1 Kings 20-22
These are the last chapters in the wretched life of King Ahab, as well as the last chapters of 1 Kings. Reading them, I find my opinion of this complex monarch has moderated somewhat. Ahab is weak, moody, greedy, fearful and evil, no doubt, but nothing near to Jezebel’s jaded wickedness. She seems to have been his catalyst for corruption from the beginning.
It was Jezebel who backed the Baal prophets and killed the prophets of the Lord (1 Kings 18:13); it was she that threatened Elijah (1 Kings 19:1-3); and it was she that arranged the cold-blooded murder of Naboth, when Ahab pouted over his refusal to sell him his vineyard (1 Kings 19). We shall see in 2 Kings if Elijah’s gruesome prophesy about Jezebel comes to pass (1 Kings 21:23).
Ahab, by contrast, wages a successful God-led war against the bullying Ben-hadad of Syria. His only sin was showing mercy to the Syrian king, when God had decreed his destruction. After Jezebel had finagled Naboth’s vineyard for Ahab, Elijah came to prophesy against them. In the face of this condemnation, Ahab actually humbled himself in a sort of “poor me” repentance. When the young King Jehoshaphat of Judah comes north to join forces with Ahab, he gets Ahab to consult a prophet of the Lord before going into battle with the Syrians.
Sadly, when he gets a negative prophecy, Ahab treats this prophet, Micaiah, with a strange cruelty. In the end, Ahab goads Jehoshaphat into wearing his royal robes into battle, while Ahab fearfully fights in disguise. Despite his best efforts to protect himself, Ahab is mortally wounded. Too bad, if it weren’t for Jezebel, Ahab might have had a chance.
Tomorrow, Elijah passes the “mantel” to Elisha.
Until then,
Pastor Gary
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