| Back to Home Page | Back to Book Index
|
1 Kings Chapter
Twenty-one
1 Kings 21
Chapter Contents
Ahab covets Naboth's vineyard. (1-4) Naboth murdered by
Jezebel. (5-16) Elijah denounces judgments against Ahab. (17-29)
Commentary on 1 Kings 21:1-4
(Read 1 Kings 21:1-4)
Naboth, perhaps, had been pleased that he had a vineyard
situated so near the palace, but the situation proved fatal to him; many a
man's possessions have been his snare, and his neighbourhood to greatness, of
bad consequence. Discontent is a sin that is its own punishment, and makes men
torment themselves. 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
was discontented in a palace. He had all the delights of Canaan, that pleasant
land, at command; the wealth of a kingdom, the pleasures of a court, and the
honours and powers of a throne; yet all avails him nothing without Naboth's
vineyard. Wrong desires expose men to continual vexations, and those that are
disposed to fret, however well off, may always find something or other to fret
at.
Commentary on 1 Kings 21:5-16
(Read 1 Kings 21:5-16)
When, instead of a help meet, a man has an agent for
Satan, in the form of an artful, unprincipled, yet beloved wife, fatal effects
may be expected. Never were more wicked orders given by any prince, than those
Jezebel sent to the rulers of Jezreel. Naboth must be murdered under colour of
religion. There is no wickedness so vile, so horrid, but religion has sometimes
been made a cover for it. Also, it must be done under colour of justice, and
with the formalities of legal process. Let us, from this sad story, be amazed
at the wickedness of the wicked, and the power of Satan in the children of
disobedience. Let us commit the keeping of our lives and comforts to God, for
innocence will not always be our security; and let us rejoice in the knowledge
that all will be set to rights in the great day.
Commentary on 1 Kings 21:17-29
(Read 1 Kings 21:17-29)
Blessed Paul complains that he was sold under sin, Romans 7:14, as a poor captive against his will;
but Ahab was willing, he sold himself to sin; of choice, and as his own act and
deed, he loved the dominion of sin. Jezebel his wife stirred him up to do
wickedly. Ahab is reproved, and his sin set before his eyes, by Elijah. That
man's condition is very miserable, who has made the word of God his enemy; and
very desperate, who reckons the ministers of that word his enemies, because
they tell him the truth. Ahab put on the garb and guise of a penitent, yet his
heart was unhumbled and unchanged. Ahab's repentance was only what might be
seen of men; it was outward only. Let this encourage all that truly repent, and
unfeignedly believe the holy gospel, that if a pretending partial penitent
shall go to his house reprieved, doubtless, a sincere believing penitent shall
go to his house justified.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on 1 Kings》
1 Kings 21
Verse 3
[3] And
Naboth said to Ahab, The LORD forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance
of my fathers unto thee.
The Lord forbid —
For God had expressly, and for divers weighty reasons forbidden the alienation
of lands from the tribes and families to which they were allotted. And although
these might have been alienated 'till the jubilee, yet he durst not sell it to
the king for that time; because he supposed, if once it came into the king's
hand, neither he, nor his posterity, could ever recover it; and so he should
both offend God, and wrong his posterity.
Verse 7
[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.
Dost thou govern —
Art thou fit to be king, that hast not courage to use thy power.
Verse 9
[9] And
she wrote in the letters, saying, Proclaim a fast, and set Naboth on high among
the people:
A fast — To
remove all suspicion of evil design in Ahab, and to beget a good opinion of him
amongst his people, as if he were grown zealous for God's honour, and careful
of his people's welfare, and therefore desirous to enquire into all those sins
which provoked God against them.
On high — On
a scaffold, or high-place, where malefactors were usually placed, that they
might be seen, and heard by all the people.
Verse 10
[10] And
set two men, sons of Belial, before him, to bear witness against him, saying,
Thou didst blaspheme God and the king. And then carry him out, and stone him,
that he may die.
Blaspheme God and the king — Indeed his blaspheming God would only be the forfeiture of his life, not
his estate. Therefore he is charged with treason also, that his estate may be
confiscated, and so Ahab have his vineyard.
Verse 13
[13] And there came in two men, children of Belial, and sat before him: and the
men of Belial witnessed against him, even against Naboth, in the presence of
the people, saying, Naboth did blaspheme God and the king. Then they carried
him forth out of the city, and stoned him with stones, that he died.
Stoned him —
And it seems his sons too, either with him or after him. For God afterward
says, ( 2 Kings 9:26) I have seen the blood of Naboth
and the blood of his sons. Let us commit the keeping of our lives and comforts
to God; for innocence itself will not always be our security.
Verse 19
[19] 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 dogs lick thy
blood, even thine.
Saying —
Thou hast murdered an innocent man; and instead of repenting for it, hast added
another piece of injustice and violence to it, and art going confidently and
chearfully to reap the fruit of thy wickedness.
Thy blood —
The threatening was so directed at first; but afterwards, upon his humiliation,
the punishment was transferred from him to his son, as is expressed, verse 29, yet upon Ahab's returning to sin, in the
next chapter, he brings back the curse upon himself, and so it is no wonder if
it be in some sort fulfilled in him also.
Verse 20
[20] And
Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? And he answered, I have
found thee: because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the
LORD.
Hast thou found —
Dost thou pursue me from place to place? Wilt thou never let me rest? Art thou
come after me hither with thy unwelcome messages? Thou art always disturbing,
threatening, and opposing me.
I have —
The hand of God hath found and overtaken thee.
Sold thyself —
Thou hast wholly resigned up thyself to be the bondslave of the devil, as a man
that sells himself to another is totally in his master's power.
To work evil, … —
Impudently and contemptuously. Those who give themselves up to sin will
certainly be found out, sooner or later, to their unspeakable amazement.
Verse 23
[23] And
of Jezebel also spake the LORD, saying, The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall
of Jezreel.
By the wall —
Or, in the portion, as it is explained 2 Kings 9:36.
Verse 24
[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.
Him that dieth, … —
Punishments after death are here most insisted on. And these, tho' lighting on
the body only, yet undoubtedly were designed as figures of the soul's misery in
an after state.
Verse 25
[25] But
there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the
sight of the LORD, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up.
Was none —
None among all the kings of Israel which had been before him.
Whom Jezebel —
This is added to shew, that temptations to sin are no excuse to the sinner.
Verse 27
[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.
Softly —
Slowly and silently, after the manner of mourners, or those who are under a
great consternation.
Verse 29
[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.
Humbleth himself —
His humiliation was real, though not lasting, and accordingly pleasing to God.
This discovers the great goodness of God, and his readiness to shew mercy. It
teaches us to take notice of that which is good, even in the worst of men. It
gives a reason why wicked persons often prosper: God rewards what little good
is in them. And it encourages true penitents. If even Ahab goes to his house
reprieved, doubtless they shall go to their houses justified.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on 1 Kings》
21 Chapter 21
Verses 1-29
Verses 2-16
Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs.
Ahab’s garden of herbs
Walking in the garden, what do we see?
1. Covetousness. God’s brand is upon covetousness. Contentment is a
Christian duty. Not sinful is the desire for comfort, for sufficiency; it is
the inordinate desire that is sinful. Does the prosperity of another pain us?
Do we desire for ourselves that which belongs to another? Then we are breaking
the commandment--“Thou shall not covet.”
2. Covetousness disappointed. Ahab has met with an unexpected master.
The band of sycophancy had been wont to obey him--to hasten at his word, to
answer to the silent solicitation of his eye. But here is a man that denies
him, who has a denial from the word of the Lord. Let us beware. This sin is
under the special reprobation of God. It was the sin in Eden, and by which Eden
was lost. It was the sin of Achan. It was the sin of Gehazi. It was the sin
which has branded out of use among names the name of Judas. Was Ahab
disappointed? Alas, for him!
3. We see his covetousness
successful. He gets what he desires. Jezebel finds her husband, and learning
the cause of his depression sneers with imperious scorn upon him. “What is done
by another for us is done by ourselves.” Are we willing to profit by the
dishonesty or hard dealing of others? Then you are not clean of their sin. Adam
plucked not the fruit of the tree, though “he did eat” (Genesis 3:6) of it; yet upon him as well
as upon the woman came the curse of the Almighty. Jezebel’s sin was Ahab’s; he
winked at its enactment, and took of its guilt-gotten spoil. If we wittingly
profit by others’ sins, we must share in their condetonation too.
4. Covetousness detected and doomed. Ahab walking in that
vineyard--his at last--meets “an hairy man, girt with a girdle of leather about
his loins.” It is Elijah the Tishbite. If there was one man in the whole world
he had rather not have met it was Elijah. But there he is! his unquailing eye
troubling him--detected king--to the deepest depths of his weak, wicked soul.
Elijah is the king! Ahab cowers before him. He is found out. And the prophet,
the truest, though sternest friend that he has ever had, Ahab esteems an enemy. Is the
lighthouse on its wave-washed, rocky ledge the mariner’s enemy, because it
tells through the black and stormy night of the wrecking perils that lurk
around the shore? Because it tells of danger, shall it be hated and assailed
with angry epithets by those who sail the sea? (G. T. Coster.)
Naboth’s vineyard and Ahab’s covetousness
The visitor to Potsdam in Prussia, from the terrace of the palace
of Sans-Souci sees near at hand a gigantic windmill, the most conspicuous
object in the landscape. He wonders that the bold miller should have dared to
build so near. But on inquiry he learns that the mill was there before the
palace. In it several generations of the same family had ground their grist and
gathered their wealth ere the attention of the Prussian kings was directed to
the town as a place of residence. When palace after palace arose, and the king
came to see, behold! here was this ugly windmill, beating the air almost on the
very border of his splendid gardens. Then Frederic the Great did what Ahab did
in this Bible story. He tried to buy the mill. And the miller answered almost
exactly as Naboth answered. The king raised his offer again and again, and
ended by getting angry. The miller met the royal threats by an appeal to the
court judges in Berlin. The judges supported him against the king; the mill
went on grinding its corn; and to this day its great fans are whirled by every
passing breeze. The whole nation has come to regard the mill at Potsdam at a
symbol of the peace and prosperity of the poor under Prussian institutions. It
has recently come into the possession of the royal family, but only with the
proud consent, at last, of the descendants of the original owners. The world
has got ahead. So far as concerns men who bear public rule and are subjected to
the judgment of society, Ahabs must now be sought in darkest Africa or in
equally benighted regions. Would that the spirit of Ahab were equally remote
from all of us in our private lives and characters! Many of us, perhaps all,
are too covetous, grasping, childish, weak in yielding to sin, even as was
Israel’s king.
I. The course of
temptation. It may seem to the casual reader that there was nothing wrong in
Ahab’s desire, or in the way in which he sought to gain it. So far as its terms
were concerned, he proposed a strictly honourable bargain. The offer was even
generous. Naboth might choose a better vineyard, or have cash. No hardship was
involved except in respect to Naboth’s principles and sentiments. But it was
just here that the bargain failed as it deserved to. That Naboth merely loved
the place would have been enough. Objects of affection are often beyond price.
He did not want either the money or a better vineyard. The reason for his
declining the bargain was deeper. Such a sale was an offence against the
religious and statute law of Israel. It was carefully prescribed that inherited
land should remain in the tribe where it was first owned. On this account a
daughter to whom an inheritance fell was forbidden to marry outside her tribe.
The theory was that the land all belonged to God, and that Be had parcelled it
out as He wished it to remain. Now the king must have known this law; it is a
stretch of charity to suppose that he did not. His proposal, therefore, showed
a thorough lack of principle, a wicked contempt for the Mosaic code. Jezebel
was virtually ruler of the realm. She said, “Dost thou now govern the kingdom
of Israel? . . . I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth.” So Lady Macbeth
drives her husband on to the murder of Duncan. She mocks his halting courage;
she provides suggestion and plan; she does all except strike the murderous
blow. She says to him at first--
“He
that’s coming
Must
be provided for; and you shall put
This
night’s great business into my despatch.”
“If
we should fail,” objects Macbeth.
“We
fail!
But
screw your courage to the sticking place,
And
we’ll not fail,”
she answers.
And after it is done, and he refuses to return to put the evidence of guilt
upon the sleeping and drugged servants, she exclaims--
“Infirm
of purpose!
Give
me the daggers.”
Ahab
is weaker than Macbeth, though not so wicked; but Jezebel and Lady Macbeth are
not far apart. When woman goes into crime, she often plunges to the extreme
quicker than man. Jezebel said, “I will give thee Naboth’s vineyard.” There are
few events in a man’s life that stand alone. Every special sin has its long
preparation. The avalanche in Switzerland rushes down at last; but what of the
melting snows all through the spring and summer, until every waterdrop has done
its work and washed away the last pebble that supported the hanging mass of
earth and ice? The lightning-flash is sudden; but what of the hidden electric
forces that have been gathering in the atmosphere all through the heated
months, so that at last the bolt must leap from the cloud to meet the discharge
from the earth? So morally. Ahab started wrong, as he knew. It was not a
question of one sin, but of sin. He would have his Zidonian wife, though it
meant Baal-worship. His good resolutions failed one by one. When at last he
coveted the vineyard, his evil genius was at hand as ever, and he let her go on
to the end of the transaction. Through years he had been laying the fatal train
that was to shatter his kingdom and seal his doom. Who can tell just what moment
of an evil course will bring the sinner to his abyss? After the first step
every step is a peril. Even quiet consent, passive yielding, is fatal. The only
safety is in prompt, manly, uncompromising conversion--turning away from sin
for ever.
II. God’s patience.
Ahab’s rebellion had been long and obstinate: an alien marriage; adopted
idolatry; persecutions for conscience’ sake; open disobedience in war; and now
covetousness, leading him to break the most sacred obligations, and add robbery
and murder to the list of his crimes. He had had many warnings from God. This
triple crime of impiety, robbery, and murder settled the matter. God’s word
comes to Elijah, and Elijah comes to Ahab. The time had come for Ahab to
receive a harder lesson than ever before. The prophet spoke Jehovah’s decree,
as Ahab’s own signet had given authority to kill Naboth. As Naboth had died, so
should Ahab die. As Naboth’s family had been cut off, so should Ahab’s race
disappear. The awful curse brought him to his senses and to his knees. He rent
his clothes, put sackcloth upon his flesh, fasted, lay in sackcloth, and went
softly. God is always patient. We sin; He pleads and waits. We go on grasping
after what is not our own: let my will, not Thine, be done, is the prayer
offered by every deed. God warns, instructs, shows us in a thousand ways that
His will is right, and that it is in the very nature of things our destruction
if we oppose it. He tempts us with every promise, and shows us the fair destiny
awaiting those who love truth and are obedient to Him. At last some evil comes
to us from our wrongdoing, and we are unfeignedly sorry; but it is more the
sorrow of a frightened than of a truly penitent soul. But the Divine heart is
yet patient. The story of God’s patience with Ahab is wonderful, but it is the
story of His patience with most of us. We, too, are covetous to the last
degree. My comfort, my pleasure, my wealth, my home, my loves, my will,--all
these will I have, though at the expense of every other man’s comfort, pleasure,
wealth, home, loves, and will. And to this desperate covetousness of ours God
matches His infinite self-sacrifice.
III. The curse upon
Ahab fell at last. Sin must meet its doom. Brief and selfish repentance is not
enough. If sin is not slain, it will slay. God’s patience after all has its
conditions. Years pass by, Ahab still living. At last he undertakes a war, and
is slain in battle. Whether soon or late, the soul that sinneth it shall die.
It stands written that though the heavens pass away, the word of the Lord shall
not pass away. It is the final verdict: “He that seeketh his life shall lose
it.”
IV. What of Naboth
and his sons? They were good men, so far as we are told, yet they died
miserably. They were victims of injustice and cruelty, their very piety
hastening their end and making them martyrs. Are we to conclude from this that
what we have said concerning the doom of sin is untrue? Shall we draw the
inference that the good and the bad are treated alike, so that there is no
profit in godliness? It would be unfortunate to turn away from our lesson with
this question unanswered. (G. E. Merrill.)
In Naboth’s vineyard
Ahab has received scant justice at the hands of the Biblical
historians, and the popular estimate of his character is scarcely fair. We
never think of him except as contrasted with Elijah, or as dominated by the
fiendish Jezebel. Yet he had his good points. He was a courageous soldier, a
capable rule, a far-seeing statesman. He never intended to renounce the worship
of Jehovah--the names of his children are sufficient evidence of that. He
thought it was possible to serve Jehovah and Baal, and perhaps those who
denounce him most are not entirely guiltless of trying to serve two masters. If
it had not been for the influence of his wife, he would have been a better man
after what took place on Mount Carmel. But that was seven years ago, and in the
meantime he had twice defeated a dangerous enemy and rolled back the tide of
foreign invasion, tie had won for his kingdom peace and prosperity, and for
himself considerable wealth. He was free now to establish his own house, to
adorn his beautiful palace in Samaria, and his country house in Jezreel, eight
miles away.
1. Notice the danger of undisciplined d sire. This chapter enforces,
in concrete form, the exhortation of our Lord, “Take heed and beware of
covetousness.” It was a subject on which He had a great deal to say, and His
warning was never more needed than now. This passion for getting, this longing
for a little more than we have, this worship of Mammon--it is not peculiar to
millionaires. Poor men sometimes forget that a man’s life consisteth not in the
abundance of the things which he possesseth.
2. Notice the peril of self-deception. There is many a man who lacks
the pluck to do a wrong thing himself, but is willing to acquiesce if others do
it. He is willing enough to reap the benefits of wrong-doing, and to shirk his
share of the responsibility. It is notorious that a committee, or a limited
company, will do what an individual would shrink from doing, and each member
tries to thrust the responsibility for it on others. A professional man will
sometimes do, according to professional etiquette, what he would scorn to do as
an individual. A tradesman, otherwise honest, will stoop to the tricks of the
trade. How easy it is to delude oneself by thinking that, because there is no
actual personal wrong-doing, there is therefore no responsibility. Ahab thought
this thing had been taken out of his hands. Yet he was responsible, and he knew
it. The fiction by which he deceived himself was exposed in a moment by the
short, sharp words of Elijah. But notice the amazing cleverness of Jezebel’s
scheme. “When a wicked thing is cleverly done, half the world is disposed to
condone its wickedness.” Many a sinner deceives his own soul by calling a
wicked thing smart. But when conscience wakes, it calls our sins by their right
names! In this case, all the legal proprieties were observed. A letter was
written in Ahab’s name, sealed with the royal seal. Nobody suspected Jezebel’s
part in the affair, except a few subservient nobles who could be trusted to
keep their secret. It is not difficult to reconstruct the conversation: “That
churl Naboth, who refused to sell his little vineyard, has been found guilty of
treason. He and his sons are dead, and the vineyard is yours--legally and
inalienably yours--and yours for nothing!” It was very clever! Ahab was willing
to pay a fair price, but he saved money on that transaction, he got that
vineyard cheap! But did he? It is possible to buy a thing at the lowest market
price, and yet pay very dear for it! That which a man gets by tampering with
his own conscience is dear, whatever the selling price. The money price one
]pays for a thing is not always the measure of what it costs. Here is a man who
is congratulating himself on a particularly smart bargain; but what if he has
paid down for it his own good name and his peace of mind and the welfare of his
family! Is it worth the price? And whether a man gain a kitchen garden or the whole world, what
does it profit him if he lose his own soul? So Ahab rose up to go down to his
vineyard. He rode in state the journey of eight miles to Jezreel. Two young
cavalry officers rode behind. One of them, Jehu, had good reason afterwards to
remember all that happened that fateful day! All the way, Ahab was
congratulating himself that he had such a clever wife, and thinking what a
pleasure this would be to his children afterwards! He could not entirely
silence his misgivings. He could not forget that to gain his ends he had
wronged a true-hearted man, a neighbour and a subject. “Wronged” was the word
which his lips formed. The word in his thoughts was “killed.” Conscience will
call things by their right names! But he told himself, if he had done a shady
thing, or allowed it to be done, it was really in the interests of his wife and
family. Self-deceit will carry us great lengths! How many a rogue has silenced
his conscience “in the interests of his family”! (A. Moorhouse, M. A.)
Naboth’s vineyard
It has been pointed out many times that of all the Ten
Commandments it is the last one which is the most searching because the most
spiritual and the nearest to the new law of the Sermon on the Mount. I say this
was a searching, spiritual commandment, for it dealt with the inward soul of a
man, his private thoughts and feelings and desires. For these, says the Tenth
Commandment--and not merely for your actual deeds--you are answerable to God.
“Thou shalt not covet.”
1. God’s way is to strike sin in the germ: to kill, as it were, the
very bacillus of the disease. Man loves to dally with evil suggestion, to play
with unclean thoughts, to toy with unchaste or dishonourable desires; to
entertain these while outwardly he is respectable and honoured by society. There
is something to him fascinating in this bargain, by which he consents to
outward respectability at the price of inward licence. But as verily as the
uncleanness of the water bears evidence that the spring has been fouled, an
evil life is born from an evil heart. That is the source of the mischief.
2. Ahab played with fire. He had wronged Naboth already in his heart;
it was a little thing that he should go further and wrong him in fact. There
are sinners and sinners. There is a covetousness that hides defeat in assumed
smiles, with deadly malice and envy smouldering within. And there is a
covetousness less formidable and more contemptible, that pouts and fumes and
frets and sulks. The latter kind was Ahab’s.
3. I think it very likely that Ahab was not meditating any serious
misconduct; but he was preparing his own heart, drying it of all true manly
feeling, so that it was like prepared tinder for any spark of temptation.
There” are hundreds of our fellowmen and women outwardly respectable and
innocent as yet of gross sin who are in danger just because their heart is in a
similar condition. A chance spark, a whispered suggestion, a rash impulse will
suffice to precipitate a course of action which can only bring ruin and
overwhelming shame. The heart is dry to the roots; no sap of honour, and manly
feeling, and love of justice penetrates and invigorates them. They have allowed
their hearts to wither.
4. Now while Ahab s heart lies there like so much prepared tinder,
enter the temptress, with a due supply of sparks cunningly contrived for the
purpose of an explosion. “And Jezebel his wife said unto him.” The most deadly
weapons are made of the finest steel. Jezebel’s character was strong, firm,
unmalleable; a diamond heart, cold, passionless, cruel, hard as steel, sharp as
a dagger’s edge. The words had not left Ahab’s lips a moment before her plan
was made. Treachery and murder came as natural to her as breathing Lady Macbeth
only did the deed of death when her husband’s courage failed Jezebel did not
dream of entrusting the task to her husband, for whom she had probably a very
just contempt. She herself laid the train and fired it that was to send Naboth
into eternity and give the vineyard to Ahab.
5. So the little sin of covetousness has found its reward. The coveted
object is obtained--Ahab was in the hands of evil. He had placed himself there;
and, like every man or woman who consents to sin, he was no longer his own
master. If he had been a giant instead of the weak creature he was he could not
have stayed the course of this crime. (C. S. Horne, M. A.)
Naboth’s vineyard
1. We sometimes hear that Ahab was a covetous man: are we quite sure
that the charge is just and that it can be substantiated? Do we not sometimes
too narrowly interpret the word covetousness? It is generally at least limited
to money. But the term “covetous” may apply to a much larger set of
circumstances, and describe quite another set of impulses and desires. We may
even be covetous of personal appearance; of popular fame, such as is enjoyed by
other men; we may be covetous in every direction which implies the
gratification of our own wishes; and yet with regard to the mere matter of
money we may be almost liberal. Sometimes when covetousness takes this other
turn we describe it by the narrower word envy; we say we envy the personal
appearance of some, we envy the greatness and the public standing of others.
But under all this envy is covetousness. Envy is in a sense but a symptom:
covetousness is the vital and devouring disease. Under this interpretation of
the term, therefore, it is not unfit or unjust to describe Ahab as a covetous
man. Look at his dissatisfaction with circumstances. He wishes to have “a
garden of herbs.” That is all! The great Alexander could not rest in his palace
at Babylon because he could not get ivy to grow in his garden. What was
Babylon, or all Assyria, in view of the fact that this childish king could not
cause ivy to grow in the palace gardens? Ahab lived in the very narrowest kind
of circumstances; as a little man, he lived in little things, and because those
things were not all to his mind it was impossible for him to be restful or
noble or really good. Once let the mind become dissatisfied with some trifling
circumstance, and that fly spoils the whole pot of ointment. Once get the
notion that the house is too small, and then morning, noon, and night you never
see a picture that is in it, or acknowledge the comfort of one corner in all
the little habitation: the one thing that is present in the mind throughout all
the weary hours is that the house is too small. If we live in circumstances, we
shall be the sport of events; we shall be without dignity, without calmness,
without reality and solidity of character; let us, therefore, betake ourselves
into inner thoughts, into spirituality of life, into the soul’s true character,
into the very sanctuary of God: there we shall have truth and light and peace.
2. Then notice in Ahab a childish servility to circumstances (1 Kings 21:4). Yet he was the King
of Israel in Samaria! He was in reality a man who could give law, whose very
look was a commandment, and the uplifting of his hand could move an army. Now
we see him surely at his least. So we do, but not at his worst. All this must
have an explanation. We cannot imagine that the man is so simply childish and
foolish as this incident alone would describe him. Behind all this childishness
there is an explanation. What is it? We find it in 1 Kings 21:25 :--“But there was none
like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the
Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up.” That explains the whole mystery. But
this is an affair which does not take place in the open market or in the open
daylight. But the compact is made in darkness, in silence, in out-of-the-way
places. Now we understand King Ahab better. We thought him but little,
frivolous of mind, childish and petty, without a man s worthy ambition; but now
we see that all this was but symptomatic, an outward sign, pointing, when
rightly followed, to an inward and mortal corruption.
3. Now let us look at the case of Naboth and the position which he
occupied in this matter. Naboth possessed the vineyard Ahab is said to have
coveted. Naboth said, “The Lord forbid” (1 Kings 21:3). He made a religious
question of it. Why did he invoke the Eternal Name, and stand back as if an
offence had been offered to his faith? The terms were commercial, the terms
were not unreasonable, the approach was courteous, the ground given for the
approach was not an unnatural ground,--why did Naboth stand back as if his religion
had been shocked? The answer is in Numbers 36:7. Ahab was taught that there
was a man in Samaria who valued the inheritance which had been handed down to
him. Have we no inheritance handed down to us--no book of revelation, no day of
rest, no flag of liberty, no password of common trust? So Ahab lay down upon
his bed, turned away his face, and would eat no bread. But there is a way of
accomplishing mean desires. Take heart! there is a way of possessing oneself of
almost whatever one desires. There is always some Merlin who will bring every
Uther-Pendragon what he longs to have; there is always some Lady Macbeth who
will show the thane how to become king. There is always a way to be bad! The
gate of hell stands wide open, or if apparently half-closed a touch will make
it fly back, and the road is broad that leadeth to destruction. Jezebel said
she would find the,garden or vineyard for her husband. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The story of Naboth’s vineyard
1. There is a strange fascination in sin. This man looks at this
thing; turns it over in his mind; says how nice it would be; and at last the
thing gets entire hold of him. He ought at first to have said, “No, that is
beyond my power; that is forbidden.” Instead, he plays with the thing, and
nurses it, and it becomes his master. And just as a bird might be seen trying
to escape, and yet is chained to the spot, the secret is discovered after a
while in the approach of the serpent, sure and slow, with its eyes fixed on its
prey, and held by its cruel glance; so it is with sin: there is a fascination
in it. You look at it, you get your eyes fixed upon its eyes; you can break
away if you have the will to do it, and the good sense, by God’s providence, to
do it; if you have not felt the full force of its fascination. But if you
loiter where its influence can be felt more and more on you, presently it
becomes your master, and you go to the evil thing, and bring the stain on your
soul. Is it not so? The doctor, though he may carry his life in his band, must
go where the small-pox or deadly fevers are raging, but the man who has no work
and no cure for the evil is a madman, and not a hero, if he goes needlessly
into an atmosphere laden with infection. It is the old soldier who has been in
many a battle, and carries the scars of many an engagement, who shelters
himself till the moment comes for the decisive charge. He is not afraid of
lying down. It is the raw recruit, who has never smelt powder, and who has
never had a scratch on him, who dare not be suspected of being afraid. And
believe me, young men, it is not a courageous thing to go needlessly into
danger of a moral character.
2. Yes, there is this fascination in man, but see what it brings us
to, and the degradation it brings with it. “He, laid him down on his bed, and
turned away his face, and would eat no bread.” Poor fellow! Yes, but that is
what sin always does to men; it eats the heart out of their manliness. If a man
wants to be strong to meet sorrow he must keep himself well in hand, and, by
the grace of God, learn to control his appetites and desires, so that
circumstances and possessions and pleasures shall always be his servants, never
his master. I have seen in this city an old man beggared in a day, by no fault
of his own, but through the wrong-doing and the misfortunes of others; a man
who had maintained a stainless character, and a prominent position in all good
works; and I saw him, not whining because he had lost his money, and asking all
the world to come and see how sorely he had been dealt with, but bravely
shaking off from himself the ruins of his fallen fortunes, and going out to win
another fortune in his old age, if that were God’s will, or to do without one,
if that were God’s will; but keeping a good conscience and a brave heart, and a
face with the light of-God upon it, so that he could look any brother-man in
the face with self-respect. And I tell you the man who is to be ready to do
that sort of thing, and go through that sort of experience, is not the man who
has always been wanting the softest bed and the warmest corner, the easiest
path and the best dinner, whose one great thought is, how can I make myself as
comfortable as possible in the world. No, the man who is to be brave to meet
his own misfortunes when they come--and to all they will come, sooner or
later--is the man who has not been continually thinking about himself, but who
has let his heart go out to his fellow-men and towards the great Father, God,
who tells us we ought to consider all men as our brothers. II you want to have
the manliness taken out of your heart live for selfish aims and objects.
3. And then see, too, another way in which sin degrades a man; how it
overturns all his mental conceptions, and even darkens and destroys the
sensitiveness of his conscience. Ahab is lying there on his divan, and Jezebel
comes to him. One can almost fancy one sees him and her together, and she is
saying to him, What is the matter? And he tells her this doleful story, how he
wanted the vineyard, and could not get it. Jezebel’s lip turns with scorn as
she looks down at him, and says, “Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel?
Are you lying here because you cannot get that nice toy? What is the good of
being king if you are going to take No for an answer, if you cannot have your
own way. “Arise, and eat bread, and let thine heart be merry; I will give thee
the vineyard of:Naboth the Jezreelite.” When Jezebel said that Ahab knew she
meant mischief. If he had been a true man and a true king, he would have said
to her, “Though you are queen, it is at your peril if you touch a hair of his
head; he is within the rights of this land. Dare not touch him, for every
subject’s rights and safety are sacred in my eyes.” But the poor, mean-spirited
wretch, degraded by his own follies, lies there, and lets his wife go and
contrive the wickedness for which he has not the wit or courage. And all the
time. I have no doubt, like other men in similar positions, Ahab was making to
himself all kinds of excuses: “Well, I don’t know what she is going to do;
perhaps she is only going to offer him a little more money, or appeal to his
respect for the king. At all events, it is not my business; I have not asked
her to interfere, and so I shall not trouble about it. I shall let her do just
what she will.” Yes, that “let alone” policy which is so popular in many
quarters, was admirably illustrated by Ahab on this occasion And I have no
doubt that to a certain extent that kind of reasoning was sufficient to drug
his conscience to sleep, at least for the time being. And there are constantly
men who are acting on that principle. Men used to say, “Oh, certainly I never
bribed any elector”; but when an election was coming on they would pay five
hundred pounds to the credit of their agent, and ask no questions about it.
There are men to-day in London who would say, “Of course I did not sell three
penn’orth of gin over a counter to a poor, bloated, degraded woman.” No, but
they take three times as much rent for a house because it has got a licorice
than they could get if it hadn’t any. Men say, “I did not tell that lie, or set
that slander in circulation.” No, but they suggested it quite delicately, and
“hoping it would go no further,” and so the carrion scent was awakened, and all
followed that they thought might be expected to follow. Many of these people
fancy that God’s eyes are closed, or that God does not know what is going on in
the world, and that in some way or other they have been able to cheat the
Omniscient! They cannot feel, and are not aware of the true nature of the life
they are living and the deeds they are doing. Just as the slaves when they were
flogged, after the first few blows felt very little, because the nerves of the
back had been lacerated; so the consciences of these men have been cut, lashed,
and injured till their sensitiveness is gone out of them, and men have lost the
faculty of quickly detecting wrong, and knowing what is right. Can there
possibly be a deeper degradation for a man? She came back to Ahab and said,
“Naboth is dead.” So the conscience of Ahab will let him at once rise with new
eagerness to go and take possession of his treasure. Away he goes from the
palace, promising himself many a pleasant hour in the cool shade of the vineyard.
Yes, yes, there is disappointment in sin. God does not let men get the good out
of it that they thought. God does not let them enjoy it as keenly as they
expected. And this is one of the great proofs of God’s love, that He will not
let men sin easily and comfortably. We sometimes say it is hard work to get to
heaven. That is true enough. But we may almost say it is as hard work for many
men to get to hell. If they will be lost they have to break through many a
barrier which the love of God built in their way; and not till they have forced
their way through these barriers can they be cast into the outer darkness,
which they rush to encounter. How good it is that God will not let men sin
easily Some Elijah will stand in the gateway of the vineyard. Here is a man who
has gone away from home; perhaps he is a young man, and in the very midst of
some sinful revelry, where the air is thick with curses, where the atmosphere
is as the atmosphere of hell, suddenly, as though the heavens parted, and the
breath of heaven’s own atmosphere were thrust into the midst of that vile
scene, there comes to him a thought of his mother, of the pure blessed home
that he left years ago. No law of association will account for that. There was
nothing in the associations of the place to make him think that thought at that
time, but the exact opposite. Surely the blessed Spirit of God sent that
thought just there in order that that man might meet his Elijah at the gate of
the vineyard. Another man is trying to get away from the impressions of his
better days. As he passes hurriedly along, perhaps on a Sabbath day like this,
some door opens, and some wave of sound comes out from the worshipping
congregation. Memories are at once set at work to carry him back to his purer
days. God has sent some Elijah to meet him at the gate of the vineyard. Oh,
blessed be God, for the love that will not let us slip easily into hell! And
then one cannot help seeing the doom of sin. There is a sort of awful dramatic
propriety about this doom: “In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth
shall dogs lick thy blood.” (T. B. Stephenson, D. D. , LL. D.)
Voices from Naboth’s vineyard
There are many voices addressed to us from:Naboth’s vineyard.
I. Beware of
covetousness. That vineyard has its counterpart in the case and conduct of many
still. Covetousness may assume a thousand camelon hues and phases, but these
all resolve themselves into a sinful craving after something other than what we
have. Covetousness of means--a grasping after more material wealth; the race
for riches. Covetousness of place--aspiring after other positions in life than
those which Providence has assigned us;--not because they are better--but
because they are other than our present God-appointed lot--invested with an
imaginary superiority. And the singular and sad thing is, that such inordinate
longings are most frequently manifested, as with Ahab, in the case of those who
have least cause to indulge them. The covetous eye cast on the
neighbour’s vineyard is, strange to say, more the sin of the affluent than of
the needy,--of the owner of the lordly mansion than of the humble cottage. The
man with his clay floor, and thatched roof, and rude wooden rafters, though
standing far more in need of increase to his comfort, is often (is generally)
more contented and satisfied by far than he whose cup is full. The old story,
which every schoolboy knows, is a faithful picture of human nature. It was
Alexander, not defeated, but victorious--Alexander, not the lord of one
kingdom, but the sovereign of the world, who wept unsatisfied tears. How many
there are, surrounded with all possible affluence and comfort, who put a
life-thorn in their side by some similar chase after a denied good, some
similar fretting about a denied trifle. They have abundance; the horn of plenty
has poured its contents into their lap. But a neighbour possesses something
which they fancy they might have also. Like Haman, though their history has
been a golden dream of prosperity;--advancement and honour such as the
brightest visions of youth could never have pictured,--yet all this avails them
nothing, so long as they see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate! Seek
to suppress these unworthy envious longings. “For which things’ sake,” says the
apostle (and among “these things” is covetousness), “the wrath of God cometh on
the children of disobedience.” Covetousness, God makes a synonym for idolatry.
He classes the covetous in the same category with the worshippers of stocks and
stones. “Be content with such things as ye have.”
II. Keep out of the
way of temptation. If Ahab, knowing his own weakness and besetting sin, had put
a restraint on his covetous eye, and not allowed.it to stray on his neighbour’s
forbidden property, it would have saved a black page in his history, and the
responsibilities of a heinous crime. Let us beware of tampering with evil. “If
thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee.” “Avoid it,”
says the wise man, speaking of this path of temptation, “pass not by it, turn
from it, and pass away.” Each has his own strong temptation,--the fragile part
of his nature,--his besetting sin.. That sin should be specially watched,
muzzled, curbed;--that gate of temptation specially padlocked and sentinelled.
One guilty dereliction of duty,--one unhappy abandonment of principle,--one
inconsistent, thoughtless word or deed,--may be the progenitor of unnumbered
evils. How many have bartered their peace of conscience for veriest
trifles:--sold a richer inheritance than Esau’s birthright for a mess of earthly
pottage! And once the first fatal step is taken, it cannot be so easily undone.
Once the blot on fair character is made, the stain is not so easily erased.
III. Be sure your
sin will find you out. Ahab and Jezebel, as we have seen, had managed to a wish
their accursed plot. The wheels of crime had moved softly along without one rut
or impediment in the way. The two murderers paced their blood-stained
inheritance without fear of challenge or discovery.:Naboth was in that silent
land where no voice of protest can be heard against high-handed inquity. But
there was a God in heaven who maketh inquisition for blood, and who “remembered
them.” Their time for retribution did come at last, although years of gracious
forbearance were suffered to intervene. And are the principles of God’s moral
government different now? It is true, indeed, that the present economy deals
not so exclusively as the old in temporal retribution. Sinners now have before
them the surer and more terrible recompense and vengeance of a world to come.
But not unfrequently here also, retribution still follows, and sooner or later
overtakes, the defiant transgressor. Conscience, like another stern Elijah in
the vineyard of Naboth, will confront the transgressor and utter a withering
doom. How many such an Elijah stands a rebuker within the gates of modem
vineyards, purchased by the reward of iniquity! How many such an Elijah stands
a ghostly sentinel by the door of that house whose stones have been hewn and
polished and piled by illicit gain! How many an Elijah mounts on the back of
the modem chariot, horsed and harnessed, pillowed and cushioned and liveried
with the amassings of successful roguery! How many an Elijah stands in the
midst of banquet-hall and drawing-room scowling down on some murderer of
domestic peace and innocence, who has intruded into vineyards more sacred than
Naboth’s,--trampled virtue under foot, and left the broken, bleeding vine, to
trail its shattered tendrils unpitied on the ground! And even should conscience
itself, in this world be defied and overborne; at all events in the world to
come, sin must be discovered; retribution (long evaded here) will at last exact
its uttermost farthing. The most awful picture of a state of eternal punishment
is that of sinners surrendered to the mastery of their own special
transgression; these sins, like the fabled furies, following them, in
unrelenting pursuit, from hall to hall and from cavern to cavern in the regions
of unending woe;--and they, at last, hunted down, wearied, breathless, with the
unavailing effort to escape the tormentors, crouching in wild despair, and
exclaiming, like Ahab to Elijah, “Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?” (J. R.
Macduff, D. D.)
.
“Our desires may undo us”
1. There is no more striking illustration of this proverb than that
supplied in the sacred story of King Ahab and Naboth of Jezreel. It is a curse
of undisciplined desire that it never has enough. It has been asked, “When is a
man rich enough?” and it has been answered, “When he has a little more than he
has.” A little more just to make an even sum, to secure this profitable
investment, to finish this building, to make a complete ring-fence around this
property, to gratify this harmless fad or to please some friend’s taste--just a
little more, and I shall be content, and then I will rest and be thankful. But
undisciplined desire never comes to the resting-place, because such desire
always increases with every new accession.
2. Undisciplined desire is never reasonable. All considerations of
fairness and justice, of right and wrong, of doing “to others what we would
they should do to us,” must give way to this masterful desire.
3. But a man with a great passion of desire seldom hesitates long to
use any means, however unlawful, to gain his object. He either clears the path
himself, or, is too weak and cowardly to work with his own hands, he finds some
strong and unscrupulous instrument.
4. But when such a man as Ahab gains his heart’s desire, is he
satisfied with his possessions? Said Jezebel, “Arise, take possession of the
vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.” Did he find the vineyard as large as it had
appeared through the halo of his glowing hopes? Would it really make a
satisfactory garden of herbs? Most of us have learned that there are two ways
of looking through a telescope. One removes a near object far away, but it
hides the blemishes; the other brings the object near, but it reveals all the
blemishes. Possession exposes everything. And if the desire has been
unreasonable and passionate, and especially if the conscience of the possessor
is aroused to condemn the means used, there is left only a miserable sense of
disappointment. When men use unlawful means to gain their desires, they must
face all the consequences. In what beautiful contrast appears the testimony of
St. Paul! “I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therein to be content . .
. In all things have I learned the secret both to be filled and to be hungry,
both to abound and to be in want. I can do all things in Him that strengtheneth
me.” (Thomas Wilde.)
Mastery of self
Sir Richard Grenville said of Thomas Stukeley, “He was a knight
who wanted but one step to greatness, and that was, that in his excessive hurry
to rule other people, he forgot to rule himself.” The true victor is he who leads
his own captivity captive, is master of his own heart by giving it over to the
Master Himself. Until the kingdom that has been divided is united, how can it
conquer its foes?
The discontented man
A contented man may have enough, but a discontented man never can;
his heart is like the Slough of Despond into which thousands of waggon loads of
the best material were cast, and yet the slough did swallow up all, and was
none the better. Discontent is a bottomless bog into which if one world were
cast it would quiver and heave for another. A discontented man dooms himself to
the direst form of poverty, yea, he makes himself so great a pauper that the
revenues of empires could not enrich him. Are you impatient in your present
position? Believe me that, as George Herbert said of revenues in times gone by,
“He that cannot live on twenty pounds a year cannot live on forty”; so may I
say: he who is not contented in his present position will not be contented in
another though it bring him double possessions. When the vulture of
dissatisfaction has once fixed its talons in the breast it will not cease to tear at your
vitals. (C H. Spurgeon.)
Verse 3
The Lord forbid that I should give the inheritance of my fathers
unto thee.
The reply of Naboth, and its lessons
I. The reply of
Naboth.
1. It first assures us that he is a conscientious man, and a
worshipper of Jehovah. No; but from a conviction of his duty to God as the
Supreme Lawgiver: and, therefore, rather than offend Him, or violate His will,
he would incur the anger and
vengeful power of Ahab.
2. Hence the moral heroism of the reply--similar to that which
distinguished the answer of the apostles, in after history, when forbidden by
the magistrates to preach in the name of Jesus. These brave men recognised the
Divine authority; and, basing their publication upon its evidence, they were
ready to undergo any persecution, any torture, any death, rather than disobey
God. And it was according to this spirit that Naboth uttered the words to Ahab.
3. In this reply of Naboth, there is also the recognition of an old
fundamental law, unrepealed, among the Hebrews, respecting landed property: and
this recognition stands out in direct opposition to the loose practices of
Ahab, the priests, and all the followers of Baal.
II. Its lessons.
1. The great value which every professing Christian ought to set upon
his inheritance, as purchased for
him, and handed down to him by Christ, and that no man ought to
part with it through the force of temptation.
2. We learn furthermore from the reply of Naboth the great importance
of decision of character, or as it is directed towards a right purpose.
3. Naboth openly avowed his belief in God and His laws before Ahab,
and a nation given up to idolatry. And thus we are taught not to be ashamed of
confessing our faith in Christ. (W. D. Horwood.)
Verse 4
And Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased.
Temper-a deadly sin
In other and less dignified words, Ahab, when he could not
get his own way, went to bed in a sulk. I take it that all those who have tried
even to be close students of human nature are agreed that life as a rule
suffers most, not from the heroic sin or from the deep passion, but from little
mean and contemptible sins. These sins are like the grit in the eye--they
incense and inflame until it happens that a great and noble faculty can be used
no more. And I am going to suggest to this audience that the harmony of life,
whether it be of the family life or of the social life of any people, suffers
most from two classes of people--the cross-grained man and the shrew. These
people are ready, as you know, to take umbrage at the faintest slight, even of
a fancied kind, to indulge ill-humour over something that was never intended to
be even a contradiction of their views; and when not venting their venom and
their spite publicly, they are commonly to be found grumbling in a corner; and
if not openly growling, then they are secretly sulking and nourishing their
temper. Now, will you bear with me while I say a word about the description
itself, because there is a lesson which I think we might learn even from the
word. The word “temper,” as you know, is one of the English words which have
gradually come to have a bad sense. It meant in its original “to moderate or to
modify what was unduly harsh or violent,” and in that sense, of course, the
word has been frequently used. I found, for instance, a quotation out of one of
the early English poets, in which he said that the function of the woman was to
temper man--that is, not to put him into a temper, but to modify his naturally
harsh, sour, and severe disposition--a function that everybody here will agree
woman, as a rule, discharges. The word temper, indeed, is used very commonly
for either of two purposes; either to describe a calm, serene, and gracious
nature, or else to describe a hasty, fiery, and ill-conditioned nature. But
when my dictionary was consulted it told me this: that the good use of the word
has, in process of years, become obsolete, and that if the word temper is now
used by itself, it can always be trusted to have the bad significance. So that
I call you to witness it comes to this: that if you want to speak of good
temper you must call it good; but if you want to speak of bad temper you can
simply describe it as temper, and everybody will know what you mean. I want to
ask you that you will distinguish it from what we call passion. Passion, it is
quite true, is often guilty of great and terrible crimes, crimes which arise
from the fact that a great quality has become the master instead of being the
servant of man. But in bad temper there is nothing so great or dignified or strong
as passion. Temper thrives on trivialities. There is no detail so silly; no
pretext so trumpery, but it will give the reins to the man of temper. Passion
is the sublime; temper is really ridiculous save only for this, that the things
it does and the misery it causes would turn all our laughter into tears. To
take--for I am anxious that you should continue your analysis--another
distinction that will occur to you between the two. Passion is always
occasional, it is volcanic, it is soon over. It is like the thunderstorm. It
bursts and breaks; then the sky clears blue and genial and warm. But it is
always the tendency of temper to be chronic and normal, and it corresponds to
what we constantly describe as a certain cross-grained and ill-conditioned nature.
Yes, passion is volcanic, but passion knows how to forgive and to forget. But
temper is not like that. It keeps all its bitterness within. It nourishes its
grudges, it cherishes its slights, it broods over its fancied wrongs. I was
wondering how I could best illustrate this part of what I am trying to say, and
a comparison occurred to me between two kings of your English history--the one
whom I always think of as one of the greatest kings who ever wore the British
crown, the first Edward, a man of passion, deeply beloved, and even adored by
his people; the man of the passionate pilgrimage, which was to be the evidence
of his grief for his wife, to whom Charing Cross is the monument even
to-night--a man of volcanic humour, with floods of tears for the evil deeds his
passion wrought, and of whom Mr. J. R. Green tells the thrilling and touching
story, how he summoned his subjects to Westminster Hall, and when he faced them
could not speak to them, but simply buried his face in his hands and burst into
tears before them all, and then asked forgiveness for wrongs that he had done.
That was the passionate man. I contrast with him the king of temper, John, who
never rose to a single great thought or a single great deed, but who after all
won the loathing and contempt of his subjects, because Dante’s hazy smoke was
always in his heart--morbid, sullen, spiteful, malicious. And now that brings
me very naturally to the discussion of the text which I have taken, and the
narrative to which it refers, a quotation that is familiar to you all. You know
that it introduces us to one of the most cold-blooded and gruesome crimes of
which history contains any record. The real instigator of that crime, and the
executor of the deed was Jezebel. But terrible as Jezebel’s temper is represented
here, I venture to say that to every self-respecting mind the character of Ahab
is more loathsome and more contemptible. Jezebel did the thing. Ahab was only
the weak confederate of his unscrupulous and bold wife, with her heart of
marble. And yet think of it, analyse the scene. Does it not remain, as I say,
that Jezebel with all her crimes and her blood-stained hands could even extort
the measure of admiration when you consider her spirit, her intrepidity, and
her initiative, and realise that if these qualities had been devoted to
something worthy of them, she would have been a great woman. But about Ahab
there is nothing great; there is everything that is contemptible--nothing more
heroic than a fit of temper. I have no doubt that his servants went away and
said it was an attack of the liver, and that he would shortly be all right. But
Jezebel knew him better. She knew that it was black venom, and spite, and
malice, and that if he was to get better and recover these must have their
vent. And so she did what he wanted to do, but hadn’t the courage to do. That
is your whole story in a nutshell. “And what is its moral?” you say. “It is so
horrible it has no moral for us.” I am not so sure of that. Its moral is this,
I take it, that to a man thus evilly conditioned, the natural disposition is to
every, sorry and cruel suggestion that may come to him from any quarter. For
there he is naturally disposed to think the worst of people and to do them ill.
Ah, yes; and if it had not ended except in evil word it had been bad enough,
for if I may in an aside I would say this: temper has always found its readiest
weapon in the tongue, and who in this building can estimate the evil and the
injury that has been done when the tongue has lain at the disposition of temper.
Ah, but is it not true to say that it is possible for you and me, while we
analyse the temper and desire that God’s love will soften and sweeten the
heart--is it not possible, for us to feel some genuine sorrow for them? For,
after all, remember that nobody else is made quite so unhappy and so miserable
as they make themselves. There they are; they are unwelcome guests at every
festival, and I fancy that at last they come to know that people anticipate
their advent with apprehension and look upon their backs with relief. They are
the frost on every budding happiness, the skeleton that sits at every feast.
The cross-grained man and the common scold or shrew isolate themselves from
humanity, cut themselves off from the genial and generous debt of life. Their
heart becomes like the North Pole--absolutely locked in impenetrable ice. “And
is there no cure?”
Oh yes, there is something. The mind that was in Christ Jesus, can it be
communicated, or can it not? Is Christianity true when it says: “He will give
you His Spirit, He will make you like Himself”? Is it true or is it not? Some
of you here to-night, are you doomed and destined to bear to your grave this
burden of which I have been speaking, or is there One whose hands can unloose
the thongs and set you free? I know that I am right in what I say. Why, there
are friends known to you, and to dwell in their company is gradually to feel
dissolve and decay within you your bitter thoughts, and your heart come
cordially into sympathy with their genial and generous spirit. That is a great
thing; but, oh, men and women, to company with Jesus Christ, to live in His
presence, beneath His redeeming touch and influence, that is, indeed, to say
good-bye to the bitterness of the heart, that is to receive His sweetness into
this bitter-thoughted mind and soul, that is to be mellowed for His harvesting,
made ripe and gracious fruit for His hands to gather. That is my gospel Jesus
Christ can cure. (C. S. Home, M. A.)
Verse 5
Why is thy spirit so sad, that thou eatest no bread?
A cure for the dumps
The witty Sydney Smith once said, “Never give way to melancholy,
for if you do, it will encroach upon you like an overflowing river and
overwhelm you.” He added he had given twenty-four precautions to a lady of
melancholy disposition to keep her from being sad. One of the things he
recommended was to keep a bright fire in her room. Another of Sydney Smith’s
remedies for low spirits was to think over all the pleasant things you can
remember. A third receipt was, always to keep a box of sugar-plums on the
mantelpiece. Some of you would object to a sugar-plum when you go to a friend’s
house, but at any rate, it would please the giver for you to accept it, and for
myself I may say that it would give me pleasure to receive it. Another remedy
for despondency prescribed by the humorous Canon was, to always have the kettle
simmering on the hob. These of course are little things, but they have their
influence. These fits of sadness and melancholy make good things appear bad,
and they so disturb the balance of our reason as to cause us to imagine that
even loving friends dislike us. Shakespeare puts into the mouth of the
masterpiece of his creative genius, Hamlet, this excellent description of the
feelings of people, who are in the dumps:--“This goodly frame, the earth, seems
to me a barren promontory; while that most excellent canopy, the air, look you;
that great overhanging sky, that majestic roof, fretted with golden fire,--why!
it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of
vapours.” When the “lumbermen” are floating great logs of wood down the river
St. Lawrence, past the city of Quebec, from the interior of Canada--those great
logs which are brought to Liverpool and along our canals and railways to be cut
up in the saw-mills--it sometimes happens that one of these great logs from
being in the river for more than one season, gets its millions of pores filled
with water, when it becomes what is called “water-logged.” The log then sinks,
through the water having got into its heart. Likewise, there are men and women
who, while they are being carried along the stream of life, get so saturated
with its cares and troubles that they sink; they are “trouble-logged,” and sometimes they die of
what is called a broken heart. I think it is in our power to prevent people
getting “trouble-logged “ and sinking helplessly in the Slough of Despond.
Cervantes, the finest writer of humour that Spain has produced, whose works
raised a smile on people’s faces when they read or heard about them, was one of
the saddest of men, his features having the marks of perpetual gloom upon them.
Moliere, the greatest master of humorous writing in France, looked as if his face had been
made ugly with disappointment and grief; while Foote, one of our most comic
English writers and actors died of a broken heart. We all get at times into
this hypochondriac way--We all get into the dumps at times, feeling as if there
were no God. The victims of this mental disease of “low spirits” go through the
world as if they were forsaken orphans, without a penny or a friend. There is
the instance of Ahab, who had everything that a despotic king could desire, but
he was not satisfied. In many cases our troubles and disappointments arise from
our own fault. This seems to have been the case with Jacob. Few Scripture
characters had more trouble or were oftener sad than Jacob, who said that all
the days of his life had been evil, and that his children would bring down his
grey hairs in sorrow to the grave. In modern times, few men have excited more
morbid and undeserved sympathy than the poet, Lord Byron, who was often in the
dumps. He inherited a passionate and proud nature, but his greatest trouble
seems to have been his unfortunate club.foot, which he could neither hide nor
put out of remembrance. This and his dissipation made his nature gloomy. Hear
his words--
Melancholy
Sits
on me as a cloud along the sky,
Which
will not let the sunbeams through, nor yet
Descend
in rain and end; but spreads itself
‘Twixt
heaven and earth, like envy between man
And
man--and is an everlasting mist.
Why should we punish ourselves because we cannot have what others
have, and which instead of being a blessing might prove a curse? Why should we
torment ourselves because somebody else has obtained what we wanted? Addison
has beautifully
described in an allegory the foolish way in which people are disappointed
because their life is one of obscurity. He says, “There was one day a drop of
rain fell from a cloud into the ocean, and the drop of water bitterly
complained and was sad of heart because it thought it was annihilated in the
mighty expanse of the sea. But it dropped down into the open mouth of an
oyster, where, in process of time, it was transformed and became a pearl, which
at the present day is the ornament of the crown of the Persian monarch.” This
little fable teaches us not to repine at our lot. Though you may be feeble and
humble as compared with other people, though you may not be beautiful or
wealthy, and think yours is a disappointed lot, yet, like that drop of water,
our God is preparing you to be an adornment of heaven. Do not therefore be cast
down, or let your heart be grieved by any discouragement of birth or fortune in
this life. (W. Birch.)
Nemesis of a selfish life-
A man who lives entirely for himself becomes at last
obnoxious to himself. I believe it is the very law of God that
self-centeredness ends in self-nauseousness. There is no weariness like the
weariness of a man who is wearied of himself, and that is the awful Nemesis
which follows the selfish life. (J. H. Jowett.)
The tyranny of self
There can be no real happiness in the heart, where self is
enthroned. If you would have peace, you must seize, bind, and never again let
loose, for self is the cruellest tyrant, the deepest shadow, and the blackest
blot that darkens life. To be rid of the despot, you must begin by placing
others first in all your thoughts and actions; at this the coward drops his
head; he hates another to be first. Next, give him no thought or consideration
at all, and though at this neglect he cry out piteously, heed him not, for now
is the time to bind him hard and fast with the cords of forgetfulness; then
cast him far behind, and be careful to allow neither the call of pain nor
pleasure to entice you into loosening one jot or tittle of his bonds, or, once
set free, the monster will rise again, hydra-headed, and, towering above all
else, enfold and crush you within his clutches, until you are no more free, but
a slave, bound hand and foot, in the deadly meshes of over-mastering self. (Great
Thoughts.)
Verse 7
I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth.
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. Pliny’s 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 husband’s 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 country’s 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 lady’s 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 Naboth’s 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 wife’s 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 woman’s 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 God’s 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 wife’s 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.)
Verses 17-19
And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite.
Elijah’s mission of judgment
We bend our attention exclusively on the part played by Elijah
amid these terrible transactions.
I. He was called
back to service. How many years had elapsed since last the word of the Lord had
come to Elijah, we do not know. Perhaps five or six. All this while he must have
waited wistfully for the well-known accents of that voice, longing to hear it
once again. Hours, and even years, of silence are full of golden opportunities
for the servants of God. In such cases, our conscience does not condemn us or
accuse us with any sufficient reason arising from ourselves. Our simple duty,
then, is to keep clean, and filled, and ready; standing on the shelf, meet for
the Master’s use; sure that we serve if we only stand and wait; and knowing
that He will accept, and reward, the willingness for the deed. “Nevertheless,
thou didst well, in that it was in thine heart.”
II. Elijah was not
disobedient. Once before, when his presence was urgently required, he had
arisen to flee for his life. But there was no vacillation, no cowardice now. His
old heroic faith had revived in him again. His spirit had regained its wonted
posture in the presence of Jehovah. His nature had returned to its equipose in
the will of God.
III. He was acting
as an incarnate conscience. Naboth was out of the way; and Ahab may have
solaced himself, as weak people do still, with the idea that he was not his
murderer. How could he be? He had been perfectly quiescent. He had simply put
his face to the wall and done nothing. Often a man, who dares not do a
disgraceful act himself, calls a subordinate to his side, and says: “Such a
thing needs doing; I wish you would see to it. Use any of my appliances you
will; only do not trouble me further about it--and of course you had better not
do anything wrong.” In God’s sight that man is held responsible for whatever
evil is done by his tool in the execution of his commission. The blame is laid
on the shoulders of the Principal; and it will be more tolerable for the
subordinate than for him in the day of judgment. Further than that, but on the
line of the same principle, if an employer of labour, by paying an inadequate
and unjust wage, tempts his employes to supplement their scanty pittance by
dishonest or unholy methods, he is held responsible, in the sight of Heaven,
for the evil which he might have prevented, if he had not been wilfully and
criminally indifferent. It is sometimes the duty of a servant of God fearlessly
to rebuke sinners who think their high position a licence to evil-doing, and a
screen from rebuke. And let all such remember that acts of high-handed sin
often seem at first to prosper.
IV. He was hated
for the truth’s sake. “And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine
enemy?” Though the king knew it not, Elijah was his best friend; Jezebel his
direst foe. But sin distorts everything. It is like the grey dawn which so
obscures the most familiar objects that men mistake friends for foes, and foes
for friends: as in the old story, the frenzied King of Wales slew the faithful
hound that had saved his child from death. Many a time have men repeated the
error of the disciples, who mistook Jesus for an evil spirit, and cried out for
fear.
V. He was a true
prophet. Each of the woes which Elijah foretold came true. Ahab postponed their
fulfilment, by a partial repentance, for some three years but, at the end of
that time, he went back to his evil ways, and every item was literally
fulfilled. But as we close this tragic episode in his career, we rejoice to
learn that he was reinstated in the favour of God; and stamped again with the
Divine imprimatur of trustworthiness and truth. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
Verse 20
Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?
Ahab and Elijah
The keynote of Elijah’s character is force--the force of
righteousness. The New Testament, you remember, talks about the “power of
Elias.” The outward appearance of the man corresponds to his function and his
character. The whole of his career is marked by this one thing--the strength of
a righteous man. And then, on the other hand, this Ahab; the keynote of his
character is the weakness of wickedness, and the wickedness of weakness. And so
the deed is done: Naboth safe stoned out of the way; and Ahab goes down to take
possession! The lesson of that is, my friend--Weak dallying with forbidden
desires is sure to end in wicked clutching at them: But my business now is
rather with the consequences of this apparently successful sin, than with what
went before it. The king gets the crime done, shuffles it off himself on to the
shoulders of his ready tools in the little village, goes down to get his toy,
and gets it--but he gets Elijah along with it, which was more than he reckoned
on.
I. Pleasure won by
sin is peace lost. Action and reaction, as the mechanicians tell us, are equal
and contrary. The more violent the blow with which we strike upon the forbidden
pleasure, the further back the rebound after the stroke. When sin tempts--when
there hangs glittering before a man the golden fruit that he knows he ought not
to touch-then, amidst the noise of passion or the sophistry of desire,
conscience is silenced for a little while. Conscience and consequence are alike
lost sight of. Like a mad bull, the man that is tempted lowers his head and shuts
his eyes, and rushes right on. The moment that the sin is done, that moment the
passion or desire which tempted to it is satiated, and ceases to exist for the
time. It is gone as a motive. Like some savage beast, being fed full, it lies
down to sleep. There is a vacuum left in the heart, the noise is stilled, and
then--and then--conscience begins to speak. Now, you will say that all that is
true in regard to the grossest forms of transgression, but that it is not true
in regard to the less vulgar and sensual kinds of crime. Of course it is most
markedly observable with regard to the coarsest kind of sins; but it is as
true, though perhaps not in the same degree-not in the same prominent, manifest
way at any rate--in regard to every sin that a man does. There is never an evil
thing which--knowing it to be evil--we commit, which does not rise up to
testify against us. As surely as to-night’s debauch is followed by to-morrow’s
headache; so surely--each after its kind, and each in its own region--every sin
lodges in the human heart the seed of a quickspringing punishment, yea, is its
own punishment. When we come to grasp the sweet thing that we have been tempted
to seize, there is a serpent that starts up amongst all the flowers. When the
evil act is done--opposite of the prophet’s roll--it is sweet in the lips, but
oh! it is bitter afterwards. “At the last it biteth like a serpent, and
stingeth like an adder!” 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.
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,
III. The sin which
mistakes the friendly appeal for an enemy, lays up for itself a terrible
retribution. Elijah comes here and prophesies the fall of Ahab. The next peal,
the next flash, fulfil the prediction. There, where he did the wrong, he died.
In Jezreel, Ahab died. In Jezreel, Jezebel died. That plain was the battlefield
for the subsequent discomfiture of Israel. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Success that fails
Ahab went out to take possession of a garden of herbs, and there
he stands face to face with righteousness, face to face with honour, face to
face with judgment. Now take the vineyard! He cannot! An hour since the sun
shone upon it, and now it is black as if it were part of the midnight which has
gathered in judgment. There is a success which is failure. We cannot take some
prizes. Elijah will not allow us! When we see him we would that a way might
open under our feet that we might flee and escape the judgment of his silent
look. If any man is about to take unholy prizes, let him remember that he will
be met on the road by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of
righteousness. If any man is attempting to scheme for some little addition to
his position or fortune, in the heart of which scheme there is injustice,
untruthfulness, covetousness, or a wrong spirit, let him know that he may even
kill Naboth, but cannot enter into Naboth’s vineyard. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The tragedy of Jezreel
When a man gives way to lust and coveting, does not struggle
against them, a tempter is sure to be at hand to put him on gratifying them one
way or another.
1. “Be sure,” said Moses to the Reubenites, “Your sin will find you
out.” (Numbers 32:23). What an exemplification
here! how literally was Elijah’s denunciation fulfilled! Yes, and history and
human experience are ever bearing witness to this, that sin finds out the
sinner; and that, not simply in punishment following sin, but in the sin
becoming its own means of detection and punishment--in a certain correlation of
sin and its penalty. “Thine own wickedness” etc (Jeremiah 2:19). “Be not deceived, God is
not mocked,” etc. (Galatians 6:7). “Whoso breaketh a hedge,”
etc. (Ecclesiastes 10:8).
2. Success in wrongdoing the sinner’s loss. Better indeed had it been
for Ahab if Jezebel’s scheme had failed. Men often fret and fume if thwarted in
attaining some coveted object, yet may it have been their mercy to be so
thwarted. It is Divine goodness which again and again hedges up our way, and
providentially coerces us. To be given up to the devices and desires of our own
hearts is the sorest of judgments.
3. The fatal mistake of resenting righteous rebuke. Terrible was
Ahab’s mistake in calling Elijah his enemy. That uncompromising rebuker, his
truest friend, would he only have listened to him instead of yielding to the
siren seductions of Jezebel. (A. R. Symonds, M. A.)
Blind to one’s own guilt
1. That which first of all blinded Ahab more or less to the true
character and extent of his responsibility for the death of Naboth was the
force of desire. A single desire long dwelt upon, cherished, and indulged, has
a blinding power which cannot easily be exaggerated. Ahab had long looked
wistfully from his villa across the moat of Jezreel at the vineyard of Naboth.
There it lay, beautiful in itself, most desirable as an appendage to the royal
property. Without it the summer villa was obviously incomplete, and each visit
to Jezreel would have strengthened the king’s wish to possess it. It was not
that he enjoyed to baulk a great man’s wishes in the spirit of that rough and
surly independence which is sometimes fostered by the near neighbourhood of a
Court; it was not that he was governed by a natural sentiment common in all
ages and civilisations against parting with an old family property; it was that
the sacred law did not permit the exchange or the sale. With a view to
maintaining the original distribution of landed property among the tribes, and
of preventing the accumulation of large landed estates in a few hands, the
Mosaic law forbade the alienation of lands or families holding them; and
especially it forbade the transfer from one tribe to another. And this is the
meaning of Naboth’s exclamation, “The Lord forbid it me that I should give the
inheritance of my fathers unto thee.” Desire is not always wrong in its early
stages, and so long as it is under control of principle it is a motive, a
useful motive power in human life. But when it finds itself in conflict with
the rights of other men, and, above all, in conflict with the laws and with the
rights of God, it must be suppressed unless it is to lead to crime. When Naboth
declined to sell or to exchange his vineyard, Ahab ought to have ceased to desire
it. Ahab went back to his palace baulked of his desire by the conscientious
resistance of Naboth. The impulsive force in life is not thought, nor will, but
desire. Thought sees its object; will gives orders with a view to attain it;
but without desire thought is powerless, and will, in the operative sense, does
not exist. Desire is to the human soul what gravitation is to the heavenly
bodies. Ascertain the object of a man’s desire, and you know the direction in
which his soul is moving; ascertain the strength of a man’s desire, and you
know the rapidity of the soul’s movement. In St. Augustine’s memorable words,
“Whithersoever I am carried forward it is desire that carries me.” Quocumque
feror amore feror. If the supreme object of desire is God, then desire
becomes the grace of charity, and carries the soul onwards and upwards to the
true source of its existence. If the supreme object of desire be something
earthly, some person, some possession, then desire becomes what Scripture calls
concupiscence, and carries the soul downwards--downwards to those regions in
which the soul is buried and stifled by matter and sense. Concupiscence is
desire diverted from its true object--God--and centred upon some created object
which perverts and degrades it; and concupiscence grows by self-indulgence; it
may very easily pass a point at which it can be no longer controlled, it may
absorb as into a practically resistless current all the other interests and
movements of the soul; it may concentrate with an all-increasing importunity
the whole body and stock of feeling and passion upon some trifling object upon
which, for the moment, it is bent, and which, by absorbing it, blinds
it--blinds it utterly to the true proportions and value of things into the true
meaning and import of action. So it was with Pharaoh when he set out in the
pursuit of Israel; so it was with the vain and miserable Haman when he set his
heart on exterminating the Jews; so it was with Ahab.
2. And a second cause, which could have blinded Ahab to the true character
of his responsibility for the murder of Naboth, was the ascendant influence and
prominent agency of his queen, Jezebel. Ahab could not have enjoyed the results
of Jezebel’s achievement, and decline to accept responsibility for it; yet, no
doubt, he was more than willing to do this, more than willing to believe that
matters had drifted somehow into other hands than his, and that the upshot,
regrettable, no doubt, in one sense, but in another not altogether unwelcome,
was beyond his control. It is to-day, as of old, that false conscience
constantly endeavours to divest itself of responsibility for what has been done
through others, or for what others had been allowed by us to do. This is the origin of that saying,
“Corporations have no conscience.” The fact is that every individual member of
a corporation gets too easily into the habit of thinking that all, or some of
the other members are really answerable for the acts of tim whole, and that
each merely acquiesces in what the others decide or do. But then, if everybody
thinks this, where, meanwhile, does the real responsibility reside?--it must be
somewhere, it cannot evaporate altogether. In very large bodies of men acting
together, the responsibility is divided into very small portions of unequal magnitude;
this is the case with nations and with churches, but responsibility is not
destroyed by being thus distributed; while, on the other hand- the smaller the
corporation the greater the responsibility of each one of its members. Thus the
responsibility of each member of the British legislature for the well-being of
the country is vastly greater than that of each Englishman who possesses a
vote, and that of each member of the Cabinet is vastly greater than that of
each member of Parliament. Ahab and Jezebel were at this time, practically
speaking, the governing corporation in Israel, but Ahab could not shift his
responsibility on Jezebel.
3. And the third screen which would have blinded Ahab to the real
state of the case was the perfection of the legal form which had characterised
the proceedings. When Jezebel wrote to the magistrates of Jezreel she had been
very careful indeed about legal propriety. She wrote in the “king’s name;” she
signed the letter with the king’s seal, which would have borne the king’s
signature, and this, when stamped on the writing, made the actual signature
unnecessary. Thus the letter had nothing less than the character of a royal
command, and was addressed to the persons at Jezreel with whom the
administration of justice properly lay--the elders and notables, the local
magistracy. Law is a great and sacred thing. It is nothing less than a shadow
upon earth of the justice of God. The forms which surround it, the rules which
give it the dignity and honour which belong to its representatives, are the
outworks of a thing itself entitled to our reverence. But when the machinery of
law is tampered with, as was, no doubt, the case by Jezebel, when a false
witness or a biased judge contributes to a result which, if legal, is not also
moral, then law is like an engine off the rails--its remaining force is the
exact measure of its capacity for mischief and for wrong, then, indeed, if
ever, Summum jus, summa injuria. Naboth’s trial and execution was, in
truth, one of the earliest recorded samples in the world’s history of that
dreadful outrage against God and man--a judicial murder. When the sword of justice
smites down innocence and becomes the instrument of crime, the whole spirit and
drift of law is abandoned, its language and its usages survive, and, as in
Ahab’s case, they form a screen between a guilty conscience and the stern
reality. Of the authors and abettors of such deeds as this, it was said in an
earlier age, “They will not be learned nor understand, but walk on still in
darkness: all the foundations of the earth are out of course.” The foundations
are out of course! Yes, that is the effect bad law makes in many a case where
consciences, the deepest and most precious things in the moral and social life
of man, are ruined. Propriety of outward form in the condemnation of Naboth is
the measure of the miserable self-deceit of Ahab.
1. Let us carry away two lessons, if no more. The first to keep all
forms of desire well under control--under the control of conscience illuminated
by principle, illuminated by faith. Some measure of desire is necessary for
exertion; but the fewer wants we have the freer men we are, and the freer we are the happier we
are. The one direction in which desire may be safely unchecked is heavenward.
Safety lies in taking and keeping it well in hand, and in doing this betimes.
2. And, secondly, for us Christians the event or the man who
discovers us to ourselves should be held to be not our enemy, but our friend. (Canon
Liddon, D. D.)
Verse 25
But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work
wickedness in the sight of the Lord.
Ahab
I. An illustration
of the depths of human depravity.
1. Ahab’s pre-eminence in sin (1 Kings 16:30). There had been many
instances of wickedness decked with the robes of royalty; but there was none
like Ahab.
2. Ahab’s bargain with hell. He stands before us as a self-sold slave
of the devil. Ahab sold himself! What a bargain!
3. The daring character of Ahab’s wickedness. “In the sight of the
Lord.” Most strive to work wickedness under the covert of darkness--under the
shades of night, or wearing
the hypocrite’s mask. Not so Ahab.
II. An evidence of
the unmanly servility of evil. “Whom Jezebel his wife stirred up.” This Syrian
princess, whom Ahab had married, was a woman of the most consummate subtlety,
duplicity, and cruelty.
III. A proof of the
magnitude of the divine mercy. Great was the long-suffering of God in
permitting Ahab to reign so long (2 Peter 3:9). Great, too, was His
mercy in regarding the humiliation of this guilty man (1 Kings 21:29), i.e. the
destruction of his posterity (Psalms 86:15). “God gives no repulse”
(says Bengel), “when He gives good things: He neither upbraids us with our past
folly and unworthiness, nor with future abuse of His goodness.”
IV. The evanescent
nature of merely selfish penitence. Ahab appeared by his fasting and
humiliation to return to God; but his goodness proved “like the morning cloud.”
He soon cast off the yoke of the Divine authority, and “returned to his
wallowing in the mire.” In this he is the type of multitudes, who in their
affliction say, “Come, and let us return unto the Lord”; but bring forth no “fruits
meet for repentance.” (Patrick Morrison.)
Verse 27
And it came to pass, when Ahab heard those words, that he rent his
clothes.
Ahab’s repentance
I. How Ahab’s repentance
was called forth. A threefold crime is here laid to the charge of the King of
Israel: that he had provoked God to anger--that he had made Israel to sin--and
that he had sold himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord. It was
for this cause that the sword of the Almighty had been whetted for the
destruction of himself and his house. It is a common proverb that “Every man
has his price”; that there is something for which every one will be found
willing to sell himself. These are words of very awful import, and yet they are
but too true concerning every natural man. The children of this world, proud as
they are of themselves, may always be bought with one temptation or another:
honours, profits, pleasures of one class or another, will induce them to debase
themselves more and more. The idol to which Ahab sacrificed was his affection
for Jezebel. His own will, his honour, his peace of conscience, the salvation
of his soul, the favour of God--all that he had or hoped for, was laid at this
idol’s feet. Would that he were singular in such infatuation; or only one of a
few! But alas, it is common in every age. Let any one ask himself, why he is an
unbeliever; why he despises the people of God; why he serves the world and the
devil, and endeavours to stifle every good conviction. What an accursed
alliance, though it be under the sacred name of friendship itself, must that
be, which is connected with enmity against God!
II. What kind of
repentance it was. This mourning of the King of Samaria was real as far as it
went. The wretched outward dress in which he appeared was a true expression of
his inward temper and state of mind. Still, much was wanting in his repentance
to render it a repentance unto life and salvation. It was not a mourning like that of the woman
that was a sinner at the feet of Jesus, like that of the thief on the cross, or
that of the poor publican. Ahab’s repentance was utterly destitute of love; and
it is love which hallows all our acts and deeds, and give them a real value.
Now, when a sinner has, with heartfelt seriousness, pronounced sentence against
himself before the throne of God, he has begun to die to the law. For here is
an end of his supposed self-righteousness, and of his own supposed ability. But
that true repentance, which the Scripture calls a godly sorrow, and a
repentance which needeth not to be repented of, does not, as yet necessarily exist.
This is but, as it were, dying before the Divine holiness; as we see was the
case of St. Paul, in Romans 7:1-25,: “When the commandment
came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life,
I found to be
unto death.” Now, this glorious and happy death comes by “the law of the Spirit
of life in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:2). And this law is no other
than the Gospel; whereby alone it is that true, divine, and saving repentance
is called forth.
III. What were its
consequences. Here was a delay of execution; but no revocation of the sentence.
The curse still rested upon Ahab and his house. Yet even this respect shown to
a repentance which had so little intrinsic worth, this exemption of Ahab from
personally experiencing those storms which impended over his house, was an instance of great
condescension and favour. But why, it may be asked, if Ahab’s humiliation was
so little worth, was any Divine regard shown towards 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 favour. Just as a novice in any art
or trade may be cheered by words of encouragement at the first favourable
attempt which he makes, however important it may be; so the exemption which the
Lord made in Ahab’s favour on 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. (F.
W. Krummacher, D. D.)
Repentance of Ahab
I. A person whose
heart is unchanged, and who is totally destitute of real piety, may perform
many outward religious duties, and have inward sentiments and affections,
somewhat resembling the Christian graces.
II. How powerful is
the word of God, which can humble the haughtiest oppressors, and make the most
hardened of mortals tremble.
III. Sin is always
succeeded by sorrow and remorse. (H. Kollock, D. D.)
Ahab
In the context we have three subjects worthy of attention.
1. A fiendishly greedy soul,
2. A truly heroic soul.
3. A morally alarmed soul. In this incident we discover three things.
I. The
worthlessness of a partial reformation.
II. The mighty
force of Divine truth.
III. The
self-frustrating power of sin. (Homilist.)
Ahab’s sin and repentance
There is much in this old chronicle of sin and doom which it may
profit us to ponder. Let me try to bring out of it some present-day lessons of warning and
admonition.
I. Happiness
consists, not in having, but in being. How many even to-day are letting their
lives be darkened because some Naboth denies them a vineyard, or some Mordecai
will not salute them! They forget that, even if they had the things which they
so long for, happiness would be as far from them as ever, and some new object
would take the place of their old grievance. They do lack one thing. But that
one thing is not external to them, but within them. They lack a new heart, and
until they get that they can have no abiding satisfaction. “Whosoever drinketh
of this water shall thirst again.”
II. The evil of
unhallowed alliances. Dazzled with the glitter of a fortune, or the glare of an
exalted position, a young person enters into the sacred alliance of matrimony
with one who has no moral stability or Christian excellence, and the issue is
certain misery, with the probable addition of crime and disaster.
III. The perversion
which an evil heart makes of religious knowledge. The Spaniards have a proverb
somewhat to this effect, “When the serpent straightens himself, it is that he
may go into his hole.” So when the unscrupulous suddenly manifest some
punctilious regard for legal forms or for religious observances, you may be
sure that they are after mischief. Some of the blackest crimes that have ever
been committed have been perpetrated through the forms of law, or under the
colour of religion. Is it not true that “the heart is deceitful above all
things, and desperately wicked”? and are we forcibly impressed with the fact
that no one is so daringly defiant in wickedness as he who knows the truth and
disregards it? Mere knowledge never yet saved any one from ruin; for, if the
heart be perverted, everything that enters the head is only made subservient to
its iniquity. Your educated villains are all the more dangerous because of their
education; and among godless men they are the most to be dreaded who have an
intelligent acquaintance with the Word of God.
IV. The price which
we have to pay for sin. What weighty words are these of Elijah to Ahab, “Thou
hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord”! 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. Consider
it well.
V. The curse which
attends ill-gotten gains. The gains of ungodliness are weighted with the curse
of God; and, sooner or later, that will be made apparent. For 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, with the special mission to
declare to him the sort of punishment which shall overtake 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.”
VI. The tenderness
of God toward the penitent. Ahab was filled with bitter regret at what had been
done, and God, who will not break the bruised reed or quench the smoking flax,
said that the evil should not come in his day. If God were so considerate of
Ahab, the idolater, the murderer, the thief, will He not regard thee, O thou
tearful one! who art bemoaning the number and aggravation of thy sins? Go,
then, to Him; and let this be thine encouragement. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
Ahab’s repentance, and punishment deferred
I. The repentance
of Ahab was awakened by the fearful prediction of coming vengeance, which
Elijah delivered at the moment when he had taken possession of Naboth’s
vineyard. Mark the power of the Divine word. Is it not “like as a fire, saith
the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces”? In the moment of
Ahab’s humiliation, his remorse was sincere; i.e., his conscience was
roused, his fears excited, his sense of God’s justice real, and his desire for
pardon unfeigned.
II. Ahab’s
punishment was suspended in his own days. “Because he humbleth himself before
Me, I will not bring the evil in his days.” How can this be? It is possible
that the God of mercy should show mercy; and that His mercy should rejoice
against judgment. The history of our own lives, still spared and still
prolonged, notwithstanding our manifold transgressions, is an evidence of this
certain truth. And what is the practical result, arising from this combined
view of God’s mercy and truth? Assuredly, it will cause the contrite to hope,
and the careless to fear. The one will recognise, in the sorest visitations
that befall him, the hand of a gracious Father who chastens that He may bless;
and whose afflictions are strewed upon the path of life, like the arrows of
Jonathan before David, not for destruction, but for warning. The other will as
surely perceive, that God’s word shall not return unto him void; and, that, if
it work not his conversion, it must be his condemnation. The threatenings which
are revealed, that the sinner may repent, will remain, if he do not repent, to
proclaim his fall.
III. The threatened
evil, which was suspended in the days of Ahab, should, in his son’s days, be
brought upon his house. And here we cannot but call to mind the fact, that,
whatever be the difficulties, connected with the view which is here presented
to us, of God’s moral government, or however weakly we may succeed in
explaining them; it is, still, the government of God, of Him who is righteous
in all His ways, and holy in all His works. The matter of fact, in the history
before us, came to pass, as it is here predicted. Evil was brought upon Ahab’s
house, in his son’s days Ahaziah, his first successor, soon perished. The next,
Jehoram, fell by the arm of Jehu, in the very portion of Naboth’s field. The
seventy sons in Jezreel, were also slain, in obedience to the commands of Jehu,
which he sent to the elders of that city; and, last of all, the same anointed
captain, “slew all that remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, and all his
great men, and all his kinsfolk, and his priests, until he left him none
remaining.” Now, if we examine the sacred narrative which relates these events,
we shall find that all these descendants of Ahab walked in his evil ways, and
wrought evil in the sight of the Lord. It was not the innocent, then, suffering
for the guilty; but the guilty reaping the harvest of his own guilt. And since
“known unto God are all his works before the beginning of the world,” the whole
of this train of wickedness was known likewise,--itself, its causes, and its
consequences,--that long process stretching out, from year to year, and from
generation to generation,--whose separate and disjointed portions, only, can be
discerned by moral intellect,--but the whole of which was, alike, and at the
same moment, present to the Eternal Mind. It is difficult for us, in forming
our estimate of actions, to preserve this distinction between the occasion
which leads to an event, and its immediate effective cause; but a distinction
there is, and must be remembered. When a criminal is convicted at the tribunal
of an earthly judge, the law, and they who administer it, are the instrumental
causes of inflicting the sentence; but the crime committed is the immediate
cause which deserves it. We do not confound these things, in our estimate of
the dealings between man and man: let us not confound them, therefore, when we
are contemplating the revealed dispensations of God to man. But may we not be
permitted, in some degree, to trace the course of the Divine counsels, in the
present instance? The punishment of Ahab’s descendants, we know to have been
inflicted under a theocracy, which employed temporal rewards, and temporal
punishments, as the instruments of its government. Now, what instrument could
be more powerful, in such a case, than the prospect of misery, about to fall
upon the children of the sinner, as well as upon himself? His own licentious
and hardened passions might make a man insensible to the fear of temporal evil
befalling himself; but, when he was assured, as he could not fail to be, by the
moral law of Moses, that Divine wrath would visit his iniquity, upon his
“children, unto the third and fourth generation,” every instinctive feeling of
parental kindness and affection would be enlisted on the side of duty, and act as a restraint upon
the unruly will. (J. S. M. Anderson, M. A.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》