20<\/strong>. Hast thou found me, O mine enemy<\/em> ] Ahab had not thought of a penalty to overtake him, but the sight of Elijah makes him feel not penitent, but indignant that the avenger of wrong is so soon at hand. Therefore he calls Elijah his enemy<\/em>.<\/p>\n because thou hast sold thyself<\/em> ] Here the LXX. adds =in vain. This appears to be an attempt at interpretation, indicating that Ahab had thought to take the price for his bargain, and to escape all consequences, and that in this he was to be disappointed. The complete surrender of the king into the hands of others is well expressed by ‘thou hast sold thyself’.<\/p>\n to work evil<\/em> ] R.V. to do that which is evil<\/strong>. As in all other places where this expression occurs.<\/p>\n in the sight of the Lord<\/em> ] Here the LXX. adds ‘to provoke him to anger’.<\/p>\n The words O mine enemy, may refer partly to the old antagonism (marginal reference; 1Ki 17:1<\/span>; 1Ki 19:2-3<\/span>); but the feeling which it expresses is rather that of present oppositions – the opposition between good and evil, light and darkness Joh 3:20<\/span>.<\/P> Thou hast sold thyself to work evil – <\/B>Compare the marginal references. The metaphor is taken from the practice of mens selling themselves into slavery, and so giving themselves wholly up to work the will of their master. This was a widespread custom in the ancient world.<\/P> <\/p>\n 1Ki 21:20<\/span><\/p>\n Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n Ahab and Elijah<\/strong><\/p>\n The <\/em>keynote of Elijahs character is force–the force of righteousness. The New Testament, you remember, talks about the power of Elias. The outward appearance of the man corresponds to his function and his character. The whole of his career is marked by this one thing–the strength of a righteous man. And then, on the other hand, this Ahab; the keynote of his character is the weakness of wickedness, and the wickedness of weakness. And so the deed is done: Naboth safe stoned out of the way; and Ahab goes down to take possession! The lesson of that is, my friend–Weak dallying with forbidden desires is sure to end in wicked clutching at them: But my business now is rather with the consequences of this apparently successful sin, than with what went before it. The king gets the crime done, shuffles it off himself on to the shoulders of his ready tools in the little village, goes down to get his toy, and gets it–but he gets Elijah along with it, which was more than he reckoned on.<\/p>\n Success that fails<\/strong><\/p>\n Ahab went out to take possession of a garden of herbs, and there he stands face to face with righteousness, face to face with honour, face to face with judgment. Now take the vineyard! He cannot! An hour since the sun shone upon it, and now it is black as if it were part of the midnight which has gathered in judgment. There is a success which is failure. We cannot take some prizes. Elijah will not allow us! When we see him we would that a way might open under our feet that we might flee and escape the judgment of his silent look. If any man is about to take unholy prizes, let him remember that he will be met on the road by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of righteousness. If any man is attempting to scheme for some little addition to his position or fortune, in the heart of which scheme there is injustice, untruthfulness, covetousness, or a wrong spirit, let him know that he may even kill Naboth, but cannot enter into Naboths vineyard. (J. Parker, D. D.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The tragedy of Jezreel<\/strong><\/p>\n When a man gives way to lust and coveting, does not struggle against them, a tempter is sure to be at hand to put him on gratifying them one way or another.<\/p>\n 1. <\/strong>Be sure, said Moses to the Reubenites, Your sin will find you out. (Num 32:23<\/span>). What an exemplification here! how literally was Elijahs denunciation fulfilled! Yes, and history and human experience are ever bearing witness to this, that sin finds out the sinner; and that, not simply in punishment following sin, but in the sin becoming its own means of detection and punishment–in a certain correlation of sin and its penalty. Thine own wickedness etc (Jer 2:19<\/span>). Be not deceived, God is not mocked, etc. (Gal 6:7<\/span>). Whoso breaketh a hedge, etc. (Ecc 10:8<\/span>).<\/p>\n 2. <\/strong>Success in wrongdoing the sinners loss. Better indeed had it been for Ahab if Jezebels scheme had failed. Men often fret and fume if thwarted in attaining some coveted object, yet may it have been their mercy to be so thwarted. It is Divine goodness which again and again hedges up our way, and providentially coerces us. To be given up to the devices and desires of our own hearts is the sorest of judgments.<\/p>\n 3. <\/strong>The fatal mistake of resenting righteous rebuke. Terrible was Ahabs mistake in calling Elijah his enemy. That uncompromising rebuker, his truest friend, would he only have listened to him instead of yielding to the siren seductions of Jezebel. (A. R. Symonds, M. A.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Blind to ones own guilt<\/strong><\/p>\n 1. <\/strong>That which first of all blinded Ahab more or less to the true character and extent of his responsibility for the death of Naboth was the force of desire. A single desire long dwelt upon, cherished, and indulged, has a blinding power which cannot easily be exaggerated. Ahab had long looked wistfully from his villa across the moat of Jezreel at the vineyard of Naboth. There it lay, beautiful in itself, most desirable as an appendage to the royal property. Without it the summer villa was obviously incomplete, and each visit to Jezreel would have strengthened the kings wish to possess it. It was not that he enjoyed to baulk a great mans wishes in the spirit of that rough and surly independence which is sometimes fostered by the near neighbourhood of a Court; it was not that he was governed by a natural sentiment common in all ages and civilisations against parting with an old family property; it was that the sacred law did not permit the exchange or the sale. With a view to maintaining the original distribution of landed property among the tribes, and of preventing the accumulation of large landed estates in a few hands, the Mosaic law forbade the alienation of lands or families holding them; and especially it forbade the transfer from one tribe to another. And this is the meaning of Naboths exclamation, The Lord forbid it me that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee. Desire is not always wrong in its early stages, and so long as it is under control of principle it is a motive, a useful motive power in human life. But when it finds itself in conflict with the rights of other men, and, above all, in conflict with the laws and with the rights of God, it must be suppressed unless it is to lead to crime. When Naboth declined to sell or to exchange his vineyard, Ahab ought to have ceased to desire it. Ahab went back to his palace baulked of his desire by the conscientious resistance of Naboth. The impulsive force in life is not thought, nor will, but desire. Thought sees its object; will gives orders with a view to attain it; but without desire thought is powerless, and will, in the operative sense, does not exist. Desire is to the human soul what gravitation is to the heavenly bodies. Ascertain the object of a mans desire, and you know the direction in which his soul is moving; ascertain the strength of a mans desire, and you know the rapidity of the souls movement. In St. Augustines memorable words, Whithersoever I am carried forward it is desire that carries me. Quocumque feror amore feror. <\/em>If the supreme object of desire is God, then desire becomes the grace of charity, and carries the soul onwards and upwards to the true source of its existence. If the supreme object of desire be something earthly, some person, some possession, then desire becomes what Scripture calls concupiscence, and carries the soul downwards–downwards to those regions in which the soul is buried and stifled by matter and sense. Concupiscence is desire diverted from its true object–God–and centred upon some created object which perverts and degrades it; and concupiscence grows by self-indulgence; it may very easily pass a point at which it can be no longer controlled, it may absorb as into a practically resistless current all the other interests and movements of the soul; it may concentrate with an all-increasing importunity the whole body and stock of feeling and passion upon some trifling object upon which, for the moment, it is bent, and which, by absorbing it, blinds it–blinds it utterly to the true proportions and value of things into the true meaning and import of action. So it was with Pharaoh when he set out in the pursuit of Israel; so it was with the vain and miserable Haman when he set his heart on exterminating the Jews; so it was with Ahab.<\/p>\n 2. <\/strong>And a second cause, which could have blinded Ahab to the true character of his responsibility for the murder of Naboth, was the ascendant influence and prominent agency of his queen, Jezebel. Ahab could not have enjoyed the results of Jezebels achievement, and decline to accept responsibility for it; yet, no doubt, he was more than willing to do this, more than willing to believe that matters had drifted somehow into other hands than his, and that the upshot, regrettable, no doubt, in one sense, but in another not altogether unwelcome, was beyond his control. It is to-day, as of old, that false conscience constantly endeavours to divest itself of responsibility for what has been done through others, or for what others had been allowed by <\/strong>us to do. This is the origin of that saying, Corporations have no conscience. The fact is that every individual member of a corporation gets too easily into the habit of thinking that all, or some of the other members are really answerable for the acts of tim whole, and that each merely acquiesces in what the others decide or do. But then, if everybody thinks this, where, meanwhile, does the real responsibility reside?–it must be somewhere, it cannot evaporate altogether. In very large bodies of men acting together, the responsibility is divided into very small portions of unequal magnitude; this is the case with nations and with churches, but responsibility is not destroyed by being thus distributed; while, on the other hand- the smaller the corporation the greater the responsibility of each one of its members. Thus the responsibility of each member of the British legislature for the well-being of the country is vastly greater than that of each Englishman who possesses a vote, and that of each member of the Cabinet is vastly greater than that of each member of Parliament. Ahab and Jezebel were at this time, practically speaking, the governing corporation in Israel, but Ahab could not shift his responsibility on Jezebel.<\/p>\n 3. <\/strong>And the third screen which would have blinded Ahab to the real state of the case was the perfection of the legal form which had characterised the proceedings. When Jezebel wrote to the magistrates of Jezreel she had been very careful indeed about legal propriety. She wrote in the kings name; she signed the letter with the kings seal, which would have borne the kings signature, and this, when stamped on the writing, made the actual signature unnecessary. Thus the letter had nothing less than the character of a royal command, and was addressed to the persons at Jezreel with whom the administration of justice properly lay–the elders and notables, the local magistracy. Law is a great and sacred thing. It is nothing less than a shadow upon earth of the justice of God. The forms which surround it, the rules which give it the dignity and honour which belong to its representatives, are the outworks of a thing itself entitled to our reverence. But when the machinery of law is tampered with, as was, no doubt, the case by Jezebel, when a false witness or a biased judge contributes to a result which, if legal, is not also moral, then law is like an engine off the rails–its remaining force is the exact measure of its capacity for mischief and for wrong, then, indeed, if ever, Summum jus, summa injuria. <\/em>Naboths trial and execution was, in truth, one of the earliest recorded samples in the worlds history of that dreadful outrage against God and man–a judicial murder. When the <\/strong>sword of justice smites down innocence and becomes the instrument of crime, the whole spirit and drift of law is abandoned, its language and its usages survive, and, as in Ahabs case, they form a screen between a guilty conscience and the stern reality. Of the authors and abettors of such deeds as this, it was said in an earlier age, They will not be learned nor understand, but walk on still in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are out of course. The foundations are out of course! Yes, that is the effect bad law makes in many a case where consciences, the deepest and most precious things in the moral and social life of man, are ruined. Propriety of outward form in the condemnation of Naboth is the measure of the miserable self-deceit of Ahab.<\/p>\n 1. <\/strong>Let us carry away two lessons, if no more. The first to keep all forms of desire well under control–under the control of conscience illuminated by principle, illuminated by faith. Some measure of desire is necessary for exertion; but the fewer wants we have the freer men <\/strong>we are, and the freer we are the happier we are. The one direction in which desire <\/strong>may be safely unchecked is heavenward. Safety lies in taking and keeping it well in hand, and in doing this betimes.<\/p>\n 2. <\/strong>And, secondly, for us Christians the event or the man who discovers us to ourselves should be held to be not our enemy, but our friend. (Canon Liddon, D. D.<\/em>)<\/p>\n Verse 20<\/span>. Thou hast sold thyself to work evil<\/B><\/I>] See a similar form of speech, Ro 7:14<\/span>. Thou hast totally abandoned thyself to the service of sin. Satan is become thy absolute master<\/I>, and thou his undivided slave<\/I>.<\/P> <\/p>\n Ahab said to Elijah; <\/B>upon and after his delivery of the message last mentioned, which it was needless to repeat. <\/P> Hast thou found me?<\/B> Dost thou pursue me from place to place? Wilt thou never let me rest? Art thou come after me hither with thy unwelcome messages? <\/P> O mine enemy; <\/B>that art always disturbing, threatening, and opposing me, and expressing not so much Gods mind as thy own hatred and enmity against me. Compare 1Ki 22:8<\/span>. <\/P> I have found thee; <\/B>the hand of God hath found and overtaken thee in the very act of thy sin. <\/P> Thou hast sold thyself; <\/B>thou hast wilfully and wholly resigned up thyself to be the bond-slave of the devil, or Baal, and of wicked Jezebel, to do whatsoever they persuade thee to do; as a man that sells himself to another is totally in his masters power, and must employ all his time and strength for his service. Compare 2Ki 17:7<\/span>; See Poole “Rom 7:14<\/span>“. <\/P> In the sight, <\/B>i.e. impudently and contemptuously. Withal he minds him, that although his sin was in a great measure hid from the eyes of men by Jezebels cunning contrivance, yet it was evident and known to God, who would require it at his hands. <\/P> <\/p>\n 20. thou hast sold thyself to workevil<\/B>that is, allowed sin to acquire the unchecked and habitualmastery over thee (2Ki 17:17<\/span>;Rom 7:11<\/span>).<\/P><\/p>\n And Ahab said to Elijah, hast thou found me, O mine enemy<\/strong>?…. So he reckoned him, because he dealt faithfully with him, and reproved him for his sins, and denounced the judgments of God upon him for them:<\/p>\n and he answered, I have found thee<\/strong>; as a thief, a robber and plunderer, in another’s vineyard; he had found out his sin in murdering Naboth, and unjustly possessing his vineyard, which was revealed to him by the Lord; and now was come as his enemy, as he called him, as being against him, his adversary, not that he hated his person, but his ways and works:<\/p>\n because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord<\/strong>; had given up himself wholly to his lusts, was abandoned to them, and as much under the power of them as a man is that has sold himself to another to be his slave; and which he served openly, publicly in the sight of the omniscient God, and in defiance of him. Abarbinel gives another sense of the word we render “sold thyself”, that he “made himself strange”, as if he was ignorant, and did not know what Jezebel had done; whereas he knew fully the whole truth of the matter, and that Naboth was killed through her contrivance, and by her management purposely; and so he did evil in the sight of that God that knows all things, pretending he was ignorant when he was not, and this Elijah found out by divine revelation; so the word is used in<\/p>\n Ge 42:6<\/span>, but the former sense is best, as appears from<\/p>\n 1Ki 21:25<\/span>.<\/p>\n Ahab answered, “Hast thou found me (met with me), O mine enemy?” (not, hast thou ever found me thine enemy? – Vulg., Luth.) i.e., dost thou come to meet me again, mine enemy? He calls Elijah his enemy, to take the sting from the prophet’s threat as an utterance caused by personal enmity. But Elijah fearlessly replied, “I have found (thee), because thou sellest thyself to do evil in the eyes of the Lord.” He then announced to him, in 1Ki 21:21<\/span>, 1Ki 21:22<\/span>, the extermination of his house, and to Jezebel, as the principal sinner, the most ignominious end (1Ki 21:23<\/span>). to sell one’s self to do evil, i.e., to give one’s self to evil so as to have no will of one’s own, to make one’s self the slave of evil (cf. 1Ki 21:25<\/span>, 2Ki 17:17<\/span>). The consequence of this is (Rom 7:14<\/span>), sin exercising unlimited power over the man who gives himself up to it as a slave. For 1Ki 21:21<\/span>, 1Ki 21:22<\/span>, see 1Ki 14:10-11<\/span>; 1Ki 15:29-30<\/span>; 1Ki 16:3<\/span>, 1Ki 16:12-13<\/span>. The threat concerning Jezebel (1Ki 21:23<\/span>) was literally fulfilled, according to 2Ki 9:30<\/span>. , written defectively for , as in 2Sa 20:15<\/span>, is properly the open space by the town-wall, pomoerium<\/em>. Instead of we have in the repetition of this threat in 2Ki 9:10<\/span>, 2Ki 9:36-37<\/span>, and consequently Thenius and others propose to alter the here. But there is no necessity for this, as , on the portion, i.e., the town-land, of Jezreel (not, in the field at Jezreel), is only a more general epithet denoting the locality, and is proved to be the original word by the lxx.<\/p>\n (20) Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?<\/strong>The cry is partly of dismay, partly of excuse. Ahab, having no word of defence to utter, endeavours to attribute Elijahs rebuke and condemnation to simple enmity, much as in 1Ki. 18:17<\/span> he cries out Art thou he that troubleth Israel? The crushing answer is that the prophet came not because he was an enemy, but because Ahab had sold himselfhad become a slave instead of a kingunder the lust of desire and the temptation of Jezebel.<\/p>\n 20<\/strong>. <\/strong> Hast thou found me <\/strong> Probably Ahab was trembling with alarm and terror as he uttered these words. He could not but have a profound fear of Elijah. <\/p>\n Mine enemy <\/strong> He charges him with being an enemy in order to weaken the force of his words, and to quiet, somewhat, his own conscience. <\/p>\n Because thou hast sold thyself to work evil <\/strong> Not because I am an enemy, and wish to persecute thee, but because thou hast made thyself a slave of sin, it is that I have found thee. To sell one’s self to do evil is to become so utterly abandoned to sin and crime as to lose all moral principle and power to resist evil.<\/p>\n 1Ki 21:20<\/span><\/em><\/strong>. <\/strong>Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?<\/em><\/strong><\/strong> Why art thou come to me, O mine enemy? Elijah answered, I am therefore come unto thee, because thou hast sold thyself, <\/em>&c. The word sold, <\/em>which is used by St. Paul, Rom 7:14<\/span> signifies the total giving up of one’s self into the hand or power of another, and is a very strong and nervous expression for the total slavery of the soul to sin. <\/p>\n DISCOURSE: 352 1Ki 21:20<\/span>. And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? And he answered, I have found thee.<\/em><\/p>\n THE office of a minister is doubtless the most honourable that can be sustained by man; but it is at the same time the most arduous. If indeed the people to whom we carry the glad tidings of salvation were willing to put away their sins and embrace the proffered mercy, there would be comparatively little difficulty in discharging our duty: but men are averse to receive our message: they love darkness rather than light; yea, they hate the light, and would even extinguish it, rather than be constrained to see the evil of their ways. Hence those ministers who are faithful, are universally accounted the troublers of Israel, and the enemies of those whom they labour to convert: and they must go with their lives in their hands, if they will approve themselves to God and to their own conscience. The justice of this observation is manifest from the address of Ahab to the Prophet Elijah: in which we see,<\/p>\n I.<\/p>\n How greedily men commit sin<\/p>\n Horrible beyond measure was the conduct of Ahab which is here recorded Horrible as this was, and far surpassing any thing which is commonly found amongst us, it yet is in many respects imitated by the great mass of mankind Again, there are those who for lucre sake will aid in betraying or corrupting an innocent unsuspecting female: and how many are there who would readily enough avail themselves of an advantage so obtained; or at least conspire to rivet the chains once forged, and to derive pleasure to themselves from the misery of their fellow-creatures! If we presume to remonstrate with such persons, we shall soon see,<\/p>\n II.<\/p>\n How indignantly they take reproof<\/p>\n Great was the indignation which Ahab expressed against Elijah It would be well too if this presumptuous spirit were confined to those who are the open enemies of God: but it is not unfrequently found even amongst the professed followers of Christ; for it was to such that the Apostle addressed himself, when he said, Am I become your enemy because I tell you the truth [Note: Gal 4:16<\/span>.]? Let religious professors be on their guard against this great evil; for, in proportion as it prevails, it gives reason to fear that they are deceiving their own souls, and that their religion is vain.]<\/p>\n But how boldly soever they reply against God, we may see in the answer of Elijah,<\/p>\n III.<\/p>\n How certainly they ruin their own souls<\/p>\n The fearless prophet soon taught the murderous monarch what he was to expect In like manner shall the judgments of God overtake all who continue obstinate in their sins This subject speaks powerfully to different characters; To wilful and impenitent transgressors<\/p>\n [What Moses said to all Israel, we must say to you, Be sure your sin will find you out. You may glory in your success, and roll your iniquity under your tongue as a sweet morsel, as Ahab did, but your sin shall ere long meet you to your sorrow and confusion; yea, every sin that you have ever committed shall meet you at the bar of judgment; and, when addressed by you as Elijah was, shall return you the same answer as he did to Ahab; Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? I have found thee. The long-suffering of God may bear with you for a season; but your judgment lingereth not, and your damnation slumbereth not [Note: 2Pe 2:3<\/span>; 2Pe 3:9<\/span>.].]<\/p>\n 2.<\/p>\n To those who have repented of their sin<\/p>\n [Your sins, purged away by the precious blood of Christ, shall be sought for, but not be found [Note: Jer 50:20<\/span>.]: God has blotted them out as a morning cloud, and cast them all behind him into the very depths of the sea [Note: Mic 7:18-19<\/span>.]. It is an express engagement of his covenant, that your sins and iniquities he will remember no more [Note: Heb 10:17<\/span>.]. Think, my Brethren, what an unspeakable mercy this is, and let it be your daily and hourly employment to abase yourselves before God, and to wash in the fountain of your Redeemers blood.]<\/p>\n 3.<\/p>\n To those who are Gods messengers to a guilty world<\/p>\n [It is at the peril of the watchmans soul, if through sloth or cowardice he neglect to warn men of their approaching danger. Brethren, we must, like Elijah, put ourselves in the way of sinners, and bear testimony for God against them. This is a painful, but necessary duty. You admire the discharge of it in Elijah; do not then disapprove of it in us. But we must speak, whether ye will hear, or whether ye will forbear. Gods command is plain, He that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully [Note: Jer 23:28-29<\/span>.]. O that every servant of the Lord might resemble this man of God! and that instead of having to appear as witnesses against you at the bar of judgment, we might now find you obedient to the word, and have you in that day as our joy and crown of rejoicing for evermore!]<\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n 1Ki 21:20 And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? And he answered, I have found [thee]: because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the LORD.<\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n Ver. 20. Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?<\/strong> ] And why an enemy, but because he told him the truth? See Mic 2:7<\/span> . See Trapp in “<\/em> Mic 2:7 “<\/em> Truth breedeth hatred, as the fair nymphs are feigned to have done the foul fauni<\/em> and satyrs. <\/p>\n “ An expectas ut Quintilianus ametur?<\/em> ” – Juvenal.<\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Because thou hast sold thyself to work evil.<\/strong> ] Though thou art sure to rue the bargain; as at length all those shall that abandon themselves to wicked practices, see <\/em> 2Ki 17:17 ut fiant pabulum morris et fomentum Gehennae.<\/em> Such dustheaps are to be found in every corner – men that work “all uncleanness with greediness.” Eph 4:19 <\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the sight of the Lord.<\/strong> ] And, as it were, in despite of him.<\/p>\n 1 Kings<\/p>\n AHAB AND ELIJAH<\/p>\n 1Ki 21:20 <\/strong> .<\/p>\n The keynote of Elijah’s character is force-the force of righteousness. The New Testament, you remember, speaks of the ‘power of Elias.’ The outward appearance of the man corresponds to his function and his character. Gaunt and sinewy, dwelling in the desert, feeding on locusts and wild honey, with a girdle of camel’s skin about his loins, he bursts into the history, amongst all that corrupt state of society, with the force of a hammer that God’s hand wields. The whole of his career is marked by this one thing,-the strength of a righteous man. And then, on the other hand, this Ahab;-the keynote of his<\/em> character is the weakness of wickedness, and the wickedness of weakness. Think of him. Weakly longing-as idle and weak minds in lofty places always do-after something that belongs to somebody else; with all his gardens, coveting the one little herb-plot of the poor Naboth; weak and worse than womanly, turning his face to the wall and weeping when he cannot get it; weakly desiring to have it, and yet not knowing how to set about accomplishing his wish; and then-as is always the case, for there are always tempters everywhere for weak people-that beautiful fiend by his side, like the other queen in our great drama, ready to screw the feeble man that she is wedded to, to the sticking-place, and to dare anything to grasp that on which the heart was set. And so the deed is done: Naboth safe stoned out of the way; and Ahab goes down to take possession! The lesson of that is, my friend,-Weak dallying with forbidden desires is sure to end in wicked clutching at them. Young men, take care! You stand upon the beetling edge of a great precipice, when you look over, from your fancied security, at a wrong thing; and to strain too far, and to look too fixedly, leads to a perilous danger of toppling over and being lost! If you know that a thing cannot be won without transgression, do not tamper with hankerings for it. Keep away from the edge, and ‘ shut<\/em> your eyes from beholding vanity.’<\/p>\n But my business now is rather with the consequences of this apparently successful sin, than with what went before it. The king gets the crime done, shuffles it off himself on to the shoulders of his ready tools in the little village, goes down to get his toy, and gets it-but he gets Elijah along with it, which was more than he reckoned on. When, all full of impatience and hot haste to solace himself with his new possession, he rushes down to seize the vineyard, he finds there, standing at the gate, waiting for him-black-browed, motionless, grim, an incarnate conscience-the prophet whom he had not seen for years, the prophet that he had last seen on Carmel, bearding alone the servants of Baal, and executing on them the solemn judgment of death; and there leaps at once to his lip, ‘Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?’<\/p>\n I. I find here, in the first place, this broad principle: Pleasure won by sin is peace lost.<\/p>\n <\/strong> It does not need that there should be a rebuking prophet standing by to work out that law. God commits the execution of it to the natural operations of our own consciences and our own spirits. Here is the fact in men’s natures on which it partly depends: when sin is yet tempting us, it is loved; when sin in done, it is loathed. Action and reaction, as the mechanicians tell us, are equal and contrary. The more violent the blow with which we strike upon the forbidden pleasure, the further back the rebound after the stroke. When sin tempts-when there hangs glittering before a man the golden fruit which he knows that he ought not to touch-then, amidst the noise of passion or the sophistry of desire, conscience is silenced for a little while. No man sins without knowing that it is wrong, without knowing that in the long run it is a mistake; but at the instant, in the delirium of yielding, as in moments of high physical excitement, he is blind and deaf, deaf to the voice of reason, blind to the sight of consequences. Conscience and consequence are alike lost sight of. Like a mad bull, the man that is tempted lowers his head and shuts his eyes, and rushes right on. The moment that the sin is done, that moment the passion or desire which tempted to it is satiated, and ceases to exist for the time. It is gone as a motive. Like some savage beast, being fed full, it lies down to sleep. There is a vacuum left in the heart, the noise is stilled, and then- and then-conscience begins to speak. Or, to take another image, the passion, the desires, the impulses that lead us to do wrong things- they are like a crew that mutiny, and take for a moment the wheel from the steersman and the command from the captain, but then, having driven the ship on the rocks, the mutineers get intoxicated, and lie down and sleep. Passion fulfils itself, and expires. The desire is satisfied, and it turns into a loathing. The tempter draws us to him, and then unveils the horrid face that lies beneath the mask. When the deed is done and cannot be undone, then comes satiety; then comes the reaction of the fierce excitement, the hot blood begins to flow more slowly; then rises up in the heart conscience; then rises up in majesty in the soul reason; then flashes and flares before the eye the vivid picture of the consequences. His ‘enemy’ has found the sinner. He has got the vineyard-ay, but Elijah is there, and his dark and stern presence sucks all the brightness and the sunniness out of the landscape; and Naboth’s blood stains the leaves of Naboth’s garden! There is no sin which is not the purchase of pleasure at the price of peace.<\/p>\n Now, you will say that all that is true in regard to the grosser forms of transgression, but that it is not true in regard to the less vulgar and sensual kinds of crime. Of course it is most markedly observable with regard to the coarsest kind of sins; but it is as true, though perhaps not in the same degree-not in the same prominent, manifest way at any rate-in regard to every sin that a man does. There is never an evil thing which-knowing it to be evil-we commit, which does not rise up to testify against us. As surely as in the words of our great philosopher poet ‘lust dwells hard by hate,’ and as surely as to-night’s debauch is followed by to-morrow’s headache, so surely-each after its kind, and each in its own region-every sin lodges in the human heart the seed of a quick-springing punishment, yea, is its own punishment. When we come to grasp the sweet thing that we have been tempted to seize, there is a serpent that starts up amongst all the flowers. When the evil act is done-opposite of the prophet’s roll-it is sweet in the lips, but oh! it is bitter afterwards. ‘At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder!’<\/p>\n Then, you may say again, ‘All that is very much exaggerated. That is not the sort of feeling which men that go on persistently doing wrong things, cherish. They live quietly and contentedly enough. “There are no bands in their death, and their strength is firm.”‘ All that would be true if men’s consciences kept sensitive in the midst of men’s sins, but they do not; and so it cannot be that every transgression has thus its quick result in loss of peace. I grant you at once that it is quite possible for men to sin away the delicacy and susceptibility of their consciences. I dare say there are people here now who, after they have done a wrong thing, go on very quietly, with no knowledge of those agonies that I have been speaking about, with scarcely ever a prick of conscience for their sin. But what then? I did not say that all sin purchased pleasure by inflictions of agony; but I do say, that all sin purchases pleasure by loss of peace. The silence of a seared conscience is not peace. For peace you want something more than that a conscience shall be dumb. For peace you want something more than that you shall be able to live without the daily sense and sting of sin. You want not only the negative absence of pain, but the positive presence of a tranquillising guest in your heart-that conscience of yours testifying with you, blessing you in its witness, and shedding abroad rest and comfort. It is easy to kill a conscience-after a fashion at least. It is easy to stifle it. It is easy to come to that depth of wrongdoing that one gets used to it, and does it without caring. But oh! that cold vacuum, that dead absence in such a spirit of all healthy self-communing, that painful suspicion, ‘If I look into myself, and be quiet for a little while, and take stock of my own character, and see what I am, the balance will be on the wrong side,’-that is not<\/em> peace. As the old historian says about the Roman armies that marched through a country, burning and destroying every living thing, ‘They make a solitude, and they call it peace.’ And so men do with their consciences. They stifle them, sear them, forcibly silence them, somehow or other; and then, when there is a dead stillness in the heart, broken by no voice of either approbation or blame, but doleful like the unnatural quiet of a deserted city, then they call that peace, and the man’s uncontrolled passions and unbridled desires dwell solitary in the fortress of his own spirit! You may<\/em> almost attain to that. Do you think it is a goal to be set before you as an ideal of human nature? The loss of peace is certain-the presence of agony is most likely-from every act of sin.<\/p>\n And so, it is not only a crime<\/em> that men commit when they do wrong, but it is a blunder<\/em> . Sin is not only guilt, but it is a mistake. ‘The game is not worth the candle,’ according to the French proverb. The thing that you buy is not worth the price you pay for it. Sin is like a great forest-tree that we may sometimes see standing up green in its leafy beauty, and spreading a broad shadow over half a field; but when we get round on the other side, there is a great dark hollow in the very heart of it, and corruption is at work there. It is like the poison-tree in travellers’ stories, tempting weary men to rest beneath its thick foliage, and insinuating death into the limbs that relax in the fatal coolness of its shade. It is like the apples of Sodom, fair to look upon, but turning to acrid ashes on the unwary lips. It is like the magician’s rod that we read about in old books. There it lies; and if, tempted by its glitter, or fascinated by the power that it proffers you, you take it in your hand, the thing starts into a serpent with erected crest and sparkling eye, and plunges its quick barb into the hand that holds it, and sends poison through all the veins. Do not touch it, my brother! Every sin buys pleasure at the price of peace. Elijah is always waiting at the gate of the ill-gotten possession.<\/p>\n II. In the second place, Sin is blind to its true friends and its real foes.<\/p>\n <\/strong>‘Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?<\/em>’ Elijah was the best friend that Ahab had in his kingdom. And that Jezebel there, the wife of his bosom, whom he loved and thanked for this new toy, she was the worst foe that hell could have sent him. Ay, and so it is always. The faithful rebuker, the merciful inflicter of pain, is the truest friend of the wrongdoer. The worst enemy of the sinful heart is the voice that either tempts it into sin, or lulls it into self-complacency. And this is one of the most certain workings of evil desires in our spirits, that they pervert for us all the relations of things, that they make us blind to all the moral truths of God’s universe. Sin is blind as to itself, blind as to its own consequences, blind as to who are its friends and who are its foes, blind as to earth, blind as to another world, blind as to God. The man who walks in the ‘vain show’ of transgression, whose heart is set upon evil,-he fancies that ashes are bread, and stones gold as in the old fairy story; and, on the other hand, he thinks that the true sweet is the bitter, and turns away from God’s angels and God’s prophets, with, ‘Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?’ That is the reason, my friend, of not a little of the infidelity that haunts this world-that sin, perverted and blinded, stumbles about in its darkness, and mistakes the face of the friend for the face of the foe. God sends you in mercy a conscience to prick and sting you that you may be kept right; and you think that it<\/em> is your enemy. God sends in His mercy the discipline of life, pains and sorrows, to draw us away from the wrong, to make us believe that the right in this world and the next is life, and that holiness is happiness for evermore. And then, when, having done wrong, God’s merciful messenger of a sharp sorrow finds us out, we say, ‘Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?’ and begin to wonder about the mysteries of Providence, and how it comes that there is evil in the creation of a good God. Why, physical evil is the best friend of the man that is subject to moral evil. Sorrow is the truest blessing to a sinner. The best thing that can befall any of us is that God shall not let us alone in any wrong course, without making us feel His rod, without hedging up our way with thorns, and sending us by His grace into a better one. There is no mystery in sorrow. There is a mystery in sin; but sorrow following on the back of sin is the true friend, and not the enemy, of the wrong-doing spirit.<\/p>\n And then, again, God sends us a gospel full of dark words about evil. It deals with that fact of sin, as no other system ever did. There is no book like the Bible for these two things,-for the lofty notion that it has about what man may be and ought to be; and for the low notion that it has of what man is. It does not degrade human nature, because it tells us the truth about human nature as it is. Its darkest and bitterest sayings about transgression, they are veiled promises, my brother. It does not make the consequences of sin which it writes down. You and I make them for ourselves, and it tells us of them. Did the lighthouse make the rock that it stands on? Is it to be blamed for the shipwreck? If a man will<\/em> go full tilt against the thing that he knows will ruin him, what is the right name for him who hedges it up with a prickly fence of thorns, and puts a great light above it, and writes below, ‘If thou comest here thou diest’? Is that the work of an enemy? And yet that is why people talk about the gloomy views of the gospel, about the narrow spirit of Christianity, about the harsh things that are here! The Bible did not make hell. The Bible did not make sin the parent of sorrow. The Bible did not make it certain that ‘every transgression and disobedience’ should reap its ‘just recompense of reward.’ We are the causes of their coming upon ourselves; and the Bible but proclaims the end to which the paths of sin must lead, and beseechingly calls to us all, ‘Turn ye, turn ye! why will ye die?’ And yet when it comes to you, how many of you turn away from it, and say, ‘It is mine enemy’! How many shrink from its merciful knife, that cuts into all the wounds of the festering spirit! How many of you feel as if ‘the truth that is in Jesus’ was a hard and bitter truth; when all the while its very heart’s blood is love, and the very secret of its message is the tenderest compassion, the most yearning sympathy, for every soul amongst us!<\/p>\n Ay, and more than that:-sin makes us fancy that God Himself is our enemy; and sin makes that thought of God that ought to be most blessed and most sweet to us, the terror of our souls. You have the power, my friend, by your own wrongdoing, of perverting the whole universe, and, worst of all, of distorting the image of the merciful Father, of the loving God. God loves. God is the Father. God watches over us. God will not let us alone when we transgress, God in His love has appointed that sin shall breed sorrow. But we<\/em> -we do wrong; and then, for God’s Providence, and God’s Gospel, and God’s Son, and God Himself, there rises up in our hearts a hostile feeling, and we think that He is turned to be our enemy, and fights against us! But oh! He only fights against us that we may submit to, and love, Him. Will you, then, have it that God’s highest mercy should be your greatest sorrow, that your truest friend should be your worst foe? You can make the choice. To you God and His truth are like that ark of His covenant which to Dagon and the Philistines was a curse, but to the house of Obededom was a blessing. He and His gospel are to you like that pillar that was darkness and trouble to the hosts of the Egyptians, but light by night to His children. To you, my brother, the gospel may be either ‘the savour of life unto life, or the savour of death unto death!’ If He comes to you with rebuke, and meets you when you are at the very door of your sin, and busy with your transgression,-usher Him in, and thank Him, and bless Him for words of threatening, for merciful severity, for conviction of sin;-because conviction of sin is the work of the Comforter; and all the threatenings and all the pains that follow and track, like swift hounds, the committer of evil, are sent by Him who loves too wisely not to punish transgression, and loves too well to punish without warning, and desires only when He punishes that we should turn from our evil way, and escape the condemnation. An enemy, or a friend,-which is God in His truth to you?<\/p>\n III. Lastly, the sin which mistakes the friendly appeal for an enemy, lays up for itself a terrible retribution. <\/strong> Elijah comes to Jezreel and prophesies the fall of Ahab. The next peal, the next flash, fulfil the prediction. There, where he did the wrong, he suffered. In Jezreel, Ahab died. In Jezreel, Jezebel died. That plain was the battlefield for the subsequent discomfiture of Israel. Over and over again there encamped upon it the hosts of the spoilers. Over and over again its soil ran red with the blood of the children of Israel; and at last, in the destruction of the kingdom, Naboth was avenged and God’s word fulfilled. The threatened evil was foretold that it might lead the king to repentance, and that thus it might never need to be more than a threat. But, though Ahab was partially penitent, and partially listened to the prophet’s voice, yet for all that, he went on in his evil way. Therefore the merciful threatening becomes a stern prophecy, and is fulfilled to the very letter.<\/p>\n So, when God’s message comes to us, friends, if we listen not to it, and turn not to its gentle rebuke, Oh! then we gather up for ourselves an awful futurity of judgment, when threatening will darken into punishment, and the voice that rebuked will swell into the voice of final condemnation. When a man fancies that God’s prophet is his enemy, and dreams that his finding him out is a calamity and a loss, that man may be certain that something worse will find him out some day. His sins will find him out, and that is worse than the prophet’s coming. My friend, picture to yourself this-a human spirit shut up, with the companionship of its forgotten and dead transgressions. There is a resurrection of acts as well as of bodies. Think what it will be for a man to sit surrounded by that ghastly company, the ghosts of his own sins!-and as each forgotten fault and buried badness comes, silent and sheeted, into that awful society, and sits itself down there, think of him greeting each with the question, ‘Thou too? What! are ye all here? Hast thou<\/em> found me, O mine enemy?’ and from each bloodless spectral lip there tolls out the answer, the knell of his life, ‘I have<\/em> found thee, because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord.’ Ah, my friend! if that were all we had to say, it might well stiffen us into stony despair. Thank God-thank God! such an issue is not inevitable. Christ speaks to you. Christ is your Friend<\/em> . He loves you, and He speaks to you now-speaks to you of your danger, but in order that you may never rush into it and be engulfed by it; speaks to you of your sin, but in order that you may say to Him, ‘Take Thou it away, O merciful Lord’; speaks to you of justice, but in order that you may never sink beneath the weight of His stroke; speaks to you of love, in order that you may know, and fully know, the depth of His graciousness. When He says to you, ‘I love thee; love thou Me: I have died for thee; trust Me, live by<\/em> Me, and live for<\/em> Me, ‘will you not say to Him, ‘My Friend, my Brother, my Lord, and my God’?<\/p>\n evil = the evil. Hebrew. ra’a’. App-44. <\/p>\n Hast thou found me: 1Ki 18:17, 1Ki 22:8, 2Ch 18:7, 2Ch 18:17, Amo 5:10, Mar 12:12, Gal 4:16, Rev 11:10, Amo 5:10, Mar 12:12, Gal 4:16, Rev 11:10 <\/p>\n thou hast sold: 1Ki 21:25, 2Ki 17:17, Isa 50:1, Isa 52:3, Rom 7:14 <\/p>\n to work: 1Ki 16:30, 2Ki 21:2, 2Ch 33:6, Eph 4:19 <\/p>\n Reciprocal: Exo 5:1 – and told Jdg 16:18 – brought money 1Sa 13:13 – Thou hast done 1Sa 19:17 – mine enemy 2Sa 12:7 – Thou art 2Sa 12:13 – David 2Ki 3:2 – but not 2Ki 3:14 – I would not look Pro 9:7 – General Pro 15:10 – grievous Pro 24:25 – them Pro 28:4 – but Pro 29:1 – General Pro 29:10 – The bloodthirsty Ecc 5:8 – regardeth Isa 30:10 – say Jer 15:10 – a man Jer 20:10 – we shall Jer 38:4 – thus Eze 3:8 – General Eze 14:4 – I the Lord Mic 3:2 – hate Mat 5:12 – for so Mar 6:19 – Herodias Mar 6:20 – feared Mar 11:18 – feared Mar 14:11 – and promised Luk 1:17 – power Luk 6:23 – for in Joh 7:7 – because Act 5:28 – intend<\/p>\n THE REBUKE OF SIN<\/p>\n And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? And he answered, I have found thee: because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord.<\/p>\n 1Ki 21:20<\/p>\n We are like Ahab: we hate to be reprovedit is so troublesome, it is so annoying. When the Church, or her ministers, or the voices of individual consciences rebuke some fault which has grown old among men, they look on the messengers of God very much as Ahab did on Elijah, and they know not that, all the while, it is God of Whom they are complaining.<\/p>\n I. Gods Providence permits no soul to do wrong without warning, nor, having sinned, to be at peace without rebuke. However depraved, however steeped in vice, however abandoned, or however innocent hitherto, at each step downward God meets the individual soul. It may be by circumstances, by personal loss, by bereavement, by the voice of conscience, by a thousand other ways, God stands in the way, willing rather that men shall be turned from their sin and be saved. All through the history of Gods revelation, as it is recorded in Holy Scripture, this principle is apparent; in the sight of the people Noah was building the Ark of Salvation, the sign of wrath to come. The people of Sodom were first rebuked by the presence of Lot. In Egypt, Moses warned Pharaoh after almost every plague. On the night of Belshazzars overthrow there appeared the mysterious hand on the wall writing his doom. King Herod had no rest in his adultery with his brother Philips wife.<\/p>\n II. The way of God is to withstand wilful sin.Daily we pray, Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, and most surely He does so, if men would only see and take advantage of His warnings. He makes no difference between the hardened sinner and the honest though weak disciple. Whenever you hear of a determined Ahab, you hear of a fearless Elijah. Or, if it be a David who has forgotten himself, there is always at hand a Nathan to warn him by a parallel case, and to say, Thou art the man. Or, if there be no man to speak, God will speak in other ways: trouble, sorrow, sickness, loss, are all the silent messengers of the Almighty, and in the silence of the night, or the solitude of despair, when the heart cries out, O God! wherefore is all this come upon me? the still small voice of conscience strives within you, Hast thou not forsaken God and broken His commandments?<\/p>\n III. Every obstacle which confronts the deliberate sinner is surely the sign of the Lords Presence. It is like the angel of the Lord standing before Balaam, with his sword in his hand, whom Balaam could not see until his eyes were opened. And so, when a man sets about a deliberate sin, he may expect obstacles put in his way, because we know while God hates the sin He loves the sinner, and would warn him and save him. Or suppose that he has committed the sin that, like Ahab, he has killed and taken possession, or like David when he caused Uriah to be killed, or like Herod who was living in his sinstill God leaves him not alone, and an Elijah, or a Nathan, or a Baptist appears when least expected, and his pleasure becomes bitterness.<\/p>\n Rev. S. J. Childs Clarke.<\/p>\n Illustration<\/p>\n God deals with us in many ways. Our experience, open and secret, is full of circumstances of His providential warning and correction; but do men always profit by these warnings? How do they look upon them? Some are angry, as Cain, who we read was very wroth, and his countenance fell. Some scoff as the men of Sodom did, who said, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge. And some are defiant, as PharaohGet thee from me, take heed to thyself, see my face no more; for in that day thou seest my face thou shalt die. And some, while complaining of their lot, are submissive for a time, but after awhile harden their hearts, as in the case of Ahab, who for a time was penitent. And some repent with tears, as St. Peter did. When the Master turned and looked upon him he saw in that look not the rebuke of an enemy, but the love of the true Friend and Saviour. God grant that in sickness or bereavement, loss or sorrow, or when the Church, her minister, or the voice of conscience speaks to rebuke some sin, we may perceive not the visitation of an enemy, but the guiding Hand of our Heavenly Father.<\/p>\n 1Ki 21:20. Ahab said to Elijah Upon his delivery of the message last mentioned, which it was needless to repeat. Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? Dost thou pursue me from place to place? Wilt thou never let me rest? Art thou come after me hither with thy unwelcome messages? Thou art always disturbing, threatening, and opposing me. I have found thee The hand of God hath found and overtaken thee. Thou hast sold thyself Thou hast wholly resigned up thyself to be the bond-slave of the devil, as a man that sells himself to another is totally in his masters power. To work evil, &c. Impudently and contemptuously. Those who give themselves up to sin, will certainly be found out, sooner or later, to their unspeakable amazement.<\/p>\n And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? And he answered, I have found [thee]: because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the LORD. 20. Hast thou found me, O mine enemy ] Ahab had not thought of a penalty to overtake him, but the sight … Continue reading “Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Kings 21:20”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9483\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
I. <\/strong>Pleasure won by sin is peace lost. Action and reaction, as the mechanicians tell us, are equal and contrary. The more violent the blow with which we strike upon the forbidden pleasure, the further back the rebound after the stroke. When sin tempts–when there hangs glittering before a man the golden fruit that he knows he ought not to touch-then, amidst the noise of passion or the sophistry of desire, conscience is silenced for a little while. Conscience and consequence are alike lost sight of. Like a mad bull, the man that is tempted lowers his head and shuts his eyes, and rushes right on. The moment that the sin is done, that moment the passion or desire which tempted to it is satiated, and ceases to exist for the time. It is gone as a motive. Like some savage beast, being fed full, it lies down to sleep. There is a vacuum left in the heart, the noise is stilled, and then–and then–conscience begins to speak. Now, you will say that all that is true in regard to the grossest forms of transgression, but that it is not true in regard to the less vulgar and sensual kinds of crime. Of course it is most markedly observable with regard to the coarsest kind of sins; but it is as true, though perhaps not in the same degree-not in the same prominent, manifest way at any rate–in regard to every sin that a man does. There is never an evil thing which–knowing it to be evil–we commit, which does not rise up to testify against us. As surely as to-nights debauch is followed by to-morrows headache; so surely–each after its kind, and each in its own region–every sin lodges in the human heart the seed of a quickspringing punishment, yea, is its own punishment. When we come to grasp the sweet thing that we have been tempted to seize, there is a serpent that starts up amongst all the flowers. When the evil act is done–opposite of the prophets roll–it is sweet in the lips, but oh! it is bitter afterwards. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder! The silence of a seared conscience is not peace. For peace you want something more than that a conscience shall be dumb. For peace you want something more than that you shall be able to live without the daily sense and sting of sin. You want not only the negative absence of pain, but the positive presence of a tranquillising guest in your heart–that conscience of yours testifying with you, blessing you in its witness, and shedding abroad rest and comfort.<\/p>\n
II. <\/strong>Sin is blind to its true friends and its real foes. Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? Elijah was the best friend he had in his kingdom. And that Jezebel there, the wife of his bosom, whom he loved and thanked for this thing, she was the worst foe that hell could have sent him. Ay, and so it is always. The faithful rebuker, the merciful inflictor of pain, is the truest friend of the wrong doer. The worst enemy of the sinful heart is the voice that either tempts it into sin, or lulls it into self-complacency,<\/p>\n
III. <\/strong>The sin which mistakes the friendly appeal for an enemy, lays up for itself a terrible retribution. Elijah comes here and prophesies the fall of Ahab. The next peal, the next flash, fulfil the prediction. There, where he did the wrong, he died. In Jezreel, Ahab died. In Jezreel, Jezebel died. That plain was the battlefield for the subsequent discomfiture of Israel. (A. Maclaren, D. D.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/p>\nFuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible <\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
AHAB AND ELIJAH IN NABOTHS VINEYARD<\/strong><\/p>\n
[We blame not his wish to be accommodated with Naboths vineyard, nor the equitable offers which he made to obtain it: but we blame the inordinate desire which he entertained for so worthless an object, and the vexation which the disappointment of it occasioned. What a striking proof have we here of the misery which unsubdued lusts create! A king possessed of large dominions, augmented lately by the acquisition of immense power, is dejected, and sick at heart, because he cannot obtain a little plot of ground adjoining to his palace, of ground which the owner could not alienate consistently with the commands of God.
Jezebel his wife, indignant that a potent monarch, like him, should be thwarted in his desires, undertakes that they shall not long be ungratified. She takes his seal, and gives orders in his name, that the elders of Israel shall proclaim a fast, as if some great iniquity which menaced the safety of the state had been committed; that then they shall arrest Naboth as the guilty person, and suborn false witnesses, who shall accuse him of blaspheming God and the king; and that they shall instantly proceed to stone him to death. Shocking as this injustice was, methinks its enormity was small in comparison of that impious mockery of religion with which it was cloked. But what must have been the state of that nation where such an order could be given so confidently, and be carried into execution with such facility! Truly we can never be sufficiently thankful for the equity with which our laws are administered in Britain, and the security which we enjoy, both of our lives and properly, under their protection.
The tidings of Naboths death being announced by Jezebel, Ahab instantly proceeded to take possession of his vineyard; manifesting thereby his perfect approbation of all that Jezebel had done. Conscious of his cordial participation in her crimes, he could make no reply to the prophets accusation, Hast thou<\/em> killed, and also taken possession? He could only say, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? In truth, his own conscience testified against him, that he had sold himself to work evil in the sight of the Lord.]<\/p>\n
[It is surely no uncommon thing for men at this day to covet what belongs not to them, and so inordinately to desire it as to use unlawful and dishonest means of obtaining it. Nor is it uncommon for men to feel a disappointment so acutely, as to lose the enjoyment of every thing they possess through vexation about something unpossessed. And so are the consciences of some men formed, that they will connive at wickedness which of themselves they would not perpetrate, and avail themselves of the advantages which the iniquity of others has procured for them. Let valuable articles be offered for sale as having been clandestinely imported without a payment of the accustomed due; how few will turn away from them on account of the unlawful way in which they have been procured! How few will say, Perhaps a conflict has been maintained for these, and the blood of some revenue-officer has been shed to preserve them: at all events such risks are incurred by this traffic, and the lives of multitudes are daily endangered by it; and shall I satisfy my appetite with that for which so many have jeoparded their lives [Note: 2Sa 23:15-17<\/span>.]? No: the generality of persons, who yet pretend to be honest and humane, will be as pleased with the possession of what has been thus iniquitously gained, as ever Ahab was with the acquisition of Naboths vineyard.<\/p>\n
Alas! the world is full of characters, whose hearts are exercised with covetous practices [Note: 2Pe 2:14<\/span>.], and who work all uncleanness with greediness [Note: Eph 4:19<\/span>.], or, as the prophet expresses it, do evil with both hands earnestly [Note: Mic 7:2-3<\/span>. This paints with great exactness the conduct of multitudes who tread in the steps of Ahab: and the last clause expresses their complacency in their sins.].]<\/p>\n
[Possibly there might be some surprise expressed in that question, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? Certain it is that Ahab little expected to find Elijah there; nor would he have gone down to the vineyard of Naboth, if he had at all conceived that he should have met there such an unwelcome monitor. But there was also much wrath contained in this address: What business hast thou here? What dost thou mean by presuming to interfere with me? Art thou privy to what has been done? and art thou come to gratify thy spleen as in past times by denouncing judgments against me? Never was a human being so odious in Ahabs eyes, as Elijah was at this moment.]
This however only shews what is in the heart of all against the faithful servants of the Lord
[Ministers are sent by God as monitors, to shew the house of Jacob their sins [Note: Isa 58:1<\/span>.]: but who welcomes them in that character? Let them go to any company, or even to an individual, that is violating the laws of God, and let them testify against the evil that is committed; will their admonitions be received with thankfulness? Will not their interposition be deemed rather an impertinent intrusion? Yes; such is the light in which it will be viewed, however gross and unjustifiable the sin it that has been committed.<\/em> When Amaziah had conquered the Edomites, he took their gods to be his gods in preference to Jehovah: and when Jehovah sent him a prophet to remonstrate with him on the folly and impiety of his conduct, instead of yielding to the reproof, he threatened the prophet with death, if he did not instantly forbear [Note: 2Ch 25:16<\/span>.]. In the same light it is viewed, however gentle and kind the expostulation may be.<\/em> When the inhabitants of Sodom required of Lot to deliver up to them the men whom he had received under his roof, nothing could exceed the tenderness of his reproof; I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly. Nay, he even adopted the unjustifiable expedient of offering them his two daughters in their stead: yet, notwithstanding this astonishing condescension, they were full of wrath against him, and threatened to deal worse with him than with them [Note: Gen 19:5-9<\/span>.]. We must further say, that it was viewed in this light, when God himself became the monitor.<\/em> When Cain had murdered his brother Abel, God came to him and asked, Where is Abel thy brother? to which this impious reply was made, I know not: Am I my brothers keeper [Note: Gen 4:9<\/span>.]? The truth is, that men think themselves at liberty to do what they please against God; but no one is to presume to espouse the cause of God against them [Note: Amo 5:10<\/span>.]. The plain language of their hearts is, Our lips are our own: Who is Lord over us [Note: Psa 12:4<\/span>.]?<\/p>\n
[I have found thee; and God has found thee, and his judgments ere long will find thee too. Agreeably to the prediction of Elijah, though the judgments were deferred in consequence of Ahabs forced humiliation, the blood of Ahab, like Naboths, was licked by dogs, and the body of Jezebel was devoured by them in the very place where Naboth had been destroyed by her command. And, not long after, the elders of that very city Jezreel, who at the command of Ahab had slain Naboth, slew all the seventy sons of Ahab in one single night at the command of Jehu [Note: 2Ki 9:26<\/span>.]: so exactly were the threatened judgments of Elijah executed upon him and upon his whole family.]<\/p>\n
[He that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, saith the Lord, and that without remedy. Men hope that they shall escape for their wickedness: but God beholds it, and will call them to account for it in due season. It is in vain to think that any thing shall be hid from him: for there is no darkness nor shadow of death, where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves [Note: Job 34:21-22<\/span>.]. Adam, after the commission of his sin, hoped to hide himself from God; but God sought him out; Adam, where art thou? Achan thought he had altogether escaped notice; but God appointed the lot to fall upon him, when, according to human calculations, the chance was two millions to one in favour of his escape. On many occasions too the punishment has instantly followed the detection, as in Gehazis leprosy, and the sudden death of Ananias. But where the sins of men remain concealed or unpunished in this world, they shall not escape notice in the world to come; for God will bring every secret thing into judgment; and fulfil in its utmost extent that awful declaration of the Psalmist, making them like a fiery oven in his anger, and swallowing them up in his wrath [Note: Psa 21:8-9<\/span>.].]<\/p>\n
1.<\/p>\n
<\/strong><\/p>\nFuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"