1. AND it came to pass after these things, that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which 2 was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house; and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it: or, if it seem good to 3 thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money. And Naboth said to Ahab, The LORD forbid 4 it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee. And Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him: for he had said, I will not give thee the inheritance of my fathers. And he laid him 5 down upon his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread. But Jezebel his wife 6 came to him, and said unto him, Why is thy spirit so sad, that thou eatest no bread? And he said unto her, Because I spake unto Naboth the Jezreelite, and said unto him, Give me thy vineyard for money; or else, if it please thee, I will give thee another vineyard for it: and 7 he answered, I will not give thee my vineyard. 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: 8 I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite. So she wrote letters in Ahab’s name, and sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters unto the elders and to the nobles that were 9 in his city, and that dwelt with Naboth. And she wrote in the letters, saying, Proclaim a 10 fast, and set Naboth on high among the people: and set two men, sons of Belial, before him, and let them bear witness against him, saying, Thou didst curse God and the king. And 11 then carry him out, and stone him, that he die. And the men of his city, even the elders and the nobles who dwelt in his city, did as Jezebel had sent unto them, according as it was 12 written in the letters which she had sent unto them. They proclaimed a fast, and set Naboth 13 on high among the people. And the two men, sons of Belial, came in and sat before him: and the men of Belial bare witness against him, even against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, Naboth did curse God and the king. Then they carried him forth out of the 14 city, and stoned him with stones, that he died. Then they sent to Jezebel, saying, Naboth 15 is stoned, and is dead. And it came to pass, when Jezebel heard that Naboth was stoned, and was dead, that Jezebel said to Ahab, Arise, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give thee for money: for Naboth is not alive, but dead. 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. 17, 18 And the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, Arise, go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, which dwelleth in Samaria: behold, he is in the vineyard of Naboth, 19 whither he is gone down to take possession of it. And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the LORD, Hast thou killed, and also taken possession? and thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the LORD, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall 20 dogs lick thy blood, even thine. 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 do that 21 which is evil in the sight of the LORD. Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and will utterly sweep thee away, and will cut off from Ahab every man child, and him that is shut up and 22 him that is left at large in Israel; and I will make thine house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah, for the provocation wherewith 23 thou hast provoked me to anger, and hast made Israel to sin. And of Jezebel also spake the 24 LORD, saying, The dogs shall eat Jezebel, by the rampart of Jezreel. 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 25 eat. (But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to do that which was evil in 26 the sight of the LORD, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up. And he did very abominably in following idols, according to all that the Amorites did, whom the LORD cast out before the

27 children of Israel.) 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. 28, 29 And the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, “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.

THE impressions made upon Ahab and Israel at Carmel, God confirms by twice interposing in their behalf against the Syrian king Benhadad. Twice He secures overwhelming victories by Israel’s small army over the vast hosts of Syria. In this He is still seeking to “turn their heart back again;” for He expressly declares, as the reason for His interposition, “that ye may know that I am the Lord” (1 K. 20: 13, 28). (See previous Section.) But Ahab only abused the Divine forbearance and favor. In the very moment of complete success, like Saul with Agag, he openly disobeyed God’s command to destroy Benhadad. He preferred and dared to gratify his royal vanity by accepting the professed submission of this Syrian king of kings with his people. So he spared Benhadad to become strong again, and a few years later to be God’s instrument in his own destruction. “Because,” God plainly told him then, “thou hast let go a man whom I had devoted to utter destruction, therefore thy life shall go for his life.” It was during the interval of peace which followed the second victory that the incident now under review occurred. It seems to be recorded here to show how utterly hardened Ahab had become. From selfish vanity he had just spared an idolatrous king whom God had condemned. Now from a mere petty, selfish whim he suffers his wicked queen to destroy a righteous man, on account of that man’s obedience to the law of God. B.

1-13. History tells of few crimes of its kind more flagitious, more cruel and cold-blooded than this. Here we see that spectacle which one of the ancients said was dear to the gods—a just man suffering shameful wrongs with dignity and patience: we see a man because of his fidelity to God and His law judicially done to death by the representative of God, by the authority appointed to execute the law. And just as the crime has few parallels, so has the history few equals in point of graphic force and quiet pathos. It is like one of those sketches by the hand of a master, which set us wondering to see how much effect can be produced, and how much meaning conveyed, by a few broad lines and touches. Hammond.

1-3. Adjoining the enclosure of Ahab’s summer palace at Jezreel was a small vineyard owned by Naboth, that Ahab desired to obtain. Naboth, who had held fast his integrity with Jehovah, declined to part with it because it was his patrimony. The law of God forbade any Israelite from alienating the inheritance of his father (Lev. 25: 28). This was Naboth’s only and sufficient reason—a conscientious one—for declining to gratify the king. B.

Jezreel. Ahab, not content with the palaces and pleasure grounds provided by his father in Samaria, fixed upon the town of Jezreel in Esdraelon for his residence, when his presence should not be demanded at the capital. Here he built him a palace; here he appears to have instituted the worship of Astarte—the chief goddess of Jezebel’s countrymen, as Baal was their chief god—and here the four hundred priests of Astarte, or “the groves,” ate at Jezebel’s own table. The site of Jezreel is of great beauty and of commanding character. The town occupied the summit of a small isolated ridge which rises out of the plain about six miles north from Jenin, being a mile or so to the northwest of the foot of Mount Gilboa. Westwardly it overlooks the entire length of the plain to the head of Mount Carmel; eastwardly it commands the view of the valley of Jezreel toward the Jordan, and of the massive bulk of Gilead and Bashan rising beyond. The ridge is about one hundred feet high and is several hundred yards long. On the south it slopes gradually to the level of the plain; but in every other direction it falls off abruptly. Ahab’s palace seems to have been built at the eastern extremity of the ridge, overhanging the town wall, and the coveted vineyard of the murdered Naboth lay just beneath the palace adjoining the wall. N. C. B. (See vol. iii., pp. 184, 351, 353.)

Of the once capital of Israel not a vestige remains, though the situation is lovely. The very ruins have crumbled from desolate heaps to flat turf-clad hillocks. Many old sarcophagi, or marble coffins, lay strewn about, some converted into horse-troughs, and several richly sculptured with the figures of the crescent moon, the symbol of Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians; but these are the only relics of the ancient beauty of Jezreel. Its situation explains why it was chosen as a royal residence. On the east side it has a defensible steep, rocky descent of at least one hundred feet, and from its tower there is a commanding view north, east, and west. For miles the route from the Jordan by Bethshean can be traced. On the other side the plain is in view past Taanach and Megiddo, as far as Carmel. The importance of Jezreel was limited to the reigns of Ahab and his son. Ahab selected it as his favorite residence, without deserting altogether Samaria as the political capital. Here he erected his palace and built his “ivory house,” its inner walls, probably, panelled or vencered with ivory; and here Jezebel lived after his death. The sad story of Naboth is forcibly brought before our mind as we stand on the mounds of Jezreel. The royal grounds most probably have stretched down the hill. Then to the east is the little valley, where was the plot, the patrimony of Naboth, on the way up to the city. Tristram.

2. Ahab is lord and king of all the territories of Israel; Naboth is the owner of one poor vineyard: Ahab cannot enjoy Israel if Naboth enjoy his vineyard. Besides Samaria, Ahab was the victor of him that was attended with two and thirty kings; Naboth was a plain townsman of Jezreel, the good husband of a little vineyard. Whether is the wealthier? I do not hear Naboth wish for anything of Ahab’s; I hear Ahab wishing, not without indignation for a repulse, for somewhat from Naboth. Riches and poverty are no more in the heart than in the hand. He is wealthy that is contented; he is poor that wanteth more. O rich Naboth, that carest not for all the large possessions of Ahab; so thou mayest be the lord of thine own vineyard. O miserable Ahab, that carest not for thine own possessions whilst thou mayest not be the lord of Naboth’s vineyard! Bp. H.

As the law was concerned for the continued existence of families, so, too, provision was made for the preservation of the property on which the subsistence of the family depended. As far as possible, the inheritance was to be preserved entire. Here the theocratic principle in its full force came in, and its application to questions of proprietorship is expressed in the declaration (Lev. 25: 23), “The land is mine; for ye are strangers and foreigners with me”—that is, God, the King of the people, is the real proprietor of the land, and He gives it to the people only as tenants. Now, inasmuch as each family forms an integral part of the theocracy, an inheritance is given to it by Jehovah for its subsistence, which forms, as it were, an hereditary feudal holding, and is therefore in itself inalienable. Hence Naboth’s refusal; and hence the strong language of the prophets against the efforts of the rich to enlarge their possessions by adding to their own lands the inheritance of others (Isa. 5: 8 and other passages). O.

4-7. Ahab as a sufferer and Jezebel a comforter. We have had the one weakness of Elijah’s life. Here we have the one weakness of Ahab’s whole career. As is the cause so is the effect, pitifully trivial and childish. This king over Israel, possessing two luxurious palaces and all the pleasures that unlimited wealth and power could command, is actually sickened with displeasure and discontent because he cannot obtain this toy garden for his gratification. So it is that something is always wanting to those who have most. And one trivial want is stronger than the many possessions. One small cross of want or disappointment brings more of real pain than many blessings give of pleasure. Now Jezebel comes in as a comforter, faithful in her devotion to him if in nothing else. Like a child he tells her the cause of his trouble. But he conceals and misrepresents Naboth’s reason for declining. He implies that the refusal came from mere obstinacy and a desire to thwart his wishes. Whereas Naboth had put it on the high ground of obedience to Jehovah’s express law. And Ahab, as himself solemnly pledged to maintain this law, was bound to respect and yield to Naboth’s reason. What the subject could not conscientiously concede the sovereign could not rightly require. As he acts and speaks childishly, so Jezebel soothingly answers as to a child. “Cheer up! Thou art yet king. I will get you what you are longing for!” She does not tell him her plan, for he has yet some fear of God, if not conscience, left, or he would have at once seized upon Naboth’s land. She would not awaken this fear, and perhaps hinder her scheme, by acquainting him with it. And as he lies there in peevish discontent he has not fear or conscience enough to care what course she intends to pursue. B.

As he lies there like a spoiled child, all because he could not get his own way, he may serve for an example of the misery of unbridled selfishness and unregulated desires. An acre or two of land was a small matter to get into such a state about, and there are few things that are worth a wise or a strong man’s being so troubled. Hezekiah might “turn his face to the wall” in the extremity of sickness and earnestness of prayer; but Ahab, doing it, is only a poor, feeble creature who has weakly set his heart on what is not his, and weakly whimpers because he cannot have it. To be thus at the mercy of our own ravenous desires, and so utterly miserable when they are thwarted, is unworthy of manhood, and is sure to bring many a bitter moment; for there are more disappointments than gratifications in store for such a one. We may learn from him, too, the certainty that weakness will darken into wickedness. Such a mood as his always brings some Jezebel or other to suggest evil ways of succeeding. In this wicked world there are more temptations to sin than helps to virtue, and the weak man will soon fall into some of the abundant traps laid for him. A. M.

Discontent is a sin that is its own punishment, and makes men torment themselves; it makes the spirit sad, the body sick, and all the enjoyments sour; it is the heaviness of the heart and the rottenness of the bones. It is a sin that is its own parent; it arises not from the condition but from the mind; as we find Paul contented in a prison, so Ahab discontented in a palace; he had all the delights of Canaan at command, the wealth of a kingdom, the pleasures of a court, and the honors and powers of a throne; and yet all this avails him nothing without Naboth’s vineyard. Inordinate desires expose men to continual vexations, and they that are disposed to fret, be they never so happy, will always find something or other to fret at. H.

7. I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth.** Ahab wanted neither wit nor wickedness; yet is he in both a very novice to this Zidonian dame. There needs no other devil than Jezebel, whether to project evil or to work it. Bp. H.—How she would give it him she did not indicate. Nor was Ahab careful to inquire, lest he should be forced either to sanction what his conscience condemned or to forbid what he would fain see done with no open complicity on his part. It presents a frightful picture of the demoralization of the people of Jezreel, caused by the residence of the idolatrous and wicked court, that her horrible plot was so readily carried into effect. Venables.

8-10. Jezebel’s impious scheme to put Naboth out of the way.** The alphabet and the use of letters came from her own country of Phoenicia. She employs this, to her familiar, agency to issue in the king’s name and with his seal a command to the elders and nobles of Jezreel. And never was a more impious mandate issued. It was not merely an order causelessly and remorselessly to murder a righteous man; but it proposed to commit such murder under the

color of a religious service, and with the forms of justice. The rulers of Jezreel were directed to proclaim a fast, a solemn, religious observance, as if some public calamity were threatened on account of some great crime. Thus the people were prepared to expect some accusation to be made, to look for some criminal to be pointed out. And they would be ready to take instant action in judgment against such alleged criminal, that the threatened calamity might be avoided. Thus the sacred offices of religion would be perverted to serve Jezebel’s murderous purpose. Further, she directs these men, who were the magistrates of Jezreel, to employ the forms of justice while directly violating its spirit and subverting its ends. She requires the men who constitute the court of God’s appointment, to whom He had entrusted the administration of law and equity, themselves to suborn false witnesses. Nay, she frames the false charge, and requires these judges to put the very words of accusation into the mouths of the bribed accusers. And as the crowning feature of her unparalleled iniquity, all that she proposes to be done is based upon an assumed recognition of Jehovah as the God of Israel, and a regard for His religious ordinances and civil statutes. Because this will best subserve her cruel purpose, she makes pretence of acknowledging Him, for whose authority and laws and servants she has hitherto manifested only scorn and hate. B.

Jezebel had Ahab’s signet, the badge of authority. Her letter to the elders of Jezreel speaks out with cynical disregard of decency the whole ugly conspiracy. It is direct, horribly plain and imperative. There is a perfect nest of sins hissing and coiled together in it—hypocrisy calling religion in to attest a lie, subornation of evidence, contempt for the poor tools who are to perjure themselves, consciousness that such work will only be done by worthless men, cool lying, ferocity and murder—these are a pretty company to crowd into half a dozen lines. Most detestable of all is the plain speaking which shows her hardened audacity and conscious defiance of all right. To name sin by its true name, and then to do it without a quiver, is a depth of evil reached by few men, and perhaps fewer women. A. M.—Mark the atrocious use to which a bad heart puts the knowledge of God’s law. Jezebel, as this record shows, was acquainted with the requirements of the Mosaic code. She knew that blasphemy was punishable with death, and that at the mouth of two or three witnesses only could any one be condemned; and she availed herself of that knowledge for bringing about falsely, yet under color of observing the law, the death of Naboth. W. M. Taylor.

11-14. The elders and nobles execute Jezebel’s scheme to the letter. Without demur or hesitation, having no fear of God to counteract their fear of Jezebel, as residents of the royal city steeped in the iniquity of the court, they promptly carry out the very minute directions given them. They convene a religious assembly, and transform it into a court. They set Naboth in a conspicuous place. By the lips of false witnesses, whom they have procured and instructed how to speak, they hurl upon the righteous but defenceless man a double accusation of the highest crime—blasphemy against God and treason against the king. Then, without allowing the accused man a moment of opportunity for answer or disproof, they pronounce judgment of death. And instantly the assembled multitude carried the innocent but condemned Naboth forth out of the city, and executed sentence according to the law of Moses by stoning him to death. And the message sent to Jezebel accords with the character of the whole transaction. They said, not that Naboth was found guilty of crime against God and the king and has been punished, but simply Naboth is stoned, and is dead. Surely never were cruel, heartless orders more heartlessly obeyed. B.

In the record of Jezebel not one redeeming feature anywhere appears. Her character bears the stamp of unmixed wickedness—pure and utter depravity. We should think much better of her if she had hired an assassin to waylay Naboth and hurl a javelin through his heart. It was doubly horrible to prostitute the sacred forms of justice to the purposes of such foul murder and wrong. Perhaps she thought to conceal crime under such a covering; but God abhors such concealments, and has ways to blast such schemes. All in all, the character of Jezebel is drawn—to be execrated. There could be no other worthy object in delineating such ineffable meanness and wickedness. H. C.

No clause of the letter is not observed. A fast is warned; the city is assembled; Naboth is converted, accused, confronted, sentenced, stoned: his vineyard is escheated to the crown; Ahab takes speedy and quiet possession. How still doth God sit in heaven, and look upon the complots of treachery and villainies as if they did not concern Him! The success so answers their desires, as if both heaven and earth were their friends. It is the plague, which seems the felicity of sinners, to speed well in their lewd enterprises. No reckoning is brought in the midst of the meal: the end pays for all. Bp. H.

15,16. Jezebel tells Ahab to take possession of the coveted vineyard, for Naboth is dead. As Naboth’s sons had also been slain (2 K. 9: 26), the king had now a legal claim to the possession. At once he goes to the vineyard, himself conscious of bloodguiltiness, although he had no direct part in the murder. But well he knew that Naboth’s death had been designed and wrought by Jezebel, and that at heart he had been consenting to the deed. B.

Her indecent triumph at the success of the plot and her utter callousness are expressed in her words to Ahab, in which the main point is the taking possession of the vineyard. The death of its owner is told with exultation, as nothing but the sweeping away of an obstacle. Ahab asks no questions as to how this opportune clearing away of hindrance came about. He knew, no doubt, well enough, that there had been foul play; but that does not matter to him, and such a trifle as murder does not slacken his glad haste to get his new toy. There was other red on the vines than their clustering grapes, as he soon found out, when Elijah’s grim figure, like an embodied conscience, met him there. Whoever reaches out, to grasp a fancied good by breaking God’s law may get his good, but he will get more than he expected along with it—even an accusing voice that prophesies evil. A. M.

Ahab’s entry on the possession seems to have been made the very next day after Naboth’s death. We learn afterward (2 K. 9: 26) that Jehu and Bidkar rode with Ahab at the time, and so appalling was the curse which Elijah pronounced on the wretched king that it was imprinted on Jehu’s memory, and he could quote it many years afterward, apparently in its very words. Lumby.

17-20. In the vineyard he encounters Elijah again, whom God had sent to meet him there. He learns from the prophet’s words at what fatal cost to himself, to Jezebel, and to his children, this possession has been gained. Elijah’s words are words of doom. In due time they are fulfilled: first, in his own death from a bow “drawn at a venture;” afterward, in the horrible mangling of Jezebel, and the slaughter of his seventy sons. B.

While Ahab is rejoicing in his new garden plot, and promising himself contentment in this commodious enlargement, in comes Elijah—sent from God with an errand of vengeance.

Little pleasure took he in his prospect while it was clogged with such a guest; yet his tongue begins first, “Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?” 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 peaceable leave at this town’s end; now Ahab’s heart told him 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. Bp. II.

We see here this broad principle—pleasure won by sin is peace lost. While sin is yet tempting us it is loved; when sin is done, it is loathed. Naboth’s blood stains the leaves of Naboth’s garden. Elijah is always waiting at the gate of the ill-gotten possession. Sin is blind to its true friends and its real foes. Elijah was the best friend Ahab had in the kingdom. Jezebel was the worst tempter that hell could have sent him. This is one of the certainest workings of evil desires in our own spirits, that they pervert to 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 that walks in the “vain show” of transgression, whose heart is set upon evil, 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 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 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 forevermore. 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. A. M.

Thou hast sold thyself to work evil. Because he was the king, the judge, who, instead of punishing the evil-doer, sanctioned and approved the deed, and who crowned a reign of idolatries and abominations with this shameful murder, the prophetic sentence is directed primarily against him. Hammond.—Not only had Ahab given himself entirely over to iniquity, but he had done so at the price of himself. The great German poet has elaborated this thought into that weird production wherein he represents his hero as selling his soul to the mocking Mephistopheles. And it were well that every evil-doer laid to heart the moral of his tragic tale. That which the sinner gives for his unhallowed pleasure or dishonest gain is himself. W. M. Taylor.

21-25. 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 battle-field 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. 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. 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 found me, O mine enemy?” and from each bloodless spectral lip there tolls 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.” A. M.

Altogether unnoticed by the world, many a man’s sin meets him in that dread chamber of an awakened conscience, where so many sights and sounds of terror congregate. In solitude, in secret, in dead hours of night the sinner awakes, and the long train of his transgressions passes by before him. They mock him; they reproach him; they present themselves to him in all their hideous features, with no modest reserve, no fair sentences, no smooth names to name them by, that thus their wickedness may be concealed, but bold, brazen-faced, true to what they are. In such hours the sinner trembles. How bitterly does he reproach himself, bite his lips in the anguish of his spirit, and shut his eyes only that his sins, remembered now, may peer more closely in through the closed eyelids! It is Elijah meeting Ahab in Naboth’s vineyard. It is the fulfilment of the words, “What fruit had ye in those things whereof ye are now ashamed, for the end of these things is death.” The fact of this righteous judge and of this righteous judgment cannot be too deeply impressed upon us; and it is in no small degree for the sake of leaving that impression upon our minds that the story of Naboth is dwelt upon as it is.

27-29. The threatenings of the prophet so awfully announced, so powerfully brought home to Ahab on the very spot which had been the scene of his wickedness, produced its effect. Ahab himself repented, at least in part; and the last impression left upon us by the sacred writer, in bringing his terrible narrative regarding him to a close, is that even He whose judgments had followed him all his days has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that he turn from his wickedness and live. His eye pitied the unhappy king as he “rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly;” and the final motto of his melancholy story is, that, while he who dares to meet the Almighty as a foe can only perish upon the thick bosses of His buckler, he who repents and forsakes his sins shall find mercy. W. M.

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 (chap. 22: 8). 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: Sect 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 performances of holy duties, and yet come short. 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; Sect thou how Ahab humbles himself? (verse 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. Favor is showed 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 anything 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. H.—But why, it may be asked, if Ahab’s humiliation was so little worth, was any Divine regard shown toward it? This, we answer, was to show by a living example that self-condemnation and abasement before God is the way to escape His anger and obtain His favor. The exemption which the Lord made in Ahab’s favor on his repenting was calculated to encourage him to aim at something better. Self-condemnation, self-abasement, and giving God the glory are the first steps from spiritual death to spiritual life. Krummacher.

If we were to seek the Scriptures through for a proof that God’s “property is always to have mercy,” and that judgment is His strange work, where should we find a more striking and eminent one than in this relenting toward Ahab? Hammond.

Other Suggestions of the Story.

The key-note of Elijah’s character is force—the force of righteousness. The New Testament, you remember, talks about the “power of Elias.” The whole of his career is marked by this one thing—the strength of a righteous man. And, on the other hand, the key-note of Ahab’s character is the weakness of wickedness and the wickedness of weakness. 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: Weak dallying with forbidden desires is sure to end in wicked clutching at them. A. M.

The effect of selfish living. It so weakens proper self-respect and self-reliance, that when disappointment comes, the man has nothing to fall back upon. So he belittles himself, as Ahab did, by childish fretting. True manhood and manly action have a basis of unselfishness. Devotion to others, to God or man, is the secret of self-reliance, patient endurance, and all other elements of truly elevated character.

The amazing wickedness of the human heart. To King Ahab were the words uttered: Thou hast sold thyself to work evil. Sold to Satan, only to receive the “wages of sin.” In all history, sacred and secular, few parallels can be found to this utter depravity of Jezebel. Satan’s power in her soul has rarely since been matched. B.—Jezebel is an instance of the fatal audacity with which a strong character may come, by long indulgence in self-willed gratification of its own desires, to trample down all obstacles and go crashing through all laws, human and Divine. The climax of sin is to see a deed to be sinful, and to do it all the same. Such a pre-eminence in evil is not reached at a bound, but it can be reached; and every indulgence in passion and every gratifying of desire against which conscience protests is a step toward it. Therefore, if we shrink from such a goal, let us turn away from the paths that lead to it. “No mortal man is supremely foul all at once.” Therefore resist the beginnings of evil. A. M.

Sin is not hateful to selfish repentance except that it brings self into trouble. That it offends a good God, grieves a compassionate God, that is nothing if it could be indulged without imperilling self. No wonder that selfish repentance is not saving. It might exist, does exist, to a degree now inconceivable to us, in hell. It may be very sincere on earth, but it is only another form of the sinful, selfish, corrupt nature. It is the human heart shrinking from suffering, but not yearning after God. Godly sorrow, on the other hand, eyes God mainly. That He should have been sinned against seems the terrible thing. That such love and goodness should have been despised and insulted seems intolerable. J. Hall.

The moral government of God to-day is administered on the same principles as those which we find underlying this narrative. True, the dishonest man now pursuing his purposes in secret may have no Elijah sent to him; but Elijah’s God is living yet, and one has only to open his eyes and mark the progress of events from year to year to be convinced that “sorrow tracketh wrong as echo follows song—on, on, on.” He who holds gain by injustice will, sooner or later, come to ruin; and, if no restitution is made, they who inherit from him his blood-stained gold will be made sharers of his calamity. Let a man rudely trample upon the weak, and take by violence that to which he has no right, and it will cost him much; for the judgment of God is already on the way to him, and though it tarry long, it will fall heavily when it comes. W. M. Taylor.

Evil pursues sinners, and their sin is sure to find them out. God sees the guilt. He sets the inward soul-avenger, conscience, on the track. And in His time He consummates the judgment, except the sinner has become penitent and trustful in His mercy. Save in that mercy there is no escape from ultimate and lasting doom.

The principle involved in the Divine permission of Naboth’s slaughter by Jezebel is the same as that in all other martyrdoms. He was only one of the many worshippers of Jehovah she had caused to be slain. To meet the difficulty in any one’s thought, it is enough to say that the direct counteraction by God of the evil designs and deeds of men involves an utter change in His existing plan of government. An inspired explanation of this difficulty may be found in the seventy-third Psalm. B.