Tag: Ahab

The Bible in a Year – 23 April

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

23 April. 2 Kings chapters 9-11

Several years earlier, God had told Elijah (1 Kings 19:15-17) that he was to anoint Hazael as king of Aram and Jehu as king of Israel – two countries that were at war on-and-off throughout this period of history – and that between them these two kings and Elijah’s successor Elisha would kill all the worshippers of the false god Baal.  Now this prophecy comes true, although Elijah had been taken up to heaven and it is Elisha who anoints the two kings.  He sets Jehu – an army commander – against the previous king Joram, and Jehu is a ruthless man who starts by having all seventy of Ahab’s sons killed, along with Jezebel his widow, and king Ahaziah of Israel. He then proceeds to destroy the temples of Baal in the two main Israelite cities of Jereel and Samaria along with those who worship there. The job of killing all Ahaziah’s family is carried out by his mother who intends to reign as queen in her own right, although one baby is rescued by his aunt and seven years later proclaimed king by his own supporters. Hazael meanwhile “does his bit” by wiping out the Israelites living east of the Jordan.

 

In all this we are told that God’s will is being done because the false Baal worship is being wiped out from the land.  It is uncomfortable reading when we think of a God of peace and mercy who commands “you shall not kill”. But the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) is the story of God choosing the descendants of Abraha and Isaac as his special nation, provided they follow his teaching and worship him alone.  He saves them from all their enemies, both external and internal, so those Israelites who follow false Gods – whether commoner or king – are subject to God’s judgement.  How do we explain that?

 

The last verse of the prophecy to Elijah tells us that just seven thousand true worshippers of God would remain in the land in Elisha’s time. God’s chosen people were coming close to being wiped out. If this purge had not happened, the true faith, so vulnerable at times, may not have survived to this day, either in the form of Judaism as we know it today, or Christianity whose founder was descended from the house of David. Fortunately they are both peaceful religions for the most part, but both still face challenges to survival in a largely hostile world. Jews still face unfounded discrimination, and Christians in many parts of the world including England worry about the younger generation which seems to have no interest in organised religion.

 

The ‘false god’ of our time is not the Phoenician deity Baal, but (as the Archbishop of Canterbury has reminded us) ‘mammon’, that is the lure of wealth and material comfort which can be just as damaging to true religion.  “Dethroning mammon” requires not Jehu’s armies of chariots and swordsmen, but prayer and teaching, and the example of lives devoted to God.  Many times God’s people have been close to extinction but many times God has stepped in when all seemed lost, and saved them in some unexpected way. We need to have faith in this Easter season that he will do so again.

 

The Bible in a Year – 20 April

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

20 April. 1 Kings chapters 21-22

In chapter 21 we get another clear example of the sort of unscrupulous leaders that Ahab and Jezebel were.  Ahab offers to buy Naboth’s vineyard for himself (at least he didn’t grab it by force) but Naboth refuses to sell, as indeed was his right, and the king was not above the law.   Although Ahab reluctantly accepts this, his wife does not, and arranges for the execution of Naboth on false charges, following which Ahab takes the land for himself without reference to Naboth’s heirs.  His godly nemesis Elijah turns up (showing extreme bravery and faith, since he had barely escaped Jezebel’s clutches last time) and predicts a bloody end for them both as punishment for such a breach of human rights.

 

Chapter 22 tells us that after many years of war between Israel and Judah, there is an interval of peace, largely due to Jehoshaphat King of Judah, who unlike his predecessors was inclined to co-operate with the northern kingdom and not fight against it.  In fact, in chapter 21 he and Ahab are allied in fighting the Arameans.  But this is not a defensive battle: it is Ahab’s pre-emptive strike to try and recapture the territory of Ramoth-Gilead which he considered rightly belonged to Israel.  The prophet Michaiah warns of defeat, but Ahab listens instead to the majority voice of the false “prophets” who always encourage him. Ahab then tries another bit of trickery, going into battle incognito and hoping that his ally Jehoshaphat will draw the enemy fire.  But when God predicts disaster, disaster will come – this time by the hand of an archer who does not even realise he has shot the enemy king.

 

Both these stories of attempted land-grabs by Ahab, whether of a vineyard close to home or a territory across the Jordan, show a hunger for power that manifests itself in a desire for control over ever increasing areas. We see this throughout history in the actions of megalomaniacs such as Napoleon and Hitler, but also in everyday life when companies take each other over, often to the detriment of ordinary shareholders and customers as standards of service and product quality are subordinated to the hunger for ever-increasing profits.  We also see in the campaign against the Arameans the “Falklands effect” where politicians whose popularity is waning may use a rallying cry of “take back control of [wherever]” as a way of boosting their popularity (assuming, of course, that they win).

 

God’s interest, as always, is in the human rights of the ordinary man and woman – Naboth the peaceful winemaker, or the people of Ramoth-Gilead who did not (as far as we know) call for deliverance from the Syrians who governed their territory at that time.  Through prophets such as Elijah and Micaiah God even makes this clear to the rulers concerned, but they rarely listen, such is the grip of evil over them.

The Bible in a Year – 18 April

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

18 April. 1 Kings chapters 15-17

The first two of these chapters are grim reading, as we hear of several generations in which the civil war between Judah and the rest of Israel continued under several ‘kings’ on both sides.  These ‘kings’ were not worthy of the name: most of them gained power by force, and nearly all of them, with the exception of Asa of Judah, “did evil in the sight of the Lord” (i.e. acted selfishly with no regard for the common people, and tolerated idolatry).  Finally (in this list) comes Ahab of Israel, who was the worst of them all, for he not only tolerated idolatry in the land but took a foreign and evil wife (Jezebel, whose name would become a byword for a wicked woman) and set up a temple to the arch-idol Baal in his own city of Samaria.

 

Onto this scene suddenly emerges the prophet Elijah, who would become the greatest figure of the whole Old Testament after Abraham and Moses. And with him comes a welcome relief from stories of war, infighting and idolatry.  Elijah may have proclaimed doom to the king and his house for their apostasy, but he was not part of the establishment, nor the army, rather an ascetic prophet who was willing to be humbled by the God who called him to live in the desert on bread and water (and carrion brought to him by ravens) and then come to the aid of an ordinary family caught up in the civil war and in drought.

 

The three years’ drought that Elijah predicted as God’s punishment for Ahab’s sins is apparently recorded in non-Jewish literature so it can be regarded as historical.  But we have to take on faith the story of the miraculous provision of flour and oil that saw the family through the crisis, and Elijah’s resuscitation of the widow’s son.    This story brings us back home to the reality of much of the near east and north-east Africa in our time: war and drought combine to destroy whole populations.  I have recently met a refugee from one of those countries and her son, and can imagine them as I read of the family at Zarephath.  God is never concerned only with whole populations, but passionately cares for the sufferings of each individual.