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Thursday, February 13, 2025 - 10:27 AM

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA FOR 30+ YRS

First Published & Printed in 1994

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF
UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA FOR OVER 30 YEARS!

May the Powerful Take the Land of the Weak?

King Ahab of Israel Coin
Coin image of King Ahab of Israel, Reigned 874 to 853 BC.

Elijah was one of the greatest prophets in Judeo-Christian Scripture. He arrived in Biblical history during the reign of Ahab (874-853 BC) over the northern Kingdom of Israel, which had split from the Kingdom of Judah after the death of Solomon in 930 BC. Ahab, whose capital was in Samaria, was the seventh king of Israel and is described in 1 Kings 16: 30-33 as being by far the most wicked and ungodly of the seven.

Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him.He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him.He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to arouse the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than did all the kings of Israel before him.”

Jeroboam, the first king of Israel, disregarded God’s commands and designed a religion that served his own interests. He also appointed priests who were not appointed by God and changed the worship ordinances given to Moses by God. Moreover, he set up shrines to golden calves and bulls in high places.

Jezebel was a Phoenician (Sidonian) princess, daughter of Ethbaal I, King of Tyre and Sidon, who became the wife and queen of Ahab. She persuaded Ahab to introduce the Phoenician worship of Baal and Asherah in Israel and to set up shrines to them. She was very strong-willed and deceptive and usually got what she wanted by whatever means. This included having anyone who opposed her killed. Most of the Prophets of God in Israel were killed at her command. She has become symbolic of a wicked woman, especially one who promotes destructive heresies leading to moral compromise and sexual immorality.

Baal was a man-devised Canaanite distortion of God with many local (and modern) variations. Baal was a fertility god, a sun-god, a storm-god, a various god, and believed to be a powerful god, but he was not the real God of Moses and Old Testament Scripture. The faithful Jews of Ahab’s time rightly believed that Baal was an outrageous distortion of God. Asherah was a Canaanite goddess of fertility, love, war, protection, and the moon, and mother of many gods. An Asherah pole was evidentially a wooden pole or stylized tree placed in areas of pagan worship, often near Baal shrines and decorated in silver and gold.   

Little is known of Elijah’s early life or family. He is called a Tishbite, but we are not sure whether that means he was from the town of Tishbe in Gilead or that it means that he was a sojourner or truth-teller. At the peak of Ahab’s reign and Israel’s most apostate and lowest spiritual point, Elijah emerges from Israel’s surviving faithful prophets to confront Ahab about his ungodly apostasy and tyrannical abuse of power as King of Israel.

Several things attest to the preeminence of Elijah as a Prophet. Elijah comes to confront evil and defeats it at Israel’s most degraded apostasy and lowest spiritual point. But far more important, Elijah and Moses were the two prophets who appeared at the Transfiguration of Jesus in Matthew 17: 1-3:

“After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.  There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.  Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.”

In Matthew 17: 11-13 Jesus links the spirit and mission of Elijah to John the Baptist.

Elijah was used by God in 16 miracles, including stopping rain until Ahab listened to him,  restoring the life of a child, multiplying food supplies, dividing the Jordan River, being fed by ravens and angels, bringing fire down from God in a contest with the prophets of Baal to prove to the people that the “Lord is God,” and restoring rain. In the process, 450 prophets of Baal were executed. God also used fire to protect Elijah from arrest. Nevertheless, Elijah was subject to fear of Jezebel, discouragement, and depression. Following  the end of Elijah’s divine mission and departure, in which he was carried away by Chariots of Fire, his assistant, Elisha became a prophet and was used by God for 32 divine miracles.

The lesson of this article, however, deals with Ahab’s tyranny and Jezebel’s devious murder of a courageous opponent of unlawful confiscation of land and property.

In 1 Kings 21, we learn that Ahab desired the vineyard of a faithful Jew, Naboth, which was near Ahab’s palace. Ahab offered to pay a fair price for it or give him a better vineyard.

But Naboth replied, “The Lord forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my ancestors.”

The following is an abbreviated summary of 1 Kings 21: 4-28:

Ahab was so disappointed that he went home and sulked and refused to eat. But Jezebel, his wife, scolded him for not exercising his absolute power as King of Israel. She told him to cheer up, because she would get him Naboth’s vineyard.

So she wrote letters in Ahab’s name, placed his seal on them, and sent them to the elders and nobles who lived in Naboth’s city with him.  In those letters she wrote:

“Proclaim a day of fasting and seat Naboth in a prominent place among the people. But seat two scoundrels opposite him and have them bring charges that he has cursed both God and the king. Then take him out and stone him to death.”

So the elders and nobles who lived in Naboth’s city did as Jezebel directed in the letters she had written to them.They proclaimed a fast and seated Naboth in a prominent place among the people. Then two scoundrels came and sat opposite him and brought charges against Naboth before the people, saying, “Naboth has cursed both God and the king.” So they took him outside the city and stoned him to death. Then they sent word to Jezebel: “Naboth has been stoned to death.”

As soon as Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned to death, she told Ahab to take possession of the vineyard Naboth refused to sell him. Ahab immediately went down to take possession of Naboth’s vineyard.

Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah, instructing him to  find Ahab king of Israel and ruler of Samaria, who is now in Naboth’s vineyard to take possession of it.  “Say to him, ‘This is what the Lord says: Have you not murdered a man and seized his property?’ Then say to him, ‘This is what the Lord says: In the place [Jezreel] where dogs licked up Naboth’s blood, dogs will lick up your blood—yes, yours!”

 Ahab said to Elijah, “So you have found me, my enemy!” Ahab had called Elijah “the enemy of Israel” when they first met.

“I have found you,” he answered, “because you have sold yourself to do evil in the eyes of the Lord. He says, ‘I am going to bring disaster on you…I will wipe out your descendants’ and cut off all support for you, ‘because you have aroused my anger and have caused Israel to sin.” (1 Kings 21: 20-23)

And also concerning Jezebel, the Lord said: ‘Dogs will devour Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel.’

 There had never been anyone like Ahab who sold himself to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, urged on by Jezebel his wife.  He behaved in the vilest manner by going after idols, like the Amorites the Lord drove out before Israel.

When Ahab heard these words, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and fasted. He lay in sackcloth and went around meekly.

Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah “Have you noticed how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself, I will not bring this disaster in his day, but I will bring it on his house in the days of his son.”

The rest of the story

Israel was at peace for about three years, but false prophets agreed with him to retake lands occupied by the Syrians. He was advised differently by a godly prophet, Micaiah, and Judah’s King Jehoshaphat, who nonetheless allied with Ahab against the Syrians.  Before the battle, the Syrian king had ordered his chariot commanders to seek and kill only Ahab, who was hit by a Syrian arrow between his breastplates and died the next day in 853 BC. He was seceded by his son, Ahaziah, who, like his mother, Jezebel, was a servant of Baal, but who died soon after in 852 BC. He was seceded by his brother, Jehoram (or Joram) also a son of Ahab and Jezebel, who ruled until 841 BC. Jehoram was not a servant of Baal but practiced the sins of Jeroboam, designing his own self-serving version of Judaic apostacy. Jehoram once tried to behead the Prophet Elisha. During a war with the Syrians, Elisha secretly had Jehoram’s general, Jehu, anointed as king.

As prophesized (1 Kings 21:21), Jehoram and his mother, Jezebel, had become despised and had lost the support of every man, free or slave, in Israel. Jehu was strongly supported by his troops when they learned of his anointing. In this anointment, Jehu was called to avenge the stoning death of Naboth in Jezreel. Jehu immediately moved to overthrow Jehoram. He and his chariot troops found Jehoram in Jezreel recovering from a battle wound. Jehoram came out to meet them in his chariot but quickly realized the situation by Jehu’s condemnation of Jezebel as a witch and tried to flee, but Jehu put an arrow through his back, killing him. Jehu then declared himself king and headed to Jezreel to eliminate Jezebel as a source of evil and obstacle to his rule.  

When Jezebel heard about it, she put on eye makeup, arranged her hair, and looked out a high window in arrogant defiance. However, she found no support from her own eunuchs, and two of them responded to Jehu by throwing her down, where she was trampled by horses (2 Kings 9:30-33). Jehu then took time to eat and drink and requested that Jezebel be buried, because she was the daughter of a king. But before this could be done, dogs had already consumed her body and lapped up her blood, just as Elijah had prophesized.

Jehu then had all the sons of Jehoram and close friends, priests, and male descendants of Ahab killed. Later he had all the followers of Baal killed and all the shrines and symbols of Baal and Asherah destroyed. He reigned another 28 years but came into his own judgement at that time.

So what is the point of this blood-soaked history of the contrived judicial murder of Naboth for his land and God’s breath-taking providential justice to rid Israel of false gods and their corrupted teachings and evil consequences.  

There is certainly more than one point that can be made from this excerpt of God’s Word and truth. The principles here apply to many levels of human conduct from family to village to great nations.

At the highest government level, it is a warning against arrogant imperialism. It is natural and necessary that nations need to be strong in order to be secure. It is natural that great nations remain strong to remain secure. There is no sin in being number one in measures of greatness, fairly and peacefully achieved. This includes national security and defense. Given a proper moral compass, the stronger a nation is, the more secure it is. Neither categorical pacifism nor isolationism is supported by Scripture. However, fighting wars to maintain hegemony over other nations is generally unsupportable, especially if it involves unfair acquisition or exploitation of resources. While we should vigorously preserve the Judeo-Christian foundations of our own culture, we need to avoid cultural imperialism.

In plain words, America should be great without being a bully. Power does not make right. We must guard against the distorted view of “American Exceptionalism” that justifies unprovoked aggression, imperialism, and dishonesty. Our Foreign Policies should be based on honesty and whenever possible, benevolent cooperation.  

 

Mike ScruggsMike Scruggs is the author of two books: The Un-Civil War: Shattering the Historical Myths; and Lessons from the Vietnam War: Truths the Media Never Told You, and over 600 articles on military history, national security, intelligent design, genealogical genetics, immigration, current political affairs, Islam, and the Middle East.

He holds a BS degree from the University of Georgia and an MBA from Stanford University. A former USAF intelligence officer and Air Commando, he is a decorated combat veteran of the Vietnam War, and holds the Distinguished Flying Cross, Purple Heart, and Air Medal. He is a retired First Vice President for a major national financial services firm and former Chairman of the Board of a classical Christian school.

Click the website below to order books. http://www.universalmediainc.org/books.htm.