Jezebel his wife said to him, “Do you now govern the kingdom of Israel? Arise, and eat bread, and let your heart be merry. I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.” So she wrote letters in Ahab’s name, and sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters to the elders and to the nobles who were in his city, who lived with Naboth. She wrote in the letters, saying, “Proclaim a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people. Set two men, wicked fellows, before him, and let them testify against him, saying, ‘You cursed God and the king!’ Then carry him out, and stone him to death.”
The men of his city, even the elders and the nobles who lived in his city, did as Jezebel had instructed them in the letters which she had written and sent to them. They proclaimed a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people. The two men, the wicked fellows, came in and sat before him. The wicked fellows testified against him, even against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, “Naboth cursed God and the king!” Then they carried him out of the city and stoned him to death with stones. Then they sent to Jezebel, saying, “Naboth has been stoned, and is dead.”
When Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned, and was dead, Jezebel said to Ahab, “Arise, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give you for money; for Naboth is not alive, but dead.”
When Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, Ahab rose up to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it.
Yahweh’s word came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, “Arise, go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, who dwells in Samaria. Behold, he is in the vineyard of Naboth, where he has gone down to take possession of it. You shall speak to him, saying, ‘Yahweh says, “Have you killed and also taken possession?” ’ You shall speak to him, saying, ‘Yahweh says, “In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, dogs will lick your blood, even yours.” ’ ”
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 19 Hebrew, let thine heart be merry.
Hebrew, let thine heart be merry.
As though she said, Thou knowest not what it is to reign. Command and entreat not.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv7–19 1Ki 21:7 And Jezebel his wife said unto him,…
1Ki 21:7 And Jezebel his wife said unto him, Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? arise, [and] eat bread, and let thine heart be merry: I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.
Ver. 7. Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel?] q.d., What a king of clouts art thou! It is not for a king to beg or buy, but to command and call for what he pleaseth, without control. And such afterwards was the speech of wicked Julia to her son-in-law Antonius Caracalla, soliciting him to incestuous marriage; when he answered, Vellem si liceret, I would if I might; she replied impudently, Si libet licet; thou mayest do whatsoever thou wilt: knowest thou not that thou art an emperor, and that it is thy part to give laws to others, and not to receive laws from any one living? So Caligula said to his grandmother Antonia, Memento omnia mihi licere, et in omnes. You must know that I may do whatsoever I wish. Jezebel would persuade Ahab here, that he is lawless, and that since he knew not how to improve his kingly power, she would do it for him.
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Let thine heart be merry.] Sing care away for this matter.
I will give thee the vineyard.] Thus the hen crowed, the wife ruled; being impio marito impientior, avaro avarior, crudile crudelior, rapace rapacior, cupido cupidior, as one saith, {a} the worse of the twain, if worse might be. Ambrose {b} maketh her a type of covetousness, which promiseth her clients wealth without right. Another saith truly that she was fax malorum omnium, et quasi furia quaedam inferni, a firebrand of all mischief, a very hell-hag.
{a} A Lapide.
{b} Cap. 9.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19 Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? art…
Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? art thou fit to be king, that canst put up such affronts from thy subjects, and hast not the courage to use thy absolute power to dispose of them and theirs as seemeth good unto thee?
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v17 In these verses we may observe,
In these verses we may observe,
I. The very bad character that is given of Ahab (Kg1 21:25, Kg1 21:26), which comes in here to justify God in the heavy sentence passed upon him, and to show that though it was passed upon occasion of his sin in the matter of Naboth (which David's sin in the matter of Uriah did too much resemble), yet God would not have punished him so severely if he had not been guilty of many other sins, especially idolatry; whereas David, except in that one matter, did that which was right. But, as to Ahab, there was none like him, so ingenious and industrious in sin, and that made a trade of it. He sold himself to work wickedness, that is, he made himself a perfect slave to his lusts, and was as much at their beck and command as ever any servant was at his master's. He was wholly given up to sin, and, upon condition he might have the pleasures of it, he would take the wages of it, which is death, Rom 6:23. Blessed Paul complained that he was sold under sin (Rom 7:14), as a poor captive against his will; but Ahab was voluntary: he sold himself to sin; of choice, and as his own act and deed, he submitted to the dominion of sin. It was no excuse of his crimes that Jezebel his wife stirred him up to do wickedly, and made him, in many respects, worse than otherwise he would have been. To what a pitch of impiety did he arrive who had such tinder of corruption in his heart and such a temper in his bosom to strike fire into it! In many things he did ill, but he did most abominably in following idols, like the Canaanites; his immoralities were very provoking to God, but his idolatries were especially so. Israel's case was sad when a prince of such a character as this reigned over them.
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II. The message with which Elijah was sent to him, when he went to take possession of Naboth's vineyard, Kg1 21:17-19.
1. Hitherto God kept silence, did not intercept Jezebel's letters, nor stay the process of the elders of Jezreel; but now Ahab is reproved and his sin set in order before his eyes. (1.) The person sent is Elijah. A prophet of lower rank was sent with messages of kindness to him, Kg1 20:13. But the father of the prophets is sent to try him, and condemn him, for his murder. (2.) The place is Naboth's vineyard and the time just when he is taking possession of it; then, and there, must his doom be read him. By taking possession, he avowed all that was done, and made himself guilty ex post facto - as an accessary after the fact. There he was taken in the commission of the errors, and therefore the conviction would come upon him with so much the more force. "What hast thou to do in this vineyard? What good canst thou expect from it when it is purchased with blood (Hab 2:12) and thou hast caused the owner thereof to lose his life?" Job 31:39. Now that he is pleasing himself with his ill-gotten wealth, and giving direction for the turning of this vineyard into a flower-garden, his meat in his bowels is turned. He shall not feel quietness. When he is about to fill his belly, God shall cast the fury of his wrath upon him, Job 20:14, Job 20:20, Job 20:23.
2. Let us see what passed between him and the prophet.
(1.) Ahab vented his wrath against Elijah, fell into a passion at the sight of him, and, instead of humbling himself before the prophet, as he ought to have done (Ch2 36:12), was ready to fly in his face. Hast thou found me, O my enemy? Kg1 21:20. This shows, [1.] That he hated him. The last time we found them together they parted very good friends, Kg1 18:46. Then Ahab had countenanced the reformation, and therefore then all was well between him and the prophet; but now he had relapsed, and was worse than ever. His conscience told him he had made God his enemy, and therefore he could not expect Elijah should be his friend. Note, That man's condition is very miserable that has made the word of God his enemy, and his condition is very desperate that reckons the ministers of that word his enemies because they tell him the truth, Gal 4:16. Ahab, having sold himself to sin, was resolved to stand to his bargain, and could not endure him that would have helped him to recover himself, [2.] That he feared him: Hast thou found me? intimating that he shunned him all he could, and it was now a terror to him to see him. The sight of him was like that of the handwriting upon the wall to Belshazzar; it made his countenance change, the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another. Never was poor debtor or criminal so confounded at the sight of the officer that came to arrest him. Men may thank themselves if they make God and his word a terror to them.
(2.) Elijah denounced God's wrath against Ahab: I have found thee (says he, Kg1 21:20), because thou hast sold thyself to work evil. Note, Those that give up themselves to sin will certainly be found out, sooner or later, to their unspeakable horror and amazement. Ahab is now set to the bar, as Naboth was, and trembles more than he did. [1.] Elijah finds the indictment against him, and convicts him upon the notorious evidence of the fact (Kg1 21:19): Hast thou killed, and also taken possession? He was thus charged with the murder of Naboth, and it would not serve him to say the law killed him (perverted justice is the highest injustice), nor that, if he was unjustly prosecuted, it was not his doing - he knew nothing of it; for it was to please him that it was done, and he had shown himself pleased with it, and so had made himself guilty of all that was done in the unjust prosecution of Naboth. He killed, for he took possession. If he takes the garden, he takes the guilt with it. Terra transit cum onere - The land with the incumbrance. [2.] He passes judgment upon him. He told him from God that his family should be ruined and rooted out (Kg1 21:21) and all his posterity cut off, - that his house should be made like the houses of his wicked predecessors, Jeroboam and Baasha (Kg1 21:22), particularly that those who died in the city should be meat for dogs and those who died in the field meat for birds (Kg1 21:24), which had been foretold of Jeroboam's house (Kg1 14:11), and of Baasha's (Kg1 16:4), - that Jezebel, particularly, should be devoured by dogs (Kg1 21:23), which was fulfilled (Kg2 9:36), - and, as for Ahab himself, that the dogs should lick his blood in the very same place where they licked Naboth's (Kg1 21:19 - "Thy blood, even thine, though it be royal blood, though it swell thy veins with pride and boil in thy heart with anger, shall ere long be an entertainment for the dogs"), which was fulfilled, Kg1 22:38. This intimates that he should die a violent death, should come to his grave with blood, and that disgrace should attend him, the foresight of which must needs be a great mortification to such a proud man. Punishments after death are here most insisted on, which, though such as affected the body only, were perhaps designed as figures of the soul's misery after death.
III. Ahab's humiliation under the sentence passed upon him, and the favourable message sent him thereupon. 1. Ahab was a kind of penitent. The message Elijah delivered to him in God's name put him into a fright for the present, so that he rent his clothes and put on sackcloth, Kg1 21:27. He was still a proud hardened sinner, and yet thus reduced. Note, God can make the stoutest heart to tremble and the proudest to humble itself. His word is quick and powerful, and is, when the pleases to make it so, like a fire and a hammer, Jer 23:29. It made Felix tremble. Ahab put on the garb and guise of a penitent, and yet his heart was unhumbled and unchanged. After this, we find, he hated a faithful prophet, Kg1 22:8. Note, It is no new thing to find the show and profession of repentance where yet the truth and substance of it are wanting. Ahab's repentance was only what might be seen of men: Seest thou (says God to Elijah) how Ahab humbles himself; it was external only, the garments rent, but not the heart. A hypocrite may go very far in the outward performance of holy duties and yet come short. 2. He obtained hereby a reprieve, which I may call a kind of pardon. Though it was but an outside repentance (lamenting the judgment only, and not the sin), though he did not leave his idols, nor restore the vineyard to Naboth's heirs, yet, because he did hereby give some glory to God, God took notice of it, and bade Elijah take notice of it: Seest thou how Ahab humbles himself? Kg1 21:29. In consideration of this the threatened ruin of his house, which had not been fixed to any time, should be adjourned to his son's days. The sentence should not be revoked, but the execution suspended. Now, (1.) This discovers the great goodness of God, and his readiness to show mercy, which here rejoices against judgment. Favour was shown to this wicked man that God might magnify his goodness (says bishop Sanderson) even to the hazard of his other divine perfections; as if (says he) God would be thought unholy, or untrue, or unjust (though he be none of these), or any thing, rather than unmerciful. (2.) This teaches us to take notice of that which is good even in those who are not so good as they should be: let it be commended as far as it goes. (3.) This gives a reason why wicked people sometimes prosper long; God is rewarding their external services with external mercies. (4.) This encourages all those that truly repent and unfeignedly believe the holy gospel. If a pretending partial penitent shall go to his house reprieved, doubtless a sincere penitent shall go to his house justified.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv7–19 And she wrote in the letters, saying, proclaim a…
And she wrote in the letters, saying, proclaim a fast,.... Pretending fears of some dreadful calamity coming upon the nation, and therefore fasting and humiliation were necessary to avert it, and it would be right to inquire what crimes were committed by men among them, and punish them for them; and intimated to them that Naboth should be chosen as the great offender, and be accused, condemned, and put to death, R. Joseph Kimchi (a) thinks the phrase signifies "call an assembly or congregation"; convene a court of judicature, from the use of the word in the Talmudic language (b); and so it is thought it is used in Jer 36:6 and indeed it can hardly be thought that Jezebel should have much notion of fasting; and besides, if it was a public fast, why should it be proclaimed only in Jezreel, and not throughout the kingdom?
and set Naboth on high among the people; the court being set, bring him to the bar and arraign him; perhaps in their courts of judicature there was a high place above the heads of the people, where criminals accused used to stand when they took their trials, that they might be seen and heard by all in court.
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(a) Apud David. Kimchium in loc. (b) Vid. Buxtorf. Talmud. Lexic. in rad
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv7, 9, 10, 13, 19 Dost thou govern - Art thou fit to be…
Dost thou govern - Art thou fit to be king, that hast not courage to use thy power.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 15, 18, 19 Verse 7. Dost thou now govern the kingdom of…
Verse 7. Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel?] Naboth, not Ahab, is king. If he have authority to refuse, and thou have no power to take, he is the greater man of the two. This is the vital language of despotism and tyranny.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 18 1Ki 21:7. Jezebel said, Dost thou now govern the…
1Ki 21:7. Jezebel said, Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? — Art thou fit to be a king who canst put up with such affronts from thy subjects, and hast not courage to dispose of them and theirs as seemeth good unto thee? I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth — Trouble thyself no further about it, but leave the matter to me; I will manage it to thy satisfaction, and the vineyard shall be thine, and shall cost thee nothing. Unhappy are those princes, and hurried apace toward their ruin, who have those about them who excite them to acts of tyranny, and teach them how to abuse their power!
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 16, 19 The meaning is, “Art thou king, and yet sufferest…
The meaning is, “Art thou king, and yet sufferest thyself to be thwarted in this way by a mere subject? I, the queen, the weak woman, will give thee the vineyard, if thou, the king, the strong man, wilt do nothing.”
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 16, 19 Israel. Hebrew simply, "Now thou wilt make the kingdom…
Israel. Hebrew simply, "Now thou wilt make the kingdom of Israel." (Calmet) --- Protestants, "Dost thou now govern the?" &c. (Haydock) --- Thou art a fit person indeed to establish a kingdom! Ought not a king to take what he has a mind to? Syriac, "Are you fit to reign?" Arabic, "You do not deserve to govern." (Calmet) --- Septuagint, "Dost thou now act the king over Israel, in this manner?" (Haydock)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv7, 8, 9, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19 JEZEBEL CAUSES NABOTH TO BE STONED. (Kg1 21:5-16)
JEZEBEL CAUSES NABOTH TO BE STONED. (Kg1 21:5-16)
Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel?--This is not so much a question as an exclamation--a sarcastic taunt; "A pretty king thou art! Canst not thou use thy power and take what thy heart is set upon?"
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arise, and eat bread, and let thine heart be merry: I will give thee the vineyard--After upbraiding Ahab for his pusillanimity and bidding him act as a king, Jezebel tells him to trouble himself no more about such a trifle; she would guarantee the possession of the vineyard.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 18, 19 7. Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel…
7. Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel — Some take these words, not as a question, or as spoken in irony, but as a command or summons for the king to exercise his royal power, thus: Do thou now govern; that is, exercise now thy sovereign power, and show that thou, not thy subjects, rulest in Israel. But it best suits the connexion to take the words as an ironical exclamation, designed to reproach and censure the imbecile conduct of Ahab: Thou dost now marvellously wield the sovereignty over Israel! That is, thou, surely, art become now a mighty king to be thus set at naught! A powerful ruler to be thus sent to bed disheartened by an obstinate subject!
I will give thee the vineyard — “I, the wife, since thou hast not the courage to act as a man and a king.” — Thenius.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19 7. Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel?]…
7. Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel?] There is not expressed here any sign of a question in the original, but there can be no doubt that this is the force of the words. The Hebrew order is ‘Thou now governest, &c.’ the pronoun being emphatically expressed. So that the sense is ‘Thou art king, art thou not? why then let such a matter trouble thee or stand in the way of thy will.’ The proposal of some to take the words as imperative, ‘Thou, do thou use thy sovereignty, &c.’ is opposed to what follows. For Jezebel does not urge Ahab to act the despot’s part, but plays it for him.
I will give thee, &c.] The ‘I’ in this clause is emphatically expressed, just as ‘thou’ in the preceding one.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 (7) Dost thou now.—The scorn of Jezebel is, like…
(7) Dost thou now.—The scorn of Jezebel is, like the impatience of Lady Macbeth, expressed in a striking boldness of emphasis. First comes the bitter irony of the question, “Dost thou govern the kingdom of Israel, and yet suffer a subject to cross thy will?” expressing her scornful wonder at one who “lets I dare not, wait upon 1 would.” Then in the invitation, “eat bread, and let thine heart be merry,” there seems the same half-contemptuous recognition of a self-indulgent weakness of nature, which may be traced in Elijah’s words in 1Ki_18:41, “Get thee up, eat and drink, for there is a sound of abundance of rain.” Ahab is fit only to desire and to revel; it is for bolder spirits to act for good or for evil.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv7–19 And Jezebel his wife said unto him. Dost thou…
And Jezebel his wife said unto him. Dost thou now govern Heb. make; LXX: poieiv basilea the kingdom of Israel? There is no question expressed in the Hebrew which stands, "Thou now makest the kingdom over Israel." The commentators generally, however, understand the words as the LXX and the A.V as an ironical question, "Art thou ruler in aught but name?" though some take it as an imperative: "Do thou now exert authority over the kingdom of Israel," And on the whole, this latter interpretation appears to be preferable. "Do thou now play the king. Make thy power felt. Give me the requisite authority. I will," etc. Arise, and eat bread or food, and let thine heart be merry Heb. good; same words: (1Sa_25:36) I This word is emphatic. "If thou wilt do thy part, I will do mine." will give thee no need to buy it the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv7, 17 I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth.
1Ki_21:7
I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth.
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Wifely ambition, good and bad
How important that every wife have her ambition an elevated, righteous, and divinely approved ambition! And here let me say that what I am most anxious for is that woman, not waiting for the rights denied her or postponed, should promptly and decisively employ the rights she already has in possession. Some say she will be in a fair way to get all her rights when she gets the right to the ballot-box. I do not know that it would change anything for the better. But let every wife, not waiting for the vote she may never get, or, getting it, find it outbalanced by some other vote not fit to be cast, arise now in the might of the Eternal God and wield the power of a sanctified wifely ambition for a good approximating the infinite. No one can so inspire a man to noble purposes as a noble woman, and no one so thoroughly degrade a man as a wife of unworthy tendencies. While in my text we have illustration of wifely ambition employed in the wrong direction, in society and history are instances of wifely ambition triumphant in right directions. All that was worth admiration in the character of Henry VI. was a reflection of the heroics of his wife Margaret. William, Prince of Orange, was restored to the right path by the grand qualities of his wife Mary. Justinian, the Roman Emperor confesses that his wise laws were the suggestion of his wife Theodora. Andrew Jackson, the warrior and President, had his mightiest reinforcement in his plain wife, whose inartistic attire was the amusement of the elegant circles in which she was invited. Washington, who broke the chain that held America in foreign vassalage, wore for forty years a chain around his own neck, that chain holding the miniature likeness of her who had been his greatest inspiration, whether among the snows at Valley Forge or the honours of the Presidential chair. Plinys pen was driven through all its poetic and historical dominions by his wife, Calpurnia, who sang his stanzas to the sound of flute, and sat among audiences enraptured at her husbands genius, herself the most enraptured. Pericles said he got all his eloquence and statesmanship from his wife. When the wife of Grotius rescued him from long imprisonment at Lovestein by means of a bookcase that went in and out, carrying his books to and fro, in which he was one day transported, hidden amid the folios; and the women of besieged Wurzburg, getting permission from the victorious army to take with them so much of their valuables as they could carry, under cover of the promise shouldered and took with them, as the most important valuables, their husbands--both achievements in a literal way illustrated what thousands of times has been done in a figurative way, namely, that wifely ambition has been the salvation of men. De Tocqueville, whose writings will be potential and quoted while the world lasts, ascribes his successes to his wife, and says: Of all the blessings which God has given to me, the greatest of all in my eyes is to have lighted on Maria Motley. Martin Luther says of his wife, I would not exchange my poverty with her for all the riches of Croesus without her. Isabella of Spain, by her superior faith in Columbus, put into the hand of Ferdinand, her husband, America. John Adams, President of the United States, said of his wife: She never by word or look discouraged me from running all hazards for the salvation of my countrys liberties. A whole cemetery of monumental inscriptions will not do a wife so much good after she has quit the world as one plain sentence like that which Tom Hood wrote to his living wife when he said: I never was anything till I knew you. O woman, what is your wifely ambition, noble or ignoble? Is it high social position? That will then probably direct your husband, and he will climb and scramble and slip and fall and rise and tumble, and on what level, or in what depth, or on what height he will, after a while, be found, I cannot even guess. The contest for social position is the most unsatisfactory contest in all the world, because it is so uncertain about your getting it, and so insecure a possession after you have obtained it, and so unsatisfactory even if you keep it. The whisk of a ladys fan may blow it out. The growl of one bear, or the bellowing of one bull on Wall Street, may scatter it. Some of us could tell of what influence upon us has been a wifely ambition consecrated to righteousness. A man is no better than his wife will let him be. O wives, swing your sceptres of wifely influence for God and good homes! Do not urge your husbands to annex Naboths vineyard to your palace of success, whether right or wrong, lest the dogs that come out to destroy Naboth come out also to devour you. Righteousness will pay best in life, will pay best in death, will pay best in judgment, will pay best through all eternity. In our effort to have the mother of every household appreciate her influence over her children, we are apt to forget the wifes influence over the husband. In many households the influence upon the husband is the only home influence. In a great multitude of the best and most important and most talented families of the earth there have been no descendants. Multitudes of the finest families of the earth are extinct. As though they had done enough for the world by their genius or wit or patriotism or invention or consecration, God withdrew them. In multitudes of cases all womans opportunity for usefulness is with her contemporaries. How important that it be an improved opportunity! While the French warriors on their way to Rheims had about concluded to give up attacking the castle at Troyes, because it was so heavily garrisoned, Joan of Are entered the room and told them they would be inside the castle in three days. We would willingly wait six days, said one of the leaders. Six! she cried out, you shall be in it to-morrow, and, under her leadership, on the morrow they entered. On a smaller scale, every man has garrisons to subdue and obstacles to level, and every wife may be an inspired Joan of Are to her husband. What a noble, wifely ambition, the determination, God helping, to accompany her companion across the stormy sea of this life and together gain the wharf of the Celestial City! Coax him along with you! You cannot drive him there You cannot nag him there; but you can coax him there. That is Gods plan. He coaxes us all the way--coaxes us out of our sins, coaxes us to accept pardon, coaxes us to heaven. If we reach that blessed place, it will be through a prolonged and Divine coaxing. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)
Wives who mar their husbands
By the fate of Ahab, whose wife induced him to steal; by the fate of Macbeth, whose wife pushed him into massacre; by the fate of James Ferguson, the philosopher, whose wife entered the room while he was lecturing and wilfully upset his astronomical apparatus, so that he turned to the audience and said: Ladies and gentlemen, I have the misfortune to be married to this woman; by the fate of Bulwer, the novelist, whose wifes temper was so incompatible that he furnished her a beautiful house near London, and withdrew from her company; by the fate of John Milton, who married a termagant after he was blind, and when somebody called her a rose, the poet said, I am no judge of colours, but I may be so, for I feel the thorns daily--by all these scenes of disquietude and domestic calamity, we implore you to be cautious and prayerful before you enter upon the connubial state, which decides whether a man shall have two heavens or two hells, a heaven here and a heaven there, or a hell now and a hell hereafter. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v17 1Ki_21:19. Hast thou killed, and also taken possession?—Crime traced…
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.—
1Ki_21:19. Hast thou killed, and also taken possession?—Crime traced back to the true criminal, for he, even more than Jezebel, actuated the deed. God is “swift to mark iniquity.” See Note on chap. 1Ki_22:38.
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1Ki_21:20. Hast thou found me?—The Vulgate errs, and Luther is thereby misled. “Hast thou ever found me thine enemy?” הַמְצָאתַנִי from מָצָא, to come at, overtake, acquire, arrest, seize.
1Ki_21:21. Will take away thy posterity—Lit. “Extinguish thee before me.”
1Ki_21:29. Seest thou how Ahab humbleth, &c.—Even the external sign of Ahab’s repentance God regards as occasion for reprieve, though Ahab was so notable and manifold a criminal (1Ki_21:25-26) He is “slow to anger and of great mercy” But the sentence would come upon his son, Jehoram, who, met by Jehu, was mortally wounded, and the house of Ahab thus ceased. Elijah’s prophecy of Ahab’s despicable death was literally fulfilled, as the following chapter shows.—W. H. J.
HOMILETICS OF 1Ki_21:17-29
THE MESSENGER OR APPROACHING DOOM
THE histories of the Old Testament were designed as standing lessons of edification to the church; by them, those who are dead may be considered as still speaking to us. They speak to us of the frailty of man, of the evil of sin and its certain punishment, of the spirituality of the law of God, of the need we have of a Saviour and a Sanctifler; they preach to us, as Paul did to Felix, of temperance, righteousness, and judgment to come, and they make us tremble. He who gives the dew, the sunbeam, the rain, and the snow to refresh and fertilize the world of nature, has given to us the promises, prophecies, doctrines, and histories of His Word to enrich and vivify the world of grace. In this paragraph we learn the effect of the message of God sent by Elijah in producing in Ahab a temporary humiliation; and the effect of Ahab’s humiliation in securing a temporary reprieve.
I. That the messenger of approaching doom is divinely commissioned (1Ki_21:17). “The word of the Lord came to Elijah.” Daring and fierce as was Elijah, he would never have dared to pronounce this fearful doom on the house of Ahab if he had not been divinely authorized. It is a vast privilege to be the messenger of mercy to the erring, but it also involves the responsibility of sometimes being the messenger of wrath and judgment. Woe be to him who threatens more or less than God commands: in the one case he sins by presumption; in the other, by lack of fidelity. Some men are more fitted by temperament and training to be messengers of doom. The stern and faithful Elijah would not shrink from declaring all the counsel of God.
II. That the messenger of approaching doom comes to us when enjoying the fruits of the sin he denounces (1Ki_21:18). Ahab got his vineyard, entered into possession, and was enjoying its produce and the prospect of what he intended it to be, when he is startled by the voice of vengeance sounding in his ears. The scene is changed, the very leaves of the vineyard seem dripping with the blood of the murdered Naboth, demanding instant retribution! Every sinner carries in his breast an Elijah—an accusing conscience, which in the worst is never wholly extinct. As the serpent in the fable which, while frozen with cold, was torpid and insensible, and seemed utterly bereft of all vitality, yet when brought before the fire quickly recovered its venom and its strength, so conscience may remain dull and lifeless for a season; but when once, through the Providence of God or the force of affliction or the sentence of the law, it is quickened into life, the sinner will assuredly find that it has not lost its energy, and will never lose its sting. The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear? By rendering our moral consciousness so acute and discriminating, God retains a powerful hold of the mind of man, and He has wonderfully adapted His holy Word to act upon our affections, to awaken our fears, and to exhibit before us the sad consequences of guilt.
III. That the messenger of approaching doom delivers his message with fearlessness and fidelity (1Ki_21:19-26).
1. The doom is pronounced with unmistakable explicitness and fulness. It is threefold in its application. The first had respect to Ahab himself (1Ki_21:19). The second to Jezebel (1Ki_21:23). The third had respect to the posterity of both (1Ki_21:21-22; 1Ki_21:24). As the sin of one is extended to and shared by others, so is its punishment. The sinner will be made fully aware of the sins for which he suffers, and it is this that will add sharpness to his suffering.
2. The doom was justified by the excess of wickedness committed (1Ki_21:20; 1Ki_21:25-26). These words intensify the thought of Ahab’s extreme wickedness, and show the reason of the bitter judgments that were pronounced against him. He had become so utterly abandoned to sin and crime as to lose all moral principle and power to resist evil. He allowed himself to be completely governed by his wicked and imperious wife. Her influence caused him to introduce the worship of Baal (1Ki_16:31), to allow the slaughter of the prophets of Jehovah (1Ki_18:4), to let Elijah be driven into banishment (1Ki_19:2), and finally to murder Naboth and seize his land (1Ki_21:6; 1Ki_21:15). The justice of God provides that the punishment of the sinner shall be commensurate with the nature and extent of his sin.
IV. That the messenger of approaching doom may not always see the fulfilment of the prediction he is commanded to announce.
1. Threatened doom may produce a temporary repentance (1Ki_21:27). Under the severe threatening of the prophet, seconded by the sure voice of conscience, Ahab bowed himself to the dust, oppressed by a burden too heavy for him. What could be more foreign to the habits of this proud, luxurious, and tyrannical prince than sackcloth and fasting—than torn garments and the slow footstep and dejected eye of penitential grief? What can be a greater proof of the power of God over the mind of sinners, when such a man is convinced, though he is not converted; is humbled, though he is not renewed. There may be a sorrow of the eyes, but not of the heart; sorrow for the threatened judgment, but not for the sin which provoked that judgment.
2. A temporary repentance may delay threatened doom (1Ki_21:28-29). It is evident that Ahab’s repentance, if repentance it may be called, was partial, transitory, and insincere, accompanied by no change of heart or life; but such as it was it illustrates God’s readiness to notice the first symptoms of return. Ahab’s humiliation shall prorogue the judgment: such as was the penitence, such shall be the reward—a temporary reward for a temporary penitence. If a partial penitent may be reprieved, surely a sincere believing penitent will be justified!
LESSONS:—
1. Sin cannot remain long without discovery.
2. God gives ample warning before He punishes the sinner.
3. God gives the utmost credit to the slightest symptoms of repentance: He is slow to wrath.
4. Repentance, if not genuine, though it may delay, will not finally avert, the deserved punishment.
AHAB AND ELIJAH (1Ki_21:20)
The keynote of Elijah’s character is force—the force of righteousness. 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 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 sale 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. 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 baste 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 he had not seen for years, the prophet 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?”
I. I find here, in the first place, this broad principle: Pleasure won by sin is peace lost. That is my first thought. Ah! my brother, 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 spirits.
1. Here is the fact in men’s natures on which it partly depends: when sin is yet tempting us, it is loved; when sin is 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 fruits 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. 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. 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 flushes 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 sunshine 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.
2. 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. As the old historian says about the Roman armies that marched through a country, burning and destroying everything: “They make a solitude, and they call it peace;” and so men do with their living 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 say it is peace, and the man’s uncontrolled passions and unbridled desires dwell solitary in the fortress of his own spirit! You may 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.
3. And so it is not only a crime that men count it when they do wrong, but it is a blunder. 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 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 its veins. Do not touch it. Every sin buys pleasure at the price of peace. Elijah is always waiting at the gate of the ill-gotten possession.
II. 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.
1. And this is one of the certainest workings of evil desires in our spirits, that they pervert for us all 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 that 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.
2. 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 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. The darkest and bitterest sayings about transgression, they are veiled promises. 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 go full tilt against the thing which he knows will ruin him, what is the right name for him that 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 “any 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!”
3. 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. God will not let us alone when we transgress. God in His love hath appointed that sin shall breed sorrow. But we—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 the hostile feeling, and we think that He is turned our enemy, and fights against us! But oh! He only fights against us that we may submit, and love Him. 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?
III. The sin which mistakes the friendly appeal for an enemy lays up for itself a terrible retribution.
1. 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. 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. And so when God’s message comes to us, 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 darkens into punishment, and the voice that rebuked swells into the voice of final condemnation.
2. 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! 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 you all here? Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?” And from each bloodless spectral lip there tells out the answer, the knell of his life: “I have found thee, because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord.”
3. 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. 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 engulphed 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 Me, and live for Me,” will you not say to Him, “My Friend, My Brother, My Lord, and My God”?—(Condensed from A. Maclaren).
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
1Ki_21:17-29. The inevitable doom of a wicked life. I. Does not come without sufficient warning. II. Will be commensurate with the sins committed. III. May be averted by timely repentance.
1Ki_21:17. Though much wickedness goes apparently without further evil results and without the chastisement of the just Judge in heaven, yet still all will be demanded; and at the Divine judgment-seat everything will be discovered, and everything, to the uttermost farthing, accounted for. The blood of Naboth, which Ahab thought had been swallowed up by the earth, cried to heaven, and found there judgment and vengeance. Like a lightning flash comes the word from heaven into the dark soul of Ahab, and made him feel that no net of human evil can be woven thickly enough to conceal the crime which it veils from the all-seeing eye.—Menken.
1Ki_21:19. “Hast thou killed?” Individual responsibility for wrong doings.
1. Not transferable.
2. Not to be evaded, though others commit the wrong to which we consent.
3. Unalterably recognised in punishment.
—“In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth,” &c. So Aristobulus, king of Jewry, vomited abundance of blood, and soon after breathed his last, in the very place where he had slain his brother Antigonus, and acknowledged it to be the just hand of God upon himself. So Selymus, the great Turk, struck with a loathsome and incurable disease, ended his days at Chiurlus with an untimely and tormenting death, where he had disloyally joined battle against his aged father Bajazet, A.D. 1511. So Henry III., king of France, was stabbed to death by a Jacobin friar in that very chamber where he and his bloody brother Charles IX. had, some few years before, plotted the Parisian massacre.—Trapp.
1Ki_21:20-26. Great wickedness and terrible retribution. I. Idolatry is a great abomination in the sight of God. II. There is no possible sin an idolater may not be instigated to commit. III. The consequences of sin and its punishment extend to others.
1Ki_21:20. An unwelcome visitor.
1. The question of Ahub. “Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?”
1. This question indicates past association. “Thou!” Ahab had frequently met with Elijah before: in the previous chapters we find the prophet and the king in most intimate relationships.
2. The question indicates disquietude on the part of Ahab. Directly the stately form of Elijah appeared to him, the greed, passion, and murder of the last few days crowded in upon his memory. How happy that Christian man whose very presence strikes terror into the sinful heart!
3. This question shows that criminal offenders often pass an incorrect judgment upon men who administer rebuke to them. Ahab designates Elijah his enemy. What a mistake! Had not the prophet been the instrument of benefit to the king and his country? Had he not prayed on Mount Carmel that the drought might cease, and had he not worked at the same time for the extermination of idolatry? What more could he have done, either for the temporal or spiritual welfare of his compeers? And yet Ahab calls such a man an enemy, when he was in reality his truest friend! See the blinding power of covetousness!
4. We gather from this question that the gratification of unholy desire never brings tranquillity. Humanly speaking, Ahab was in the very height of success. He was a king, the long-desired vineyard had come into his possession. What is there to prevent enjoyment? Surely nothing. Yes; God vindicates the oppressed; and though Naboth is dead, he is not forgotten. Heaven will not permit so foul a deed to go unpunished. Hence the monarch’s unrest. II. The response of Elijah. “I have found thee.”
1. Elijah was divinely commissioned to seek Ahab. “And the Word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, Arise, go down to meet Ahab, king of Israel, which is in Samaria: behold, he is in the vineyard of Naboth, whither he is gone down to possess it” (1Ki_21:17-18). How God pursues evil men with mercy! Even punishment is but love speaking with more emphatic voice. Elijah was obedient to the expressed wish of God; he did not plead timidity at standing to rebuke a monarch; but went boldly and faithfully to perform his duty. What a happy pattern of a Christian minister!
2. The reason assigned for the search. “I have found thee because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord.” The prophet, no doubt, came to rebuke Ahab, and also to be instrumental in his reformation. The king must not be left without some effort for his restoration to purity of character. When ministers know that men have fallen into deep sin, they should at once visit them, to prevent further apostacy, and, if possible, to repair the past. In doing this the prophet may meet with an unkindly greeting, but the ultimate issue will be good.
3. How high social position is frequently degraded. We find here that a king had sold himself to sin. Kings, of all men, should be righteous in their conduct, as their example must necessarily exercise a great influence upon the nation to which they belong. How fearful their responsibility! What a terrible bargain had Ahab made: “Sold thyself to work evil!”
1. It was a voluntary bargain—“Thyself.”
2. It was a mad bargain—“To work evil.” For how many lives would this be a fitting inscription! To work evil seems to be the life-purpose of many around us. Think of the destiny to which this will lead them! Let the time past of our lives suffice in which we have wrought evil.—J. S. Exell.
—Great is the power of conscience. Upon the last meeting, for aught we know, Ahab and Elijah parted friends. The prophet had lackeyed his coach and took a peaceful leave at this town’s end: now, Ahab’s heart told him, neither needed he any other messenger that God and His prophet were fallen out with him. His continuing idolatry, now seconded with blood, bids him look for nothing but frowns from heaven. A guilty heart can never be at peace. Had not Ahab known how ill he had deserved of God, he had never saluted his prophet by the name of an enemy: he had never been troubled to be found by Elijah, if his own breast had not found him out for an enemy to God. Much good may thy vineyard do thee, O thou king of Israel! Many fair flowers and savoury herbs may thy new garden yield thee! Please thyself with thy Jezebel in the triumph over the carcass of a scrupulous subject. Let me rather die with Naboth than rejoice with thee: his turn is over, thine is to come. The stones that overwhelmed innocent Naboth were nothing to those that smite thee.—Bp. Hall.
—It is Ahab’s guilty conscience which forces these words from him the moment he sees Elijah. He has no object in uttering them. He feels that the last man whom he would have wished to see has come suddenly upon him, and found him—i.e., caught him—in the act of doing a great wrong. “O mine enemy,” may refer partly to the old antagonism (1Ki_17:1; 1Ki_18:17-18; 1Ki_19:2-3); but the feeling which it expresses is rather that of present opposition—the opposition between good and evil, light and darkness, through which “everyone that, doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved” (Joh_3:20).—Speaker’s Com.
1Ki_21:25. Woe to the man who, through the power that love gives him over the heart of another, by means of which he might become a ministering angel, is to him as a misleading fiend. How many fires of ruinous passion, of anger, of discord, of unrighteousness, and of hatred might and should be quenched and extinguished by the power of love—the power of one heart over another, and especially by the mildness and gentleness peculiar to woman; and yet so often, by this means, they are kindled and fanned. This belongs to the catalogue of unconfessed sins of many men, and especially of many women.—Menken.
1Ki_21:27-29. A royal penitent.
1. Humbled by the terror of threatened wrath.
2. Did not seek to repair the wrong he had done.
3. Had the outward signs of sincerity.
4. Was granted a temporary reprieve.
1Ki_21:27. What gave Ahab’s re pentance its worth, and wherein it was defective.
1. It was not merely ostensible, feigned, it was a wholesome dread and fear of the judgment of God which came upon him, causing him to fear and tremble. He bowed beneath the mighty hand of God, and was not ashamed to confess this outwardly, but laid aside crown and purple, and put on sackcloth, unheeding if he thus exposed himself to the scorn of the courtiers and idol worshippers. Therefore the Lord looked in mercy upon his repentance. Would that, in our day, many would go even as far as Ahab did in this case.
2. It bore no further fruits. He retained the stolen vineyard, he desisted not from idol-worship, he allowed full sway to Jezebel. Everything in his house, at his court, and in his kingdom, remained as of old. He did not hunger and thirst after righteousness. Fleeting impressions and emotions are not true repentance. The tree which brings forth no fruits is and remains a corrupt tree (Mat_3:8). How wholly different the repentance of David (Psalms 51).—Lange.
—The very devils howl to be tormented. Grief is not ever a sign of grace. Ahab rends his clothes, he did not rend his heart; he puts on sackcloth, not amendment; he lies in sackcloth, but he lies in his idolatry; he walks softly, he walks not sincerely. Worldly sorrow causeth death. Happy is that grief for which the soul is the holier.—Bp. Hall.
—The repentance of Ahab resembles that of the Ninevites (Jon_3:5). It has the same outward signs—fasting and sackcloth—and it has much the same in ward character. It springs not from love, nor from hatred of sin, but from fear of the consequences of sin. It is thus, although sincere and real while it lasts, shallow and exceedingly short-lived. God, however, to mark His readiness to receive the sinner who turns to Him, accepts the imperfect offering, as He likewise accepted the penitence of the Ninevites, and allows it to delay the execution of the sentence. Because Ahab humbled himself, the evil was deferred from his own to his son’s days (1Ki_21:29). So the penitence of the Ninevites put off the fall of Nineveh for a century.—Speaker’s Comm.
1Ki_21:29. Jehovah makes this announcement, not because He will punish the son for the sins of his father, but because He foresees that the son will also do evil in the sight of the Lord, and will, therefore, like his father, deserve punishment.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v15 The Prophecy of Ahab’s Doom
The Prophecy of Ahab’s Doom
v. 15. And it came to pass, when Jezebel heard that Naboth was stoned and was dead, his sons having been forced to share his fate, 2Ki 9:26, that Jezebel said to Ahab, who had persisted in his stubborn, childish behavior, Arise, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite which he refused to give thee for money; for Na-both is not alive, but dead.
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v. 16. And it came to pass, when Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, that Ahab rose up to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it. Although he had not personally conducted the case against Naboth, and probably did not know what means Jezebel actually employed to get possession of his vineyard, yet he was fully as guilty as she, for he had known that she had contrived to get Naboth out of the way, by fair means or foul.
v. 17. And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, who now appears on the scene once more, saying,
v. 18. Arise, go down, namely, from the mountain district in which he was then staying, to meet Ahab, king of Israel, which is in Samaria; behold, he is in the vineyard of Naboth, whither he is gone down to possess it.
v. 19. And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the Lord, Hast thou killed and also taken possession? The question was not put to cause a confession of guilt, but to accuse the king outright of murder and of robbery. He had probably tried to quiet his conscience with the excuse that the property of a blasphemer who had suffered the penalty of death was taken over by the crown. And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the Lord, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine. His was to be a similar disgraceful death, that of a criminal.
v. 20. And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? The implication was that Elijah was always endeavoring to oppose the king and to thwart his purposes. And he, with all the frank fearlessness of God’s messenger, answered, I have found thee, because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord. Ahab had so abandoned himself to wickedness that he had become its slave.
v. 21. Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and will take away thy posterity, the sentence of doom upon the families of apostate kings, and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, all the male descendants of the king; even the minors were included in the curse. Cf 1Ki 14:10.
v. 22. And will make thine house like the house of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha, the son of Ahijah, whose families were eradicated by divine decree, 1Ki 15:29; 1Ki 16:3-11, for the provocation wherewith thou hast provoked Me to anger and made Israel to sin.
v. 23. And of Jezebel also spake the Lord, saying, The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel. Cf 2Ki 9:10-36.
v. 24. Him that dieth of Ahab in the city the dogs shall eat, and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat; they would, by the Lord’s curse, he denied even an honorable burial.
v. 25. But there was none like unto Ahab, a note inserted by the historian, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel, his wife, stirred up, their union being an unusually striking example of warning against the evil of mixed marriages.
v. 26. And he did very abominably in following idols, according to all things as did the Amorites, whom the Lord cast out before the children of Israel, the reference being to all the Canaanitish nations.
v. 27. And it came to pass, when Ahab heard those words, that he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay In sackcloth, and went softly, all signs of deep mourning and penitence. For a while at least his sorrow was sincere.
v. 28. And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying,
v. 29. Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before Me? Because he humbleth himself before Me, I will not bring the evil in his days; but in his son’s days will I bring the evil upon his house. Thus the punishment was deferred, and the misdeeds of the father were borne by the children, who followed him in his evil ways. It is a terrible thing to despise and reject the goodness and the severity of God, for the end is bound to be death, everlasting destruction.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv8, 11, 15, 17, 19 wrote letters in Ahab's name
wrote letters in Ahab's name
Possible meanings are 1) she wrote Ahab's name on the letters. AT: "wrote letters and signed them with Ahab's name" or 2) the word "name" is a metonym for authority. AT: "wrote letters on behalf of Ahab" (See: Metonymy)
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the wealthy who sat with him
The word "wealthy" refers to wealthy people. AT: "the wealthy people who sat with Naboth" (See: Nominal Adjectives)
seat Naboth above the people
Having Naboth sit in a place of honor is spoken of as if it were having him sit above the rest of the people who were present. AT: "have Naboth sit in a place of honor among the people" (See: Metaphor)
let them testify against him
"have them accuse him"
translationWords
epistle
Ahab
name
seal
send
elder
life
preach
fast
testimony
curse
God
king
stone
die
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv7, 8, 10, 13, 17 21:7 I’ll get you Naboth’s vineyard! With her ruthless…
21:7 I’ll get you Naboth’s vineyard! With her ruthless disposition and actions, Jezebel displayed her cultural upbringing; Canaanite kings did as they pleased (21:8-10, 15, 25; see 19:1-2; 2 Kgs 9:30-31).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.