“And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.” (Rev. 5:10)
In the Old Testament books of Kings and Chronicles, the lives of more than 40 kings were divinely sketched for us and included as part of God’s permanent record. Paul suggests that these Old Testament passages afford us examples from which we should learn. Good kings are to be studied for their goodness, and those characteristics which made them good should be mimicked. Bad kings should be studied for their badness, and that which made them bad should be avoided in the lives of those who are said to be “kings and priests” unto our God.
In this installment, the subject of our study is the eighth king of Israel.
He was an unfit king. Of few men in history, Biblical or secular, can it be said that not one good thing is known of them. Most men who leave marred records have some goodness that commends them. Few are so diabolical, so depraved that no bright spot illumines the total story of their lives. But of such a man we are about to speak. From the beginning of his reign to the last day of his life, his was a wretched record. Like other infamous names—Haman, Judas, Mussolini, Hitler—his name is spoken with distaste.
But we should not neglect to pause and review his life, praying as we do that God in His grace will help us to avoid the satanic snares into which he fell.
I introduce to you King Ahab, wicked above all the kings of Israel that preceded him. His wickedness is seen in whom He hunted, heeded, and hated.
• Whom he hunted
→ Ahab was told by Elijah that there would not be dew nor rain for years. Following this prophecy, God instructed Elijah to hide by the brook Cherith, where he was fed by ravens and drank of the brook until it dried up. (I Kings 17:1-7)
As Ahab and the prophet Obadiah were searching for rain, Obadiah came upon Elijah, whereupon Elijah instructed Obadiah to go tell Ahab that he had found Elijah and to tell him where he was. Obadiah at first protested with these words: “As the Lord thy God liveth, there is no nation or kingdom, whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee.” (I Kings 18:10)
→ Elijah was a man of God who spoke the truth. (I Ki. 17:24) He was also a prophet who fought the Devil and his false prophets. (I Ki. 18:19ff.) Ahab wanted to find Elijah for sinister purposes, hunting him in every nation and kingdom; but the man of God was indestructible—for God was not finished with him yet.
• Whom he heeded (a devilish woman)
→ When Ahab told his wife Jezebel that Elijah had confronted the people and false prophets, slaying 450 of the prophets of Baal, Jezebel vowed to hunt him down and do to Elijah what Elijah had done to the false prophets. The hunt was on, and Elijah, a man of God though yet with feet of clay, “went (ran) for his life,” first a day’s journey, then 40 more days. (I Ki. 19:1ff)
→ Ahab also heeded Jezebel’s advice about wickedly getting possession of his neighbor Naboth’s vineyard. (I Ki. 21:1ff.) The perverse plot ended in the murder of Naboth, and Elijah announced to Ahab, “thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord.” (I Ki. 21:20) The judgment God promised would obliterate the posterity of the wicked king of Israel.
• Whom he hated (I Kings 22)
→ Strangely, Jehoshaphat, a good king of Judah, agreed to team up in battle with Ahab when Syria came up to war against Ahab and Israel. All the false prophets that Ahab had surrounded himself with assured the kings that victory awaited them. Jehoshaphat was not fully convinced, though, and he wanted to hear from one more prophet, some “prophet of the Lord,” maybe a dissenting opinion. Ahab then acquiesced and called for Micaiah to be fetched, telling Jehoshaphat that he hated Micaiah, “for he doth not prophesy good concerning me but evil.” (I Ki. 22:8) Micaiah was brought and, after a dramatic prelude, prophesied the truth that God was not in the plan the two kings had concocted in plotting aggression against Syria. For his honesty and faithfulness to God, Micaiah was assigned by Ahab to prison, where he was to be fed with “bread of affliction.” (I Ki. 22:27)
→ Ahab’s awful end is recorded in the last chapter of I Kings, where one reads that the two kings, deaf to God’s truth, went to battle with a plan to foil the king of Syria; but “a certain man drew a bow at a venture, and smote the king of Israel between the joints of the harness.” (I Ki. 22:34) The last chapter of wicked king Ahab’s life is found in just two sentences: “So the king died, and was brought to Samaria. And one washed the chariot in the pool of Samaria; and dogs licked up his blood; and they washed his armor; according to the word of the Lord which He spake.” (I Ki. 22:37,38)
No national day of mourning was proclaimed to mark and mourn his passing. As a nation, no doubt his subjects breathed a collective sigh of relief. A wicked king had lived, and a wicked king had died. He had contributed nothing noteworthy for historians to record for future generations to remember. He was a despot. He was diabolical. He worked in concert with his equally wicked wife. We who read the story—even yet today—will do well to avoid imitating anything about a man who is known from biblical writ for whom he hunted, for whom he heeded, and for whom he hated.
“And Ahab . . . did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him. And it came to pass . . . that he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him.” (I Ki. 16:30,31)
YOU and GOD 