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From: 1 Kings 21:17-29
Naboth’s Vineyard, a further intervention by Elijah (Continuation)
[20] Ahab said to Elijah, “Have you found me, O my enemy?” He answered, “I
have found you, because you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of
the Lord. [21] Behold, I will bring evil upon you; I will utterly sweep you away, and
will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel; [22] and I will make your
house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha
the son of Ahijah, for the anger to which you have provoked me, and because you
have made Israel to sin. [23] And of Jezebel the Lord also said, ‘The dogs shall
eat Jezebel within the bounds of Jezreel.’ [24] Any on belonging to Ahab who dies
in the city the dogs shall eat; and any one of his who dies in the open country the
birds of the air shall eat.”
[25] (There was none who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the Lord
like Ahab, whom Jezebel his wife incited. [26] He did very abominably in going af-
ter idols, as the Amorites had done, whom the Lord cast out before the people of
Israel.)
[27] And when Ahab heard those words, he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth
upon his flesh, and fasted and lay in sackcloth, and went about dejectedly. [28]
And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, [29] “Have you seen
how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself be-
fore me, I will not bring the evil in his days; but in his son’s days I will bring the
evil upon his house.”
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Commentary:
21:17-24. Having defended belief in the true God against idolaters, Elijah now de-
fends human rights in the name of God himself. He acts very much in the same
style as Nathan did towards David when the latter had someone murdered to dis-
guise his affair with Bathsheba (cf. 2 Sam 12). Because Ahab allowed injustice
to be done, he is judged to have been as guilty as Jezebel. The first punishment
that the prophet announces is in line with the law of vengeance (v. 19; Ex 21:23-
25), and we see it applied in 22:38. But then he changes his focus and announ-
ces that Ahab’s whole dynasty is going to pay for his transgression (vv. 21-22).
Jezebel, being a foreigner and evil in the extreme, dies a horrible death (in 2
Kings 9:30-37).
21:25-28. Despite his reprehensible conduct (summed up here in an aside; vv.
25-26), Ahab gives evidence of his repentance and is rewarded for it: his son will
be allowed to succeed him (v. 28).
The figure of Ahab, a sad and humbled king, contrasts with that of Naboth, only
a vassal, yet a happy man. That is how St Ambrose of Milan sees them in his
book commenting on the passage – on Naboth. The same saint says elsewhere,
“Naboth was happy, even when he was [being] stoned by the rich man, for al-
though he was poor and weak in comparison to the powerful king, he was made
rich in loyal feeling and piety by not accepting the king’s money in exchange for
the vineyard that belonged to his family; and because he defended the rights of
his people at the cost of his own life, his actions were irreproachable. Ahab, on
the other hand, was a sinner – even in his own estimation – because he had sen-
tenced a poor man to death in order to take control of the vineyard” (De officiis, 2,
5, 17). In Naboth, too, we can see a figure of Christ, who was crucified after false
witness was laid against him, yet he was the Son of God, the Lord of the vine-
yard, that is, Israel (cf. Mt 21:23).
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.