN HIS WALKING IN THE SINS OF JEROBOAM.

1. In this, probably, he encouraged his father.

(1) He appears to have been associated with Omri in the kingdom. Omri reigned twelve yearsviz; six in Tirzah, and six in Samaria; but his reign commenced “in the thirty-first year of Asa” (1Ki 16:23). This would bring the close of his reign to the second year of Jehoshaphat, whereas in the text we read that “in the thirty and eighth year of Asa, king of Judah, began Ahab, the son of Omri, to reign over Israel.” Hence it is evident Ahah must have been four or five years associated with his father in the throne.

(2) The extreme wickedness with which Omri is charged was probably owing to Ahab’s evil influence; for the “statutes of Omri” seem to have been inspired by the “counsels of Ahab” (see Mic 6:16). So the note that “he sinned above all that were before him” is alike applied to the father and son (see 1Ki 16:25, 1Ki 16:30). And the leading influence of Ahab may explain why we commonly read of the “house of Ahab” rather than of the house of Omri. Parents are often demoralized by wicked children.

2. He did not alter his course after his father’s death.

(1) The sin of Jeroboam was perpetuated in Israel down to the time of their captivity. The captivity seemed necessary to break its power over them. Judgment is the last resource of mercy.

(2) The same reasons of state continued to influence the successive rulers of the nation. Reasons of state are too often more potent than reasons of piety and righteousness. Else we had been spared the discredit of wicked wars, wicked laws, wicked trading.

II. IN HIS MATRIMONIAL ALLIANCE WITH JEZEBEL.

1. She was a pronounced idolater.

(1) She was a Zidonian, and for any Israelite to marry one of that nation were a violation of the law of God (Exo 34:11-16; Deu 7:3; Jos 23:11-13). For a king of Israel to do this was the more reprehensible. Office brings responsibilities.

(2) These people were worshippers of strange gods, and in particular of Baal. Hence the name of this queen (), which may be derived from , where? and , a contraction of , Baal, thus: Where is Baal? q.d; a seeker of Baal. Hence also her father’s name (), Ethbaal, which Gesenius construes to denote, “Living with Baal, i.e; enjoying the favour and help of Baal.”

2. Such alliances have ever proved demoralizing.

(1) The giants (), monsters, viz; in wickedness, perhaps, rather than in stature, whose violence provoked the judgment of the deluge, were the issue of marriages between the “sons of God,” or holy race of Seth, and the “daughters of men,” or profane descendants of Cain (Gen 6:1-4).

(2) Solomon’s heathen wives and concubines made a fool of the wisest of men, and brought his house and nation into infinite trouble (1Ki 11:1-13).

(3) The history of this alliance also was most disastrous.

3. For typical reasons also they were forbidden.

(1) The marriage union should represent the union between Christ and His Church (Eph 5:32). Therefore a husband, that he may justly represent Christ, is bound to be holy; and so is his wife, that she may suitably represent the Church.

(2) Should the reverse happen, then is the woman an emblem of an apostate Church, of which the husband represents the Antichristian head (see 1Co 6:15, 1Co 6:16). Jezebel, accordingly, is viewed in this light in the imagery of the Apocalypse (see Rev 2:20).

III. IN HIS ENCOURAGEMENT GIVEN TO BAAL AND ASHERE.

1. To Baal.

(1) To this god he built a temple in Samaria. This was the more audacious since, being placed in his capital, it seemed to vie with the temple of the Lord in the capital of Judah.

(2) To Baal also he reared an altar there. This, of course, meant a service of priests and sacrifices.

(3) Furthermore he himself worshipped Baal. Thus he gave the influence of his position to the encouragement of this idolatry. That influence was therefore also given to discourage the pure worship of the God of Israel.

2. To Ashsere.

(1) This word is construed “grove” in the text as elsewhere. But a little reflection will teach us that groves do not spring up in a day. Beside, it is not here said that Ahab planted (), but that he made () the Ashere.

(2) The Ashere was a Canaanitish idol, probably of the figure of a goat, in the worship of which there appear to have been very abominable rites.

No wonder, then, the anger of the Lord should be provoked. If we would not provoke it we must avoid the spirit of idolatry. This spirit is shown in the love of illicit things. Also in excessive love of lawful things.J.A.M.

1Ki 16:34

The Temerity of Hiel.

In discussing this subject we have to consider

I. “THE WORD OF THE LORD WHICH HE SPAKE BY JOSHUA. THE SON OF NUN.” The record of this word is found in Jos 6:26. And the questions now arise

1. Why did God thus curse Jericho?

(1) That its desolate condition might be a standing testimony to His abhorrence of the wickedness of the place. So abandoned were that people to idolatry that Rahab the hostess alone was accounted worthy of being saved. And “all her kindred”()all her familiesthe word is plural; families, viz; on her father’s and mother’s side, both were given to her (Jos 6:23). Note: The faith of an individual is not only a personal blessing, but also a blessing to his family, to his nation, to the world, in time, in eternity.

(2) That it might he a standing sign prophetic of judgments to come.

(a) Jericho was the first city which offered resistance to the people of God; and it was proper it should stand forth as a figure of the last city that shall offer resistance, viz; Great Babylon.

(b) As Jericho was compassed about six days before it fell, so is Great Babylon destined to last until the beginning of the seventh age of prophetic chronology.

(c) As Jericho fell at the seventh blast of the trumpet, so at the sounding of the seventh Apocalyptic thumper will Great Babylon come into remembrance before God.

(d) As Rahab, through the righteousness of faith, escaped the plagues of war and fire which destroyed the city, so are the people of God urged to come out of Babylon lest they partake her plagues also of war and fire.

2. Why did God thus curse the rebuilder of Jericho?

(1) Consider the import of the curse. His eldest son was to perish by a judgment of Heaven as soon as the work commenced; and if, notwithstanding the judgment, he persisted in the undertaking, he should see the death of his youngest son. lit is thought the intermediate members of his family would also perish as the work advanced. That the curse involved the penalty of death is evident, since the curse upon the city meant the death of its inhabitants (see Jos 6:17). The law of God also expresses that devoted things must die (see Le 27:29).

(2) The curse, then, came to keep up the testimony for God against sin; also to be a public sign of the judgment upon Babylon to come. Whoever would remove such a testimony must be a man of determined wickedness, and therefore deserving execration. Let us beware how we oppose or discredit any faithful testimony for Christ.

II. THE TEMERITY OF HIEL TO ENCOUNTER THIS MALEDICTION.

1. The historical fact is before us.

(1) He did build Jericho. Not only did he lay the foundation, but he also set up the gates. Resolution and persistency are fine qualities when they are concerned with truth and goodness. But it was otherwise here.

(2) He paid the penalty accordingly. When he laid the foundation his firstborn Abiram perished. This did not deter him. So when he set up the gates “his youngest son Segub” was smitten.

2. But what could have possessed him?

(1) The general answer to this question is, that the spirit of wickedness possessed him. No godly man could be so rashly defiant. Even reputable men of the world would shrink from such an audacious undertaking. The respect for sacred things manifested by such unconverted men encourages the hope that they may yet seek His grace and mercy. Hiel must have been a hardened sinner to have attempted this.

(2) A more particular answer is suggested.

(a) He was a “Bethelite.” This expression may mean that he was born in Bethel, though this is not clear. It suggests rather that he was wedded to the sin of Jeroboam; for Bethel was the head-quarters of that apostasy. There Jeroboam placed one of his famous calves. There he built an altar. There also he built a temple. There his priests congregated, and there he, in person, officiated as high priest. The service of the calves would so harden the heart of Hiel as to prepare him to disregard the curse of Jehovah.

(b) Then, he lived in the days of Ahab. These were days of fearful degeneracy. For Ahab provoked the Lord by wickedness more than all that had been before him. Hiel might argue that if Ahab could thus outrage the law of the God of Israel and survive, so might his own children survive, though he should transgress the adjuration of Joshua. It is dangerous to do evil because others have done it, apparently, with impunity.

(c) The curse was denounced a long time ago. Since then five centuries and a half had passed away. Time weakens memory with men, and when man has a purpose to serve, he may argue that this also is the case with God. But He that remembers mercy forever also remembers justice and judgment. Let us not deceive ourselves. Let us pray God to bring our sins to our remembrance, that we may repent of them before Him, for with Him they are never forgotten till forgiven.J.A.M.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

(29) And in the thirty and eighth year of Asa king of Judah began Ahab the son of Omri to reign over Israel: and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty and two years. (30) And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD above all that were before him. (31) And it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him. (32) And he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. (33) And Ahab made a grove; and Ahab did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.

Still going on in the progression of wickedness the son of Omri exceeds his father. Open idolatry, barefaced and impudent, and open alliances with idolatrous princes, formed the leading features in the character of Habakkuk. Sad proofs of which are recorded in the succeeding chapters.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

1Ki 16:29 And in the thirty and eighth year of Asa king of Judah began Ahab the son of Omri to reign over Israel: and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty and two years.

Ver. 29. And Ahab reigned in Samaria. ] Now the metropolis, and seat of the royal residency.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

twenty and two years. For spiritual significance, see note on 1Ki 14:20, and App-10.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Sins Climax Summons Jehovahs Prophet

1Ki 16:29-34; 1Ki 17:1-7

From the beginning of his reign Ahab set aside both the First and the Second Commandment. His marriage with Jezebel, the young and beautiful Sidonian princess, plunged him and his kingdom into yet deeper darkness. In addition to Jeroboams calves, the worship of Baal, the sun-god, was shamelessly introduced, and his temple was served by hundreds of priests. The inspired artist does not hesitate to paint with Rembrandt colors, and the illustrious glory of Elijah shows clearly against the dark background. The darkest hour precedes the dawn; the keenest pain ushers in birth. First Ahab and Jezebel, then Elijah.

Gilead was far from court or temple-God trains His workers in His own school. The prophets name-Jehovah is my strength-suggests where he abode and whence he derived his power. He stood before God for the uniting and the uplifting of a divided people. The drought was the result of prayer. Elijah felt that nothing less could arrest king and people, Jam 5:17. The man who stands before God is not afraid to stand before Ahab. Now and again God bids His servants hide themselves toward the sunrise, but in these periods of enforced seclusion He makes Himself responsible for their supplies.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

am 3086-3107, bc 918-897

Samaria: 1Ki 16:24

Reciprocal: 1Ki 16:21 – divided 1Ki 16:23 – twelve years 2Ch 25:13 – Samaria Jer 41:5 – Samaria Hos 13:1 – offended

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

1Ki 16:29-31. In the thirty and eighth year of Asa, &c. Asa saw six kings of Israel buried, while Judah flourished under him, the length of whose reign was doubtless a great advantage to them. Began Ahab the son of Omri to reign Of whom we have more particulars recorded than of any of the other kings of Israel, and almost all of an infamous nature. For he did evil above all that were before him He exceeded all his predecessors in wickedness, and reigned over Israel twenty-two years Long enough to do a deal of mischief. He had seen the ruin of other wicked kings and their families; yet, instead of taking warning, his heart was hardened and enraged against God. As if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam To break the second commandment, by worshipping God through the medium of images of Jeroboams invention; as if that sin had not been heinous enough to express his contempt of God; as if he thought it below his genius and dignity to content himself with so vulgar a fault; he would set aside the first commandment too, by avowedly introducing other gods, the gods of his heathenish and idolatrous wife Jezebel. But the Hebrew, , vajehi hanakel, is more properly rendered, was it a light thing, &c., that is, was this but a small sin, that therefore he needed to add more abominations? the question, as is usual among the Hebrews, implying a strong denial, and intimating that this was no small sin, but a great crime, and might have satisfied his wicked mind, without any additions. He took to wife Jezebel A woman infamous for her idolatries, cruelties, sorceries, and abominations of all kinds. The daughter of Ethbaal Called Ithobalus, or Itobalus in heathen writers. So she was of a heathenish and idolatrous race, such as the kings and people of Israel were expressly forbidden to marry. And went and served Baal The idol which the Sidonians worshipped, which some think to have been Hercules. But the word in Hebrew signifies lord, and in the plural lords, and was a name common to all false gods. And this idolatry was much worse than that of the calves; because in the calves they intended to worship the true God, through such images and representations, but in these, false gods or devils.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

B. The Period of Alliance 1 Kings 16:29-2 Kings 9:29

King Jehoshaphat of Judah made peace with King Ahab of Israel (1Ki 22:44). He did so by contracting a marriage between his son, Jehoram, and Ahab’s daughter, Athaliah (2Ch 18:1). This ended the first period of antagonism between the two kingdoms (931-874 B.C.) and began a 33-year period of alliance (874-841 B.C.).

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

1. Ahab’s evil reign in Israel 16:29-22:40

Ahab ruled Israel from Samaria for 22 years (874-853 B.C.). During the first of these years Asa ruled alone in Judah. Then for three years Asa and Jehoshaphat shared the throne. For the remainder of Ahab’s reign Jehoshaphat ruled alone.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Ahab’s wickedness 16:29-34

1Ki 16:30; 1Ki 16:33 bracket and set forth Ahab’s unusual wickedness with special emphasis. The writer had just written that Omri was the worst king so far (1Ki 16:25), but now he said Ahab exceeded him in wickedness. For Ahab, the fact that Jeroboam’s cult deviated from the Mosaic Law was "trivial" (1Ki 16:31).

The writer held Ahab responsible for marrying Jezebel. This was fair because even in arranged marriages in the ancient world the candidates, especially the son, in most cases had the right of refusal. Ahab and Jezebel became the most notorious husband and wife team in Scripture. Jezebel means dunghill. This must have been a name the Israelites gave her. Ahab’s greatest sin, however, was that he brought the worship of Baal-the worship of the native Canaanites whom God had commanded Israel to exterminate-under the official protection of his government. Jeroboam had already refashioned Yahweh worship departing from what Moses had prescribed. Ahab went one step further: he officially replaced the worship of Yahweh with idolatry (cf. 1Ki 18:4). This was a first in Israel’s history.

"This represents a quantum leap in the history of apostasy." [Note: Rice, p. 138.]

The temple and altar to Baal that Ahab erected in Israel’s capital symbolized his official approval of this pagan religion. Remember the importance of David bringing the ark into Jerusalem, and Solomon building a temple for Yahweh, and what those acts symbolized.

1Ki 16:34 may at first seem to have no connection with anything in the context. Perhaps the writer included it to show that as God had fulfilled His word about Jericho, so it would be in Ahab’s case. Ahab was establishing paganism that God had already said He would judge. Similarly Hiel had tried to set up a city that God had previously said the Israelites should not rebuild (cf. Jos 6:26). The building of Jericho is also a tribute to Ahab’s apostasy since he must have ordered or permitted Hiel to rebuild the city in spite of Joshua’s long-standing curse.

"The foundation sacrifice, revealed by modern archaeology, is probably what was involved. The children named were probably infants, dead or alive, placed in jars and inserted into the masonry, propitiating the gods and warding off evil." [Note: DeVries, p. 205.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

KING AHAB AND QUEEN JEZEBEL

1Ki 16:29-34

“Besides what that grim wolf with privy paw Daily devours apace, and nothing said.”

– LYCIDAS

OMRI was succeeded by his son Ahab, whose eventful reign of upwards of twenty years occupies so large a space even in these fragmentary records. His name means “brother-father,” and has probably some sacred reference. He is stigmatized by the historians as a king more wicked than his father, though Omri had “done worse than all who were before him.” That he was a brave warrior, and showed some great qualities during a long and on the whole prosperous career; that he built cities, and added to Israel yet another royal residence; that he advanced the wealth and prosperity of his subjects; that he was highly successful in some of his wars against Syria, and died in battle against those dangerous enemies of his country; that he maintained unbroken, and strengthened by yet closer affinity, the recent alliance with the Southern Kingdom, -all this goes for nothing with the prophetic annalists. They have no word of eulogy for the king who added Baal-worship to the sin of Jeroboam. The prominence of Ahab in their record is only due to the fact that he came into dreadful collision with the prophetic order, and with Elijah, the greatest prophet who had yet arisen. The glory and the sins of the warrior-king interested the young prophets of the schools solely because they were interwoven with the grand and somber traditions of their mightiest reformer.

The historian traces all his ignominy and ruin to a disastrous alliance. The kings of Judah had followed the bad example of David and had been polygamists. Up to this time the kings of Israel seem to have been contented with a single wife. The wealth and power of Ahab led him to adopt the costly luxury of a harem, and he had seventy sons. {2Ki 10:7} This, however, would have been regarded m those days as a venial offence, or as no offence at all; but just as the growing power of Solomon had been enhanced by marriage with a princess of Egypt, so Ahab was now of sufficient importance to wed a daughter of the King of Tyre. “As though it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, he took to wife Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, King of the Zidonians.”

It was an act of policy in which religious considerations went for nothing. There is little doubt that it flattered his pride and the pride of his people, and that Jezebel brought riches with her and pomp and the prestige of luxurious royalty. The Phoenicians were of the old race of Canaan, with whom all affinity was so strongly forbidden. Ethbaal-more accurately, perhaps, Ittobaal (Baal is with him)-though he ruled all Phoenicia, both Tyre and Sidon, was a usurper, and had been the high priest of the great Temple of Ashtoreth in Tyre. Hiram, the friend of Solomon, had now been dead for half a century. The last king of his dynasty was the fratricide Phelles, whom in his turn his brother Ethbaal slew. He reigned for thirty-two years, and founded a dynasty which lasted for sixty-two years more. He was the seventh successor to the throne of Tyre in the fifty years which had elapsed since the death of Hiram. Menander of Ephesus, as quoted by Josephus, shows us that in the history of this family we find an interesting point of contact between sacred and classic history. Jezebel was the aunt of Virgils Belus, and great-aunt of Pygmalion, and of Dido, the famous foundress of Carthage. A king named after Baal, and who had named his daughter after Baal-a king whose descendants down to Maherbal and Hasdrubal and Hannibal bore the name of the Sun-god-a king who had himself been at the head of the cult of Ashtoreth, the female deity who was worshipped with Baal-was not likely to rest content until he had founded the worship of his god in the realm of his son-in-law. Ahab, we are told, “went and served Baal and worshipped him.” We must discount by recorded facts the impression which might prima facie be left by these sweeping denunciations. It is certain that to his death Ahab continued to recognize Jehovah. He enshrined the name of Jehovah in the names of his children. He consulted the prophets of Jehovah, and his continuance of the calf-worship met with no recorded reproof from the many true prophets who were active during his reign. The worship of Baal was due to nothing more than the unwise eclecticism which had induced Solomon to establish the Bamoth to heathen deities on the mount of offence. It is exceedingly probable that the permission of Baal-worship had been one of the articles of the treaty between Tyre and Israel, which, as we know from Amos, had been made at this time. It had probably been the condition on which the fanatical Phoenician usurper had conceded to his far less powerful neighbor the hand of his daughter. It was, as we see, alike in sacred and secular history a time of treaties. The menacing specter of Assyria was beginning to terrify the nations. Hamath, Syria, and the Hittites had formed a league of defense against the northern power, and similar motives induced the kings of Israel to seek alliance with Phoenicia. Perhaps neither Omri nor Ahab grasped all the consequences of their concession to the Sidonian princess. But such compacts were against the very essence of the religion of Israel, which was “Yahveh Israels God, and Israel Yahvehs people.”

The new queen inherited the fanaticism as she inherited the ferocity of her father. She acquired from the first a paramount sway over the weak and uxorious mind of her husband under her-influence Ahab built in Samaria a splendid temple and altar to Baal, in which no less than four hundred orgiastic priests served the Phoenician idol in splendid vestments, and with the same pompous ritual as in the shrines at Tyre. In front of this temple, to the disgust and horror of all faithful worshippers of Jehovah, stood an Asherah in honor of the Nature-goddess, and Matstseboth pillars or obelisks which represented either sunbeams or the reproductive powers of nature. In these ways Ahab “did more to provoke the Lord God to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.” {1Ki 16:23; 2Ki 3:2; 2Ki 10:27} When we learn what Baal was, and how he was worshipped, we are not surprised at so stern a condemnation. Half Sun-god, half Bacchus, half Hercules, Baal was worshipped under the image of a bull, “the symbol of the male power of generation.” In the wantonness of his rites he was akin to Peor; in their cruel atrocity to the kindred Moloch; in the demand for victims to be sacrificed to the horrible consecration of lust and blood he resembled the Minotaur, the wallowing “infamy of Crete,” with its yearly tribute of youths and maidens. What the combined worship of Baal and Asherah was like-and by Jezebel with Ahabs connivance they were now countenanced in Samaria-we may learn from the description of their temple at Apheka. It confirms what we are incidentally told of Jezebels devotions. It abounded in wealthy gifts, and its multitude of priests, women, and mutilated ministers-of whom, Lucian counted three hundred at one sacrifice-were clad in splendid vestments. Children were sacrificed by being put in a leathern bag and flung down from the top of the temple, with the shocking expression that “they were calves, not children.” In the forecourt stood two gigantic phalli. The Galli were maddened into a tumult of excitement by the uproar of drums, shrill pipes, and clanging cymbals, gashed themselves with knives and potsherds, and often ran through the city in womens dress. Such was the new worship with which the dark murderess insulted the faith in Jehovah. Could any condemnation be too stern for the folly and faithlessness of the king who sanctioned it?

A consequence of this tolerance of polluted forms of worship seems to have shown itself in defiant contempt for sacred traditions, At any rate, it is in this connection that we are told how Hiel of Bethel set at naught an ancient curse. After the fall of Jericho Joshua had pronounced a curse upon the site of the city. It was never to be rebuilt, but to remain under the ban of God. The site, indeed, had not been absolutely uninhabited, for its importance near the fords of Jordan necessitated the existence of some sort of caravan serai in or near the spot. {2Sa 10:5; Jdg 3:28} At this time it belonged to the kingdom of Israel, though it was in the district of Benjamin and afterwards reverted to Judah. {2Ch 28:15} Hiel, struck by the opportunities afforded by its position, laughed the old cherem to scorn, and determined to rebuild Jericho into a fortified and important city. But men remarked with a shudder that the curse had not been uttered in vain. The laying of the foundation was marked by the death of his firstborn Abiram, the completion of the gates by the death of Segub, his youngest son. {Comp. Jos 6:26; 2Sa 10:5}

The shadow of Queen Jezebel falls dark for many years over the history of Israel and Judah. She was one of those masterful, indomitable, implacable women who, when fate places them in exalted power, leave a terrible mark on the annals of nations. What the Empress Irene was in the history of Constantinople, or the “She-wolf of France” in that of England, or Catherine de Medicis in that of France, that Jezebel was in the history of Palestine. The unhappy Juana of Spain left a physical trace upon her descendants in the perpetuation of the huge jaw which had gained her the soubriquet of Maultasch; but the trace left by Jezebel was marked in blood in the fortunes of the children born to her. Already three of the six Kings of Israel had been murdered, or had come to evil ends; but the fate of Ahab and his house was most disastrous of all, and it became so through the “whoredoms and witchcrafts” of his Sidonian wife. A thousand years later the name of Jezebel was still ominous as that of one who seduced others into fornication and idolatry. {Rev 2:20} If no king so completely “sold himself to work wickedness” as Ahab, it was because “Jezebel his wife stirred him up.” {1Ki 21:25-26}

Yet, however guilty may have been the uxorious apostasies of Ahab, he can hardly be held to be responsible for the marriage itself. The dates and ages recorded for us show decisively that the alliance must have been negotiated by Omri, for it took place in his reign and when Ahab was too young to have much voice in the administration of the kingdom. He is only responsible for abdicating his proper authority over Jezebel, and for permitting her a free hand in the corruption of worship, while he gave himself up to his schemes of worldly aggrandizement. Absorbed in the strengthening of his cities and the embellishment of his ivory palaces, he became neglectful of the worship of Jehovah, and careless of the more solemn and sacred duties of a theocratic king.

The temple to Baal at Samaria was built; the hateful Asherah in front of it offended the eyes of all whose hearts abhorred an impure idolatry. Its priests and the priests of Astarte were the favorites of the court. Eight hundred and fifty of them fed in splendor at Jezebels table, and the pomp of their sensuous cult threw wholly into the shade the worship of the God of Israel. Hitherto there had been no protest against, no interference with the course of evil. It had been suffered to reach its meridian unchecked, and it seemed only a question of time that the service of Jehovah would yield to that of Baal, to whose favor the queen probably believed that her priestly father had owed his throne. There are indications that Jezebel had gone further still, and that Ahab, however much he may secretly have disapproved, had not interfered to prevent her. For although we do not know the exact period at which Jezebel began to exercise violence against the worshippers of Jehovah, it is certain that she did so. This crime took place before the great famine which was appointed for its punishment, and which roused from cowardly torpor the supine conscience of the king and of the nation. Jezebel stands out on the page of sacred history as the first supporter of religious persecution. We learn from incidental notices that, not content with insulting the religion of the nation by the burdensome magnificence of her idolatrous establishments, she made an attempt to crush Jehovah-worship altogether. Such fanaticism is a frequent concomitant of guilt. She is the authentic authoress of priestly inquisitions.

The Borgian monster, Pope Alexander VI, who founded the Spanish Inquisition, is the lineal inheritor of the traditions of Jezebel. Had Ahab done no more than Solomon had done in Judah, the followers of the true faith in Israel would have been as deeply offended as those of the Southern Kingdom. They would have hated a toleration which they regarded as wicked, because it involved moral corruption as well as the danger of national apostasy. Their feelings would have been even more wrathful than were stirred in the hearts of English Puritans when they heard of the Masses in the chapel of Henrietta Maria, or saw Father Petre gliding about the corridors of Whitehall. But their opposition was crushed with a hand of iron. Jezebel, strong in her entourage of no less than eight hundred and fifty priests, to say nothing of her other attendants, audaciously broke down the altars of Jehovah-even the lonely one on Mount Carmel-and endeavored so completely to extirpate all the prophets of Jehovah that Elijah regarded himself as the sole prophet that was left. Those who escaped her fury had to wander about in destitution, and to hide in dens and caves of the earth.

The apostasy of Churches always creeps on apace, when priests and prophets, afraid of malediction, and afraid of imperiling their worldly interests become cowards, opportunists, and timeservers, and not daring to speak out the truth that is in them, suffer the cause of spirituality and righteousness to go by default. But “when Iniquity hath played her part, Vengeance, leaps upon the stage. The comedy is short, but the tragedy is long. The black guard shall attend upon you: you shall eat at the table of sorrow, and the crown of death shall be upon your heads, many glittering faces looking upon you.”

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary

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