57. Israel from B.C. 918 to 897

Israel from B.C. 918 to 897

Chapter III

Timeline View:

1. Omri was succeeded by his son Ahab, the events of whose reign are related at greater length than those of any other king of Israel. His reign was for the most part contemporary with that of Jehoshaphat in Judah. In both their public and private character there never was a greater contrast than between these two kings. We have seen how zealously Jehoshaphat labored to restore and establish the knowledge and the worship of the true God among his people. But Ahab exceeded all former kings in his abominations. His predecessors had been content to make religion an implement of human policy, by the unwarrantable worship of God, under the profane symbol of the golden calves; but Ahab betook himself to the worship of foreign gods instead of the God of Israel. The preference appears to have been given to Baal, the great sun-god of the Phoenicians; which is to be ascribed to the influence of Ahab’s wife Jezebel, who was a daughter of Ethbaal, king of Tyre—an unscrupulous and wicked woman, who was very zealous for her national idol. She soon procured his worship to be established in the land of Israel; and as the religious sentiments of the people had been corrupted by the worship of the golden calves, it is not wonderful that they very readily transferred their homage to an idolatry pleasant to the natural depravity of man. Jehovah was not formally rejected or abandoned; but Baal received at least equal worship from the multitude, and greater from the court.

2. To stem the tide of corruption, and to prevent the total apostasy of Israel, God raised up a man endued with extraordinary gifts and powers, ardent zeal, and stern virtues, such as the time required. This was Elijah, the Tishbite,[*] by far the greatest prophet, both in word and deed, which had appeared since Moses. He is introduced abruptly, as boldly announcing to Ahab in person the national punishment of a long drought, and consequent scarcity, not to be removed but by his own intercession. This last condition made it necessary for the prophet to withdraw himself from the presence and solicitations of the king. When, therefore, the drought began to be felt, in the eighth year of Ahab’s reign, Elijah retired beyond the Jordan, and concealed himself in a cavern beside the brook Cherith, where Providence directed ravens to furnish him with regular supplies of bread and meat, morning and evening. When the brook was dried up for want of rain, the prophet crossed the country to Sarepta, a town in the kingdom of Jezebel’s father, to which also the drought and famine had extended. He remained at this place two years, lodging with a poor widow and her son; and during all that time of famine, they were supported through the miraculous inexhaustion of a handful of flour and a little oil, the only remaining food of the poor woman when the prophet met with her.

[*] So called, from his native place, which was probably Thebez a town of Manasseh beyond Jordan.

3. Three years had Elijah remained in obscurity—one year by the brook Cherith, and two in Sarepta. During this time Israel suffered greatly; and Ahab had sought for the prophet in every quarter, convinced that the remedy was in his hands. God, intending now to give rain, and to remove the famine, ordered the prophet to return to the land of Israel. On the way, he met Obadiah, comptroller of the king’s household, who had been sent out to seek forage for the cattle. This person, at the risk of his own life, had sheltered many holy persons in a cave, and supplied them with victuals, during a recent persecution by Jezebel. Elijah sent Obadiah back to announce his reappearance to Ahab, who then came out to meet him. When the king saw him, he said, “Art thou be who troubleth Israel?” But the prophet sternly retorted the charge, alleging that the apostasy of himself and his people was the cause of the national suffering. He further required the king to convene a general assembly of his priests and people at Carmel.

Persian Devotee

4. In that great assembly there were no fewer than 450 priests of Baal. Elijah proposed that these priests should call upon Baal, and that he should call upon the name of Jehovah, and that the Deity who should make it appear that he had heard their prayers, by consuming with fire from heaven the sacrifices to be offered, should be acknowledged as the true God. It was impossible for the priests of Baal to decline so fair a trial, especially as fire was the congenial element of the god they worshipped. Accordingly, they prepared their altar, and laid out upon it their sacrifices, and continued, with frantic invocations and lacerations of their flesh, to ask the required sign, until above half the day was spent; but no sign in heaven or earth answered to their cry. Then Elijah rose, and, after some biting ridicule of the impotent god and his votaries, proceeded to repair an old altar, which had formerly been erected there. Upon this he placed his sacrifices, and called solemnly upon the God of Israel to manifest his power. He was instantly answered by fire from heaven—so intense, that it consumed not only the victims and the wood, but the very stones and dust of the place, and absorbed the water which had been poured profusely on the whole. At this astounding display of miraculous power, the people fell on their faces, crying, “The Lord, he is the God; the Lord, he is the God.” At the instance of the prophet, they evinced the sincerity of their conviction, by seizing the priests of Baal and destroying them all. The prophet then went to the top of Carmel, and prayed for rain. A small cloud arising from the sea was the first answer to his prayer, and that welcome sign was soon followed by abundant and heavy ram.

5. Learning that Jezebel had vowed his death, on account of the slaughter of Baal’s priests, the prophet withdrew to Beersheba, where he left his servant, and proceeded alone across the desert to Horeb, “the Mount of God.” Here, where the law had been originally delivered, the Lord manifested himself to his servant—not in the whirlwind, the earthquake, or the fire—but in “a still small voice,” which spoke comfort to his now desolate soul, and encouraged him by the assurance, that whereas he deemed that he was himself the only worshipper of God left in Israel, there were indeed seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal. He was then directed to return home; and on the way he met with Elisha, plowing in the field. Knowing that this person was his destined successor, he intimated the fact by casting over him his mantle. Elisha then went with him, and remained in attendance upon him.

6. Now Israel was invaded by Benhadad, king of Syria[*] of Damascus, at the head of a numerous army, with which he invested Samaria. The kingdom was too much exhausted by the recent famine to allow Ahab to make any effectual resistance. But although he was unworthy of any help, yet God, for the glory of his own great name, sent a prophet to promise him victory, and to instruct him how to act. Benhadad was in consequence defeated, and with difficulty saved his life by flight. Yet the next year be made another invasion with a more powerful force, hoping to bring the Israelites to action in the plain; for he had arrived at the foolish conclusion, that the God of Israel (to whom he ascribed his previous defeat) was indeed a God of the mountains, but not a God of the valleys. To correct so dishonoring a notion of his power, the Lord again gave the victory to Ahab. But instead of following up this success, Ahab concluded a league of amity with Benhadad, which was so displeasing to God, that a prophet was sent to announce the evils which would befall his house, through the neglect of this opportunity of breaking the Syrian power.

[*] The “kings of Syria,” in the Scriptural history, were the kings of that portion of Syria of which Damascus was the capital

7. It was not until nine years after the transactions at Mount Carmel, that Eliah and Ahab had another interview, which was the last. The prophet came to denounce the Divine vengeance against him and his family, for killing Naboth under the forms of law, in order to obtain possession of a vineyard which that person had refused to part with. For his great wickedness the prophet declared that his posterity should be cut off; and that, for this iniquity in particular, dogs should lap his own blood in the place where they lapped the blood of Naboth; and that dogs should eat the flesh of Jezebel under the wall of Jezreel. On hearing this dreadful denunciation, the king manifested some signs of humiliation and contrition, in consequence of which the heaviest part of this doom was postponed from his own time to that of his successor.

Dog

8. The last act of Ahab’s reign was the expedition against the Syrians, in which Jehoshaphat took part, as noticed in the preceding chapter. When that excellent prince was invited to go with the army, he was not satisfied with the assurances of success which the “false prophets” of Ahab gave in great abundance; but wished to see “a prophet of .the Lord beside.” Ahab therefore sent for a prophet named Micaiah, whom be nevertheless declared that he hated, because he did rot prophesy good concerning him, but evil. Micaiah verified this when he arrived, by telling him that if he went, he would never return alive. On this the indignant king commanded him to be kept in prison until his return “in peace;” which the unflinching prophet persisted would never happen. The kings went against. the Syrians; but before the battle began, Ahab, secretly alarmed at the prediction of Micaiah, invidiously proposed to Jehoshaphat that he should take the chief command, and appear in his royal robes, while he himself would wear an ordinary dress. He hoped to favor his own escape, by exposing the king of Judah. In fact, Jehoshaphat being taken for the king of Israel, was in great danger of his life; but Ahab escaped not An arrow shot at random by a Syrian soldier penetrated the joints of his coat of mail, and inflicted a mortal wound. He immediately retired from the field to have the wound dressed; but fearing to discourage his men, quickly returned, and remained in the field till he died in his chariot. When this was known, the army was commanded to disperse. The washing of Ahab’s chariot in the pool of Samaria, to which city his body was taken, caused a modified fulfillment of the prediction that dogs should link his blood as they had licked the blood of Naboth; but this doom was again, and more literally (as to the place), accomplished in the person of his son.

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