Chapter 21
The story of Naboth's fine vineyard in Jezreel, Ahab's desire for it, and Jezebel's acquisition of it. Jezebel has two liars accuse Naboth of cursing God and the King. So they stone him. His vineyard is now up for grabs, and who will deny it to such a king? Once Jezebel has done the dirty work, Ahab is only too glad to go and take possession of the vineyard.
2021 - 10 And set two worthless men opposite him, and let them bring a charge against him, saying, 'You have cursed God and the king.' Then take him out and stone him to death." [1Ki 21:10 ESV]Jezebel launches a conspiracy to murder for money. She recruits people in high places who are just as corrupt as she is to help her. Her helpers recruit two low-lifes - "worthless men" - to tell the same lie. This made the accusations legal, even though they were lies. The world sometimes works this way. Naboth ends up stoned like a common criminal though none of the accusations was true. The charges came from well-known liars, who were supported by corrupt leading citizens at the behest of the government itself...though Jezebel usurped the authority of the king to bring it all about. And when it was done, the authority usurped did not "lay down the law", but accepted the spoils of murder.
Possible FB post, about the consequences of corruption in high places.
Now God sends Elijah to pronounce the end of Ahab. Where the dogs licked up Naboth's blood, they will also lick up the blood of Ahab. Further, every male, bond or free, will be cut off from Ahab, like the curses on Jeroboam and Baasha. Jezebel's body is also to be eaten by dogs within the city itself.
(Verses 25 and 26 are in parentheses. This sometimes indicates that they were not in the original, or that there is some doubt about whether they were. Could be inserted. In any case, they do nothing to change the story.)
Ahab repents of his sins, so God tells Elijah that the curse on Ahab's house will be delayed until the days of his son. Then disaster will strike. This is a hard thing to understand for me. God did this same thing with Solomon, who's kingdom wasn't split until after his death. And it was done with Jeroboam, who died at a ripe old age, and only then were all his children killed. Can't remember for sure about Baasha. But how is it that those who do the wrong live out their lives, and then those who were no part of it receive the punishment? If the repentance is genuine, the perpetrators may even wind up in heaven, never having paid for their sins? The only explanation is that Jesus' blood covered even sins like this, and that God's grace is available to all who repent, no matter their crimes. But in the Bible, payment is made, through the perfect sacrifice. Atonement is made. Not so in the Qur'an. And it is also true that each man's sin (including the sons of Ahab) are enough to condemn him.
2022 - The explanation above doesn't fly. If Ahab is in heaven because the blood of Jesus covered his sins and he repented, and if the son shall not suffer for the sins of the father, then why do the children of Ahab all die? Perhaps a better explanation is that sin can be forgiven, but the consequences still exist. The consequences of such intense and, for a very long time, unrepented sin, must build up a sort of momentum that cannot be turned back. God's line of forbearance was crossed, consequences were pronounced. These cannot be turned back. But God's offer of salvation to individuals is available until their deaths. Only then is salvation - and forgiveness by the blood of Jesus - off the table. This is a better way to look at it...and it is highly unlikely that Ahab's sons were a lot better men than he was...yet if they were, each one individually could be saved. They would have known that God had pronounced this curse, which would have allowed them a chance to repent and fall down before God prior to their fate. Their premature deaths were certain. Their location in eternity was not. That was still up to them.
This is still so difficult to embrace. Perhaps here too we see the result of original sin in removing the link between cause and effect. Some things just become inexplicable, because that link has been removed. The world is just not the perfect causal place that it was created to be.
2023 - In 1Kngs 22:51-53 we get a description of the kind of man the son of Ahab turned out to be. He was just like his father. He worshiped Baal. He provoked God to anger. It is quite likely that all the sons of Ahab would behave so. Why wouldn't they? Because the sins of the father's, as we know, continue to the third or fourth generation. Ahab's example to his sons was always one of defying God and worshiping false gods. When God pronounced this curse on the house of Ahab in the first place, He already knew what kind of men Ahab's sons would be...and that if they survived, the generation after them would continue provoking God by pushing their own evil to the limits. So Ahab repented...and his sons earned the punishment that they received. Just like that case earlier, where the one son, whom God liked, died young as his mother got back to town, and was buried properly, but all the rest, whom God knew would be just like their father in worshiping other gods, grew up - a little or a lot - and died violently and were eaten either by birds or dogs. They died without honors, they died as the lowest of the low, with no one even to bury them, not because of their father, but because they were just like their father. When God decides these things, he knows already what kind of men these would have been.
2024 - The 2023 note is a comfort...but I am not sure it is 100% right. It is also true that sometimes, good people fall with the bad, because the bad just had to go - either as fulfillment of prophecy or because their sins earned it. Consequences happen, and sometimes we are just standing too close to escape them, even though we ourselves are perhaps no part of them. This was true when Israel fell - we know there were still 7000, we know that many of them went into captivity - just because they were thee. Same with Neb later. He took them captive, the good and the bad. All lost their homes and their freedom because of the accumulated sin of the people.
First notes, 8/24/18
God can and will use bad people to accomplish His ends. He let's Ahab win two battles against Ben-Hadad. But then he enters into a peace treaty with Ben-Hadad, without consulting God. God had appointed Ben-Hadad to destruction, Ahab lets him go. So God condemns Ahab to death in Ben-Hadad's place.
Jezebel commits murder to get Ahab a vineyard he wants, angering God. For this sin, and for everything else he's done, God condemns Ahab and Jezebel, and will wipe out all of Ahab's descendants as he did Jeroboam's and Baasha's. Beasts will eat their bodies. But Ahab repents, so God decides to wait before carrying out His wrath, and does after Ahab has died and his son is king.
I do not understand this. But God does.
David also committed murder, repented, his son by Bathsheba died as punishment.
Later...Remember that forgiveness of sin does not release you from the consequences of sin.