1 Kings 21

In his novel Moby Dick, Herman Melville gave the name Ahab to the deranged captain of the whaling vessel Pequod. (Melville also included a “prophet” named Elijah.) The Ahab in the Bible is a weak man who destroyed himself and his family because he allowed his evil wife, Jezebel, to turn him into a monster. The name Jezebel is familiar to people today and has even made it into the dictionary: “Jezebel—an evil, shameless woman.” To call a woman “a Jezebel” is to put her on the lowest level of society (see Rev. 2:20–23). The prophet Elijah described the man accurately when he told Ahab, “I have found you, because you have sold yourself to do evil in the sight of the Lord” (1 Kings 21: nkjv).

These chapters describe four events in Ahab’s life: three battles with the Syrians (Aram) and a land-grab scam that involved an illegal trial and several murders. Because he wasn’t rightly related to the Lord and His Word, Ahab was enslaved to sin, but “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23), and Ahab received his wages with dividends. We will look at the four events and see Ahab’s varied responses.

Ben-hadad was the man Ahab should have killed, but he set him free, and Naboth was the man Ahab should have protected, but Ahab killed him! When you sell yourself to do evil, you call evil good and good evil, light darkness and darkness light (Isa. 5:20). The infamous episode of Naboth’s vineyard reveals the lawlessness of King Ahab and his evil wife, Jezebel. Consider the sins they committed and consequently the commandments of God that they disdained and disobeyed.

Idolatry. The first two commandments in the Decalogue declare that the Lord is the only true God and that true worshippers do not worship and serve other gods, whether things in God’s creation or things they make themselves (Ex. 20:1–6). “The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him,” wrote A. W. Tozer. Jezebel brought Baal worship into Israel and Ahab permitted it to spread throughout the land. When you turn away from truth, it’s evidence that you’re believing lies, then you start loving lies, and before long, you’re controlled by lies.

Covetousness (vv. 1–4). Ahab and Jezebel had a summer palace at Jezreel, but the king couldn’t enjoy it fully without a vegetable garden. Powerful people acquire one thing after another, but in all their acquiring, there’s never any real satisfaction. “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone,” wrote Henry David Thoreau in chapter two of Walden. Then he added later in the book, “Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.”

The king wanted Naboth’s vineyard because he coveted a garden convenient to the palace.

“Thou shalt not covet” is the last of the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:17), but perhaps it’s the most difficult one to obey. Even more, a covetous heart often leads us to disobey all the other commandments of God. The first nine commandments focus on forbidden outward conduct—making and worshipping idols, stealing, murdering, and so on—but this commandment deals primarily with the hidden desires of the heart. It was the tenth commandment that helped Saul of Tarsus, the Pharisee, realize what a sinner he really was (Rom. 7:7–25), and it was this commandment that the wealthy young ruler refused to acknowledge when he looked into the mirror of the law (Matt. 19:14–30).

Ahab masked his covetousness by first offering to buy the vineyard or trade it for another piece of property. It was a reasonable offer, but Naboth was more concerned about obeying God’s Word than pleasing the king or even making money. Naboth knew that the land belonged to the Lord and that He loaned it to the people of Israel to enjoy as long as they obeyed His covenant. All property had to be kept in the family (Lev. 25:23–28), which meant that Naboth was forbidden to sell his land to the king. Displaying his usual childishness, Ahab went home, went to bed, and pouted.

False witness (vv. 5–10). “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor” is the ninth commandment and emphasizes the importance of speaking the truth, whether in court or over the back fence. Truth is the cement that holds society together, and when truth is gone, everything starts to fall apart (Isa. 59:14). Jezebel was a resolute woman who never allowed the truth to stand in the way of what she wanted, so she fabricated an official lie, on official stationery, sealed with the official seal. But no amount of royal adornment could change the fact that Ahab and Jezebel were breaking God’s law.

What right did Jezebel have to write Naboth’s death warrant? Her husband was king! Since she came from Phoenicia, she had the Gentile view of kingship, which included being important, getting what you want, and using your authority to take care of yourself. Samuel warned about this kind of monarch (1 Sam. 8:14), and Jesus cautioned His disciples not to follow that philosophy of governing but to serve the people in love (Matt. 20:20–28). A true leader uses his authority to build the people, while a dictator uses the people to build his authority, and people are expendable. Jezebel even threw in some religion and told the local authorities to proclaim a fast. If you can sugarcoat your scheme with something religious, the people will quickly accept it. But no matter how legal and spiritual that royal edict may have looked, in the sight of God it was only a lie—and God judges liars. Everything that God hates, Ahab and Jezebel did (Prov. 6:16–19).

Murder (vv. 11–13). The procedure Jezebel outlined was in agreement with the law (Deut. 17:6–7; 19:15; Num. 35:30), but the accusation was false, the witnesses were liars, and the judges had been bought off by royal intimidation. In every town there were “men of Belial—worthless fellows” who would do anything for money or just to become important. Nobody but Ahab and possibly Jezebel heard Naboth’s refusal to sell, and there was nothing in his words that could be interpreted as blasphemy. To curse God was a capital crime (Lev. 24:13–16), and cursing the king was dangerous because he was God’s appointed ruler (Ex. 22:28; Acts 23:5).

Stealing (vv. 14–16). The weak rulers in Naboth’s city followed Jezebel’s orders, conducted their illegal trial, took Naboth and his sons (2 Kings 9:26) outside the city, and stoned them. Nobody in the family was alive who could inherit the land, so Ahab felt he was free to take it. The officers notified Jezebel, not Ahab, of the execution, so it’s obvious who had the power in the royal family. But the land didn’t belong to Ahab, and the law says, “Thou shalt not steal” (Ex. 20:15). The vineyard hadn’t even belonged to Naboth—it belonged to the Lord. Ahab was stealing property from God!

If ever two people were guilty of blaspheming God and breaking His laws, it was Ahab and Jezebel, and judgment was about to fall.

“Surely the Lord does nothing, unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets” (Amos 3: nkjv). We have heard nothing from or about Elijah since he called Elisha to be his successor, but now God brings His servant into center stage to confront the king. As He always does when he gives an assignment, He told Elijah just what to say to the evil king. Ahab had shed innocent blood and his guilty blood would be licked up by the dogs. What a way for the king of Israel to end his reign!

Previously, Ahab called Elijah “the troubler of Israel” (18:17), but now he makes it more personal and calls the prophet “my enemy.” Actually, by fighting against the Lord, Ahab was his own enemy and brought upon himself the sentence that Elijah pronounced. Ahab would die dishonorably and the dogs would lick his blood. Jezebel would die and be eaten by the dogs. All of their posterity would eventually be eradicated from the land. They had enjoyed their years of sinful pleasure and selfish pursuits, but it would all end in judgment.

Instead of going home to pout, Ahab actually repented! What his wife thought about his actions isn’t recorded, but the Lord who sees the heart accepted his humiliation and told it to His servant. The Lord didn’t cancel the announced judgments but postponed them until the reign of Ahab’s son Joram. See 2 Kings 9:14–37. Ahab was slain on the battlefield, and the dogs licked his blood at the pool of Samaria (22:37–38). Because of the postponement of the judgment, the dogs licked his son Joram’s blood on Naboth’s property, just as Elijah predicted (2 Kings 9:14–37). Later events proved that Ahab’s repentance was short-lived, but the Lord at least gave him another opportunity to turn from sin and obey the Word. How much more evidence did Ahab need? But the influence of his wife couldn’t easily be broken, for when Ahab married her, he sold himself into sin.