1 Kingschapter 21
29 verses · Jeremiah, by tradition · 6th century BC · History
But Naboth replied, “The LORD forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers.”
Introduction
Jeremiah, by tradition, History, 1 Kings Overview.
The writer of Kings is not named, and Jewish tradition gives the book to Jeremiah. He sets a small case about one field in the middle of the wars. His first hearers had lost their own land to a foreign king and knew what an inheritance was worth. The chapter is narrative told like a court record, and the procedure is the point. It shows the courts of a town turned against a man who kept the law. Listen for the law Naboth appeals to and for whose seal the letters carry. Listen at the end for what a king's repentance changes and what it does not.
Context
- Who
- Israelites whose whole security rested on the family plot they had inherited
- What
- An account of Jezebel's plot to kill Naboth for his vineyard, Elijah's sentence on Ahab's house, and Ahab's repentance.
- Where
- A vineyard beside Ahab's residence at Jezreel, and the elders' court of that town.
- When
- About 855 BC, in a pause between the Aramean wars; the year is a reckoning.
- Why
- To show that the LORD defends the inheritance of the least landholder against the king and judges those who corrupt justice.
Historical context
The chapter belongs to Naboth the Jezreelite, a landholder with one field beside a palace, and to Jezebel, a Phoenician princess who was queen of Israel.
Show the rest of the historical context, 6 more paragraphs
The time is a stretch of peace between the Aramean campaigns, with Ahab holding a second residence at Jezreel besides the capital at Samaria.
The place is Jezreel, a town in the valley that carries its name, and the ground in question is a vineyard next to the king's own house.
The occasion is an offer and a refusal, since Ahab offers a better vineyard or its value in silver and Naboth answers with an oath.
A first hearer knew that Naboth was quoting the law. Land in Israel was assigned to families by clan and tribe and was held rather than traded. Leviticus 25:23 has the LORD call the land His own, and Numbers 36:7 kept an inheritance from moving between tribes.
He also knew what a proclaimed fast signalled, that a hidden offence had brought guilt on a town and that a culprit had to be found. Deuteronomy 19:15 had required two witnesses to protect an accused man, and here the safeguard is the weapon.
The letters carry the king's own seal, so the elders of Jezreel are obeying what looks like a royal order.
Significance
The first hearers understood exactly what had been taken, and it was a principle rather than a garden. A farmer with one ancestral acre could stand in front of a king and say no, and the machinery of a town court had just been used to end that.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
Elijah meets Ahab in the stolen vineyard and the sentence is dogs at the pool of Samaria. Then Ahab tears his clothes and fasts, and the calamity is deferred to the next generation.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
Rashi opens the chapter by placing it in a sequence of judgments rather than treating it as a fresh episode. The words that begin it mean "Yet another [incident] to bring his death near." (Rashi on I Kings 21:1:1, The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J, CC-BY). On the offer made for the vineyard he carries Radak's explanation of why a king who could take it asked for it instead. Radak says he feared a popular rising if he acted unjustly (Rashi on I Kings 21:2:1). The refusal is therefore read against a king who knew the limits of what he could do openly, which is the reading the rest of the chapter turns on.
The trial is read as a trial, with the corpus attending to each of its parts. The men the letters go to Rashi names in three words, "Wicked elders, elders of shame." (Rashi on I Kings 21:8:1). The fast proclaimed to open the day he explains as procedure rather than piety: "On a fast day it was their custom to examine their sins." (Rashi on I Kings 21:9:1). The assembly is therefore read as a court convened in the proper form for an improper end. The charge itself he treats as a scribal euphemism. He gives Targum Yonatan's fuller reading, that the accused was said to have blasphemed against God and cursed the king. Metzudat David's note, drawn from the Talmud at Sanhedrin, says that naming both offences was meant to raise the anger of the people, so that the execution would follow quickly (Rashi on I Kings 21:13:1).
The seizure of the field is read as a question in the law of inheritance, and the corpus records two opinions without choosing. Rashi writes that some of the Sages hold that the property of those executed by the king belongs to the king. Others hold otherwise and explain the seizure by kinship. The king was the son of the dead man's father's brother, and so his legal heir once the sons were killed with him. Rashi points again to Sanhedrin (Rashi on I Kings 21:15:1). The sentence that follows he reads through the verb the prophet uses. To have sold oneself means "You sold yourself to anger your Creator". Radak's note in the same place states how far that anger went. The king erased the divine Name from the Torah and put the name of Baal in its place (Rashi on I Kings 21:20:1). The place named for the queen's death Rashi renders from the Aramaic as the valley of Jezreel (Rashi on I Kings 21:23:1).
The verdict of the chapter carries the corpus's sharpest comparison. On the line that there was none like him, Rashi writes that Scripture is testifying that no king among them was his equal in this. He then distinguishes the two sins of the north. The earlier kings served the calves out of fear that the people going up to Jerusalem would return the kingdom to the house of David. This one added the Baal and the Asherah to provoke, and for that alone (Rashi on I Kings 21:25:1). The repentance at the end is read at face value and measured. Walking barefoot means walking barefoot. Ralbag's alternative is that the word means walking slowly, in the manner of a mourner or a man under a ban (Rashi on I Kings 21:27:1). The deferral granted is read as partial. The disaster on the house is held back from his own days, while the word about the dogs and his blood falls on him and waits for no son (Rashi on I Kings 21:29:1).
Radak, Malbim and Metzudat David comment across the chapter as well. The corpus carries their refs with the reason that Sefaria holds no English version of them, so they stand here cited and unquoted. The corpus holds Radak on I Kings 21:3:1, 21:4:1, 21:5:1, 21:6:1, 21:7:1, 21:10:1, 21:11:1, 21:18:1, 21:19:1 and 21:21:1. It holds Malbim on I Kings 21:22:1 and 21:24:1. It holds Metzudat David on I Kings 21:26:1. Radak's ten cover the refusal, the sulking, the queen's question and the drafting of the letters, which is the part of the chapter Rashi passes over quickly.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators for this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. Almost all of them sit on the trial and the sentence, and a large share sit in tractates about capital courts, which is how the rabbinic tradition files this chapter.
On the queen's answer about who holds the kingship at the seventh verse the corpus carries Introductions to Amoraic Literature, Part II (Notes and Interpretations for Chapters of the Talmud), Baba Batra, Chapter I 4. On the instruction to seat two worthless men opposite the accused at the tenth it carries Bereshit Rabbah 65:20, Ein Yaakov, Sanhedrin 3:11 and Sanhedrin 29a:23. The last of those stands in the tractate on courts, at the pages about witnesses. On the execution at the thirteenth it carries seven. Four of them are Aggadat Bereshit 47:1, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 3:9, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 6:18 and Jerusalem Talmud Megillah 1:9:17. The other three are Midrash Lekach Tov, Leviticus 24:11:1, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vayetzei 5:1 and Sanhedrin 48b:10. That last locator is the passage Rashi himself cites twice in this chapter. On the message sent back that the man is dead it carries Midrash Tanchuma, Vayechi 6:2 on the fourteenth.
The prophet's arrival carries Ein Yaakov, Sanhedrin 6:18 and Sanhedrin 48b:8 on the eighteenth. The word about the dogs at the nineteenth carries six. They are Ein Yaakov, Sanhedrin 4:32, Kohelet Rabbah 6:3:1, Pesikta DeRav Kahana 24:11, Pesikta Rabbati 21:1, Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 21:9 and Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 43:1. Two of them stand in a work that treats repentance at length. On the twentieth it carries Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 10:2:4, which is the chapter of the Jerusalem Talmud the corpus returns to on every king of this house. On the twenty-first it carries Bava Batra 19b:3, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 11:75 and Sanhedrin 102b:7.
The verdict at the twenty-fifth carries six. Three of them are Bava Metzia 59a:6, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Bava Metzia 4:7 and Ein Yaakov, Bava Metzia 4:8, all in a tractate about wronging another man in speech and in trade. The other three are Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 11:76, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Appendix to Vaetchanan 2:2 and Midrash Tannaim on Deuteronomy 13:7:1. The sackcloth and the fasting at the twenty-seventh carry six more. They are Bereshit Rabbah 84:20, Esther Rabbah 8:1, Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 10:2:5, Midrash Lekach Tov, Genesis 37:34:2, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 37:34:1 and Shir HaShirim Rabbah 1:5:2. Several of them stand in places about Jacob's mourning for a son. The deferral at the twenty-ninth carries four. They are Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Yoma 8:26, Ein Yaakov, Yoma 8:32, Taanit 25b:11 and Yoma 87a:2. Those are the pages of the tractate on the Day of Atonement that treat repentance and its effect on a decree. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on I Kings 21:1:1, 21:2:1, 21:8:1, 21:9:1, 21:13:1, 21:15:1, 21:20:1, 21:23:1, 21:25:1, 21:27:1 and 21:29:1, The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J, CC-BY; Radak, Radak on I Kings 21:3:1, 21:4:1, 21:5:1, 21:6:1, 21:7:1, 21:10:1, 21:11:1, 21:18:1, 21:19:1 and 21:21:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Malbim, Malbim on I Kings 21:22:1 and 21:24:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on I Kings 21:26:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/1-kings/21.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
The inheritance of my fathers is not for sale
1 Kings 21:1-3
Naboth the Jezreelite happened to own a vineyard: Ahab offers “a better vineyard”, and Naboth refuses by oath: “The LORD forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers”. The land belonged to the LORD. Leviticus 25:23 says “it is Mine”, and Numbers 36:7 rules “No inheritance in Israel may be transferred from tribe to tribe”.
1 Kings 21:1
“An ancient story tells of the two neighbors, King Ahab and a poor man, Naboth. Which of these do we consider the poorer, which the richer: the one who had been endowed with a king's measure of wealth, insatiable and unsatisfied with his wealth, who longed for the little vineyard of the poor man; or the other, heartily despising a "king's fortune of much gold" and imperial wealth, who was satisfied with his vineyard?”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · Letter 38 (To Simplician), Section 8patristic
Matthew Henry sets the request beside the chapter before it. Ahab had let a beaten Ben-hadad go with his kingdom, and he wants the vineyard of Naboth for a vegetable garden next to his palace. Ambrose of Milan saw in the request a king taking from a poor man.
1 Kings 21:2
“And he said to me, 'And I will have a vegetable garden.' This, therefore, was all madness, this was all madness, that the space should be sought for cheap vegetables. Therefore, you do not desire to possess it as something useful, but you want to exclude others. Your concern for the spoils of the poor is greater than for your own profits. You consider it an injury to you if a poor person has anything that can be valued as worthy of a wealthy possession. You consider it a loss to you, whatever is someone else's.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · On Naboth the Jezreelite, Chapter 3, 11patristic
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 21:2
“He had tamely quitted the great advantages God had given him of enlarging his dominion for the honour of his kingdom, by his victory over the Syrians, and now is eager to enlarge his garden, only for the convenience of his house, as if to be penny wise would atone for being pound foolish.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Naboth swears by the name of the LORD in a kingdom where Ahab served Baal. Albert Barnes reads him as a loyal worshipper of the LORD. John Gill adds that even land sold in poverty came back to its family at the jubilee of Leviticus 25.
1 Kings 21:3
“The Lord forbid it me - Or, “Yahweh forbid it me.” Naboth, as a worshipper of Yahweh, not of Baal, considers it would be wrong for him to comply with the king’s request, as contrary to the Law (margin). His was not a mere refusal arising out of a spirit of sturdy independence, or one based upon the sentiment which attaches men to ancestral estates.”
1 Kings 21:4-6
sullen and angry: A king who has just heard one poor man's no “lay down on his bed, turned his face away, and refused to eat”. The throne that could withstand Ben-hadad's army is undone by a vegetable garden. His account to Jezebel in verse six repeats the offer nearly word for word.
1 Kings 21:4
He laid him down upon his bed - Poor soul! he was lord over ten-twelfths of the land, and became miserable because he could not get a poor man’s vineyard added to all that he possessed! It is a true saying, “That soul in which God dwells not, has no happiness: and he who has God has a satisfying portion.” Every privation and cross makes an unholy soul unhappy; and privations and crosses it must ever meet with, therefore: - “Where’er it goes is hell; itself is hell!”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jezebel's letters, a proclaimed fast, and two sons of Belial
Soon his wife Jezebel came in: Jezebel was the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians, by 1 Kings 16:31. Her question comes before any word from Ahab, and it opens the scheme of verses 7 to 10. The queen takes charge.
1 Kings 21:5
“But Jezebel his wife came unto him, and said, why is thy spirit so sad, that thou eatest no bread? She perceived he was low spirited, and supposed he had met with something that had ruffled him, and made him so uneasy that he could not eat his food; and she desired to know what it was, that she might relieve him if possible.”
John Gill notes that Ahab tells Naboth's answer as a surly refusal. He leaves out Naboth's appeal to the LORD and to the inheritance of his fathers. Jezebel hears only a subject defying his king.
1 Kings 21:6
“And he said, because I spake unto Naboth the Jezreelite, and said unto him, give me thy vineyard for money,.... Sell it him at his own price: or else, if it please thee; if he liked it better: I will give thee another vineyard for it; as good, or better; and he answered, I will not give thee my vineyard; he represents this answer as surly and ill natured, and as the effect of obstinacy, concealing the reason Naboth alleged for his denial.”
1 Kings 21:7-8
Jezebel answers Ahab's sulking with a question, “Do you not reign over Israel?”, and takes the deed on herself. She “wrote letters in Ahab’s name, sealed them with his seal”, so the crime carries his authority. The same queen had already ordered the slaughter of the prophets.
1 Kings 21:7
The meaning is, “Art thou king, and yet sufferest thyself to be thwarted in this way by a mere subject? I, the queen, the weak woman, will give thee the vineyard, if thou, the king, the strong man, wilt do nothing.”
Jezebel wrote letters in Ahab’s name: Adam Clarke holds that Ahab lent the seal with his own consent. The letters go to the elders and nobles of Naboth's own city, Jezreel, where the vineyard lay beside the palace of verse 1. The men who knew Naboth best are made his judges.
1 Kings 21:8
“She wrote letters in Ahab’s name - She counterfeited his authority by his own consent; and he lent his signet to stamp that authority.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 21:8
“She borrows the privy-seal, but the king shall not know what she will do with it. It is probable this was not the first time he had lent it to her, but that with it she had signed warrants for the slaying of the prophets.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Kings 21:9-10
The letters order a fast, so that Naboth's death looks like a lawful verdict. They seat “two scoundrels opposite him” to testify “You have cursed both God and the king”. Two witnesses satisfy Deuteronomy 19:15 on paper: “A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses”.
1 Kings 21:9
“The object of this fast was at once to raise a prejudice against Naboth, who was assumed by the elders to have disgraced the town; and at the same time to give an air of religion to the proceedings, which might blind persons to their real injustice. Set Naboth on high among his people - This was not an order to do Naboth any, even apparent, honor; but simply a command to bring him forward before a court or assembly, where he might be seen by all, tried, and condemned.”
2 more voices on this verse
1 Kings 21:9
“How clearly the custom of the rich is portrayed! They are made sad if they are not seizing the property of others; they renounce food, they fast, not that they may lessen their sin but that they may commit crime. You may see them at such times coming to church, dutiful, humble and assiduous, in order that they may deserve to obtain the accomplishment of their wickedness.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · On Naboth the Jezreelite 10.44-45patristic
1 Kings 21:9
“Proclaim a fast, &c.--Those obsequious and unprincipled magistrates did according to orders. Pretending that a heavy guilt lay on one, or some unknown party, who was charged with blaspheming God and the king and that Ahab was threatening vengeance on the whole city unless the culprit were discovered and punished, they assembled the people to observe a solemn fast.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
seat two scoundrels opposite him: The charge names two crimes, cursing God and cursing the king. John Wesley explains the second: blasphemy cost a man his life, while treason also gave his estate to the crown. The double charge delivers the vineyard to Ahab.
1 Kings 21:10
“Set two men - For life could not be attainted but on the evidence of two witnesses at least. Sons of Belial - Men who will not scruple to tell lies and take a false oath. Thou didst blaspheme God and the king - Thou art an atheist and a rebel. Thou hast spoken words injurious to the perfections and nature of God; and thou hast spoken words against the crown and dignity of the king.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 21:10
“Blaspheme God and the king - Indeed his blaspheming God would only be the forfeiture of his life, not his estate. Therefore he is charged with treason also, that his estate may be confiscated, and so Ahab have his vineyard.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Kings 21:11-14
did as Jezebel had instructed in the letters: The elders and nobles of Jezreel carry out the queen's letters against their neighbor with no recorded objection. They proclaim the fast, seat Naboth before the people, and stone him. Barnes notes a later record that Naboth's sons died with him, leaving no heir to claim the vineyard.
1 Kings 21:11
“The ready submission of the elders and nobles implies a deep moral degradation among the Israelites, the fruit of their lapse into idolatry.”
gave Naboth a seat of honor: The Berean reads a seat of honor, and John Gill records two views of it. Gill places him where the accused stood. Josephus, as Gill cites him, held that Naboth was given a high place among the people for his noble birth.
1 Kings 21:12
“They proclaimed a fast,.... Or called a court; see Gill on 1Ki 21:9. and set Naboth on high among the people; placed him at the bar as a criminal; see Gill on 1Ki 21:9, though Josephus (c) thinks he was set on an high place in the court, because he was of an illustrious birth. (c) Antiqu. l. 3. c. 13. sect. 8.”
sat opposite Naboth: John Gill notes that accusers sat face to face with the man they charged. Festus names the same Roman custom at Acts 25:16. Taking Naboth outside the city to stone him follows the law for a blasphemer at Leviticus 24:14.
1 Kings 21:13
“Naboth had sons who were also put to death at this time (marginal reference). It is not improbable that they were stoned together with their parent (compare Jos 7:24-25). In the East, a parent’s guilt constantly involves the punishment of his children. Contrast 2Ki 14:6.”
Then they sent word to Jezebel: The elders report to Jezebel, who holds the power behind the letters. Matthew Henry sets beside this 2 Kings 10, where the elders of Samaria obey letters from Jehu and kill the seventy sons of Ahab. Letters from Jezreel then bring the reckoning.
1 Kings 21:14
“Here let us observe that, as obsequious as the elders of Jezreel were to Jezebel's orders which she sent from Samaria for the murder of Naboth, so obsequious were the elders of Samaria afterwards to Jehu's orders which he sent from Jezreel for the murder of Ahab's seventy sons, only that was not done by course of law, 2 Kings x.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Kings 21:15-16
Jezebel's message strips the murder down to a real estate transaction, “Naboth is no longer alive, but dead”. Ahab asks no question about how the vineyard came free and goes down that same day to take possession. Henry calls it a case of might prevailing against right.
1 Kings 21:15
“Might often prevails against right, and wonderful is the divine patience that suffers it to do so. God is certainly of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and yet for a time keeps silence when the wicked devours the man that is more righteous than he, Hab. i.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
he got up and went down: Albert Barnes notes that the goods of a traitor passed to the king, and Ahab now takes the vineyard of Naboth on that ground. David gave the estate of Mephibosheth to Ziba the same way at 2 Samuel 16:4. The false charge of cursing the king gave Ahab his claim.
1 Kings 21:16
“To take possession of it - The goods of traitors appear to have been forfeited to the crown by the Jewish law as they still are almost universally throughout the East. Compare 2Sa 16:4.”
Hast thou killed, and also taken possession?
1 Kings 21:17-19
the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite: The prophet is sent to meet Ahab in the stolen vineyard. The LORD gives the sentence that ties Ahab's death to that ground: “the dogs will lick up your blood”. After Jeroboam's house at 14:11 and Baasha's at 16:4, this is the third house under the dogs.
1 Kings 21:17
“What good canst thou expect from it when it is purchased with blood ( Hab. ii. 12 ) and thou hast caused the owner thereof to lose his life? " Job xxxi. Now that he is pleasing himself with his ill-gotten wealth, and giving direction for the turning of this vineyard into a flower-garden, his meat in his bowels is turned.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
go down to meet Ahab king of Israel: Who is in Samaria names the capital where Ahab reigned. The same verse finds him in the vineyard at Jezreel, beside his palace there at verse 1. Albert Barnes records that Ahab went to Jezreel the day after the stoning, by 2 Kings 9:26.
1 Kings 21:18
“Go down to meet Ahab - This was the next day after the murder, as we learn from the above quotation, 2Ki 9:26.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Matthew Henry puts it in a legal phrase: the land passes with its burden, so whoever takes the garden takes the guilt. The dogs licked Ahab's blood at 22:38. Albert Barnes finds a second fulfillment when the body of his son was thrown on Naboth's plot at 2 Kings 9:25.
1 Kings 21:19
“Divine justice is moved by this and condemns the greedy with worthy severity, saying: 'You have killed and taken possession of the inheritance? For this reason, in the place where the dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, they will lick up your blood; and the prostitutes will wash themselves in your blood.' How just, how severe is this sentence, that the bitterness of death that he inflicted on another should be dissolved by the horror of his own death!”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · On Naboth the Jezreelite, Chapter 11, 48-49patristic
3 more voices on this verse
1 Kings 21:19
In the place where dogs licked, &c.--a righteous retribution of Providence. The prediction was accomplished, not in Jezreel, but in Samaria; and not on Ahab personally, in consequence of his repentance (1Ki 21:29), but on his son (2Ki 9:25). The words "in the place where" might be rendered "in like manner as."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 Kings 21:19
“He killed, for he took possession. If he takes the garden, he takes the guilt with it. Terra transit cum onere--The land with the incumbrance. [2.] He passes judgment upon him.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Kings 21:19
“Hast thou killed, and also taken possession? - These words rebuke especially Ahab’s indecent haste. He went to Jezreel the very day after Naboth’s execution 2Ki 9:26. The prophecy following had a double fulfillment. The main fulfillment was by the casting of the dead body of Jehoram into Naboth’s plot of ground at Jezreel, where, like Naboth’s, it was left for the dogs to eat 2Ki 9:25. This spot, which was just outside the city wall, and close to a gate 2Ki 9:31, was probably the actual scene of Naboth’s execution.”
Elijah turns the word back: “I have found you out because you have sold yourself to do evil in the sight of the LORD”. Paul uses the same language of himself at Romans 7:14, “sold as a slave to sin”. There he is a captive, and Ahab sold himself freely.
1 Kings 21:20
“Sold thyself - Thou hast wholly resigned up thyself to be the bondslave of the devil, as a man that sells himself to another is totally in his master's power. To work evil, &c. - Impudently and contemptuously. Those who give themselves up to sin will certainly be found out, sooner or later, to their unspeakable amazement.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
1 Kings 21:20
“Thou hast sold thyself to work evil - See a similar form of speech, Rom 7:14 (note). Thou hast totally abandoned thyself to the service of sin. Satan is become thy absolute master, and thou his undivided slave.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Kings 21:20
“Ahab, having sold himself to sin, was resolved to stand to his bargain, and could not endure him that would have helped him to recover himself, [2.] That he feared him: Hast thou found me? intimating that he shunned him all he could, and it was now a terror to him to see him.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Kings 21:21-22
I will cut off from Ahab every male: The sentence makes Ahab's house “like that of Jeroboam son of Nebat and like that of Baasha son of Ahijah”. Both houses were cut off to the last male. Gill reads the Hebrew behind “every male” as the plain idiom for every man, used of Jeroboam's house at 14:10.
1 Kings 21:21
“Behold, I will bring evil upon thee,.... Upon his own person, by cutting him off with a violent death, though his family was so numerous, having no less than seventy sons: and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left Israel; See Gill on 1Ki 14:10.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 21:21
“The prophet changes, without warning, from speaking in his own person to speaking in the person of God. The transition is abrupt, probably because the compiler follows his materials closely, compressing by omission. One fragment omitted here is preserved in 2Ki 9:26.”
like that of Jeroboam son of Nebat: Both houses were wiped out by a usurper, Jeroboam's by Baasha at 15:29 and Baasha's by Zimri at 16:11. John Gill widens the sin beyond the golden calves to the Baal worship Ahab brought in from Sidon. Jehu ends Ahab's house the same way in 2 Kings 10.
1 Kings 21:22
“And will make thine house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah,.... Two of his predecessors, whose families were utterly destroyed, 1Ki 15:29, for the provocation wherewith thou hast provoked me to anger, and made Israel to sin: not only by his worship of the calves, but of the idols of the Zidonians, particularly Baal, and also of the Amorites, 1Ki 21:26.”
1 Kings 21:23-24
Jezebel receives her own sentence when the LORD says, “The dogs will devour Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel”. At her death in 2 Kings 9:36 it is remembered in nearly the same words. Revelation 2:20 later uses her name for the same lure into idolatry at Thyatira.
1 Kings 21:23
“And of Jezebel also spake the Lord,.... To Elijah, and by him: saying, the dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel or in the inheritance or portion of Jezreel, as the Targum; Jarchi interprets it, the valley of Jezreel; the fulfilment of this see in 2Ki 9:30.”
2 more voices on this verse
1 Kings 21:23
“And of Jezebel also spake the Lord, saying - These are not the words of Elijah, but of the writer, who notes a special prophecy against Jezebel, whose guilt was at least equal to her husband’s. Wall - The marginal rendering “ditch,” is preferable. There is always in Oriental towns a space outside the walls which lies uncultivated, and which is naturally used for the deposit of refuse of every kind. Here the dogs prowl, and the kites and vultures find many a feast.”
1 Kings 21:23
“Finally, even Jezebel herself was eaten by dogs and the birds of the air, in order to show that the spiritual wickedness becomes the prey of the rich burial. Therefore, flee, rich man, from such an end. But you will flee from such an end if you flee from such a disgrace. Do not be like Ahab, desiring a neighboring possession. Do not let that fatal greed of Jezebel dwell in you, which persuades you with bloodshed.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · On Naboth the Jezreelite, Chapter 11, 48-49patristic
will be eaten by dogs: John Gill reads the dogs and the birds as a denial of burial to the whole house of Ahab. The same words fell on Jeroboam's house at 14:11 and on Baasha's at 16:4. Gill marks this verse as the end of Elijah's message.
1 Kings 21:24
“Him that dieth of Ahab in the city the dogs shall eat, and him that dieth in the field the fowls of the air shall eat. That is, they shall have no burial, see 1Ki 14:11 hitherto are the words of the Lord by Elijah; next follow the remarks of the historian.”
Ahab in sackcloth: the evil deferred to his son's days
1 Kings 21:25-26
who sold himself to do evil: The historian gives his own judgment of the reign: “Surely there was never one like Ahab”. Jezebel is named as the one who incited him. Ahab's idols are set beside “the Amorites”, of whom Genesis 15:16 said “the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete”.
1 Kings 21:25
“He was wholly given up to sin, and, upon condition he might have the pleasures of it, he would take the wages of it, which is death, Rom. vi. Blessed Paul complained that he was sold under sin ( Rom. vii. 14 ), as a poor captive against his will; but Ahab was voluntary: he sold himself to sin; of choice, and as his own act and deed, he submitted to the dominion of sin.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 21:25
“And these, tho' lighting on the body only, yet undoubtedly were designed as figures of the soul's misery in an after state. 25 Was none - None among all the kings of Israel which had been before him. Whom Jezebel - This is added to shew, that temptations to sin are no excuse to the sinner.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
by going after idols: John Gill records that the Tigurine version rendered the word for idols as dunghill gods. Albert Barnes takes the Amorites as the name for all the old nations of Canaan. Barnes finds the same gods in Ahab's Phoenician worship.
1 Kings 21:26
“And he did very abominably in following idols,.... Which were abominable to the Lord; "dunghill gods", as the Tigurine version: according to all things as did the Amorites, whom the Lord cast out before the children of Israel; meaning the seven nations that formerly inhabited Canaan, but were driven out for their sins, to make way for the children of Israel, of which the Amorites were one, and here put for all the rest.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 21:26
“The Amorites appear here as representatives of the old Canaanite nations (Gen 15:16 note). It seems to be implied here that their idolatries were in the main identical with those of the Phoenicians which Ahab had adopted.”
he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth: Ahab “tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and fasted”. Nineveh will wear the same signs of mourning at Jonah's preaching. The next verse records what this humbling brings from the LORD.
1 Kings 21:27
“Delivered in 1Ki 21:21, that he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon, his flesh, tore off his clothes, and stripped himself of all, even of his very shirt, and put sackcloth on his bare flesh, a coarse cloth made of hair, and such as sacks are made with: and fasted, how long it is not said: and lay in sackcloth; in the night on his bed, would have no linen on him day nor night: and went softly: step by step, as persons mourning, grieving, and pensive, do; the Targum renders it "barefoot", and so Jarchi.”
4 more voices on this verse
1 Kings 21:27
“The repentance of Ahab resembles that of the Ninevites Jon 3:5. It has the same outward signs - fasting and sackcloth - and it has much the same inward character. It springs, not from love, nor from hatred of sin, but from fear of the consequences of sin. It is thus, although sincere and real while it lasts, shallow and exceedingly short-lived.”
1 Kings 21:27
“The rich become angry and slander in order to harm, if they do not obtain what they desire. However, when they have harmed through slander, they pretend to be sorry: yet they go forth sad and mournful, not in their hearts but in their appearance, and they seize the place of the property they have seized by their unfairness.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · On Naboth the Jezreelite 11.47patristic
1 Kings 21:27
“He obtained hereby a reprieve, which I may call a kind of pardon. Though it was but an outside repentance (lamenting the judgment only, and not the sin), though he did not leave his idols, nor restore the vineyard to Naboth's heirs, yet, because he did hereby give some glory to God, God took notice of it, and bade Elijah take notice of it: Seest thou how Ahab humbles himself?”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Kings 21:27
“Going softly, that is, barefoot, and with a pensive manner, within doors. He manifested all the external signs, conventional and natural, of the deepest sorrow. He was wretched, and so great is the mercy of God, that, in consequence of his humiliation, the threatened punishment was deferred.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 Kings 21:28-29
the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite: Because Ahab has humbled himself, the calamity will not come in his own days. It will fall “upon his house in the days of his son”, so the sentence is deferred and still stands. The text states the mercy as plainly as it stated the judgment nine verses earlier.
1 Kings 21:28
“And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite,.... After he was gone from Ahab, and Ahab had been some time in this humble posture; the Targum calls it the word of prophecy, and so it was, as the next verse shows: saying: as follows.”
John Gill reads the humbling of Ahab as outward only, the sackcloth and fasting of verse 27. Adam Clarke reads it as true repentance, shallow and short-lived, and still seen by God. The calamity waits for the days of his son.
1 Kings 21:29
“Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me?.... Which yet was but an external humiliation, to be seen only with bodily eyes, as were all his actions and postures, before observed.”
3 more voices on this verse
1 Kings 21:29
“Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself - He did abase himself; he did truly repent him of his sins, and it was such a repentance as was genuine in the sight of God: He humbleth himself Before Me. The penitent heart ever meets the merciful eye of God; repentance is highly esteemed by the Father of compassion, even where it is comparatively shallow and short-lived. Any measure of godly sorrow has a proportionate measure of God’s regard; where it is deep and lasting, the heart of God is set upon it.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Kings 21:29
“Humbleth himself - His humiliation was real, though not lasting, and accordingly pleasing to God. This discovers the great goodness of God, and his readiness to shew mercy. It teaches us to take notice of that which is good, even in the worst of men.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Kings 21:29
“God is rewarding their external services with external mercies. (4.) This encourages all those that truly repent and unfeignedly believe the holy gospel. If a pretending partial penitent shall go to his house reprieved, doubtless a sincere penitent shall go to his house justified.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
How this psalm is built
The form: A judicial murder told as a legal record, in which every step is lawful in form and the whole is a crime, as Wesley classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| You have sold yourself to do evil | Elijah lays the charge at verse 20 and the historian repeats his exact words at verse 25, adding that there was never one like Ahab. The second use turns a prophet's accusation into the book's own verdict on the reign. Adam Clarke sets the phrase beside Paul's language of being sold under sin at Romans 7:14, and marks the difference, since Paul writes as a captive who groans and Ahab sold himself freely.Adam Clarke and John Gill, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, and Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, on 1 Kings 21:20. | 1 Kings 21:20, 1 Kings 21:25 |
| The dogs will lick up your blood | The formula falls three times in this chapter, on Ahab at verse 19, on Jezebel at verse 23, and on the whole house at verse 24 with the birds added for the field. Carl Friedrich Keil notes that this is the third house of Israel put under the same sentence, after Jeroboam's at 14:11 and Baasha's at 16:4. The word is recorded kept at 22:38, and 2 Kings 9:36 remembers Jezebel's sentence in nearly the words spoken here.Carl Friedrich Keil, The Books of the Kings, 1872, on 1 Kings 21:19. | 1 Kings 21:19, 1 Kings 21:23, 1 Kings 21:24 |
| What Naboth said, and what Ahab reported | Naboth answers at verse 3 that the LORD forbid he give the inheritance of his fathers, and the narrator repeats that phrase in verse 4 as the thing Ahab heard. When Ahab tells Jezebel at verse 6, the inheritance has gone out of the sentence and only my vineyard is left. Counted in the Berean text of the store, the phrase stands twice before verse 6 and never after it. The law Naboth stood on is the part his king did not repeat to his wife. | 1 Kings 21:3, 1 Kings 21:4, 1 Kings 21:6 |
| Two fasts, one staged and one kept | Jezebel's letters order a fast at verse 9 and the elders proclaim it at verse 12, using the outward form of national repentance to dress a murder as a verdict. Ahab tears his clothes and fasts in earnest at verse 27 over the sentence that murder earned him. The same act frames the chapter's crime and its reprieve. John Wesley reads the first fast as theatre meant to make Ahab look zealous for God.John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on 1 Kings 21:9. | 1 Kings 21:9, 1 Kings 21:12, 1 Kings 21:27 |
| The sentence in four parts | Verses 21 to 24 list the judgment in order. Ahab's descendants are consumed and every male cut off, and the house is made like Jeroboam's and like Baasha's. Jezebel is named separately for the wall of Jezreel, and the city and the field are both covered so that no member of the house is buried. John Gill reads the old idiom of verse 21 as the plain phrase for every male, already used of Jeroboam's house at 14:10.John Gill and Carl Friedrich Keil, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, and The Books of the Kings, 1872, on 1 Kings 21:21. | 1 Kings 21:21, 1 Kings 21:22, 1 Kings 21:23, 1 Kings 21:24 |
The New Testament's use
9 more paragraphs on the patterns
Revelation 2:20 takes Jezebel's name and uses it as a standing label. The letter to Thyatira names a woman who teaches the same seduction into idolatry inside a church. The queen's name outlives the queen by centuries and becomes a charge laid against someone else.
Adam Clarke sets the phrase of verse 20 beside Romans 7:14, where Paul says he is sold under sin. Clarke marks the difference rather than the likeness. Paul writes as a captive who groans against the master, and Ahab sold himself.
The debated concept
The question the chapter leaves open is what Ahab's repentance at verse 27 was worth. Albert Barnes reads it as real while it lasted and shallow at the root, since it never touched the idols and never restored the vineyard to Naboth's heirs. He holds that it sprang from fear of consequence. John Wesley reads it as real though not lasting. Matthew Henry argues from it to a wider point, that if an outward and partial repentance wins a reprieve, a sincere one wins more. The text itself supplies the verdict God gave, that Ahab humbled himself, and the page states the three readings under it.
The second question is where the word of verse 19 was kept. The sentence names the place where the dogs licked the blood of Naboth, which is Jezreel. Chapter 22 verse 38 records dogs licking Ahab's blood at the pool of Samaria, and the exposition notes read that as the word kept. Then 2 Kings 9:25 and 26 has Joram's body thrown on Naboth's own plot at Jezreel. Verse 29 of this chapter had already deferred the house's calamity to the days of Ahab's son, so the two places and the two generations stand in the record together.
The divine connection
The chapter states the grace as plainly as it stated the judgment. Nine verses separate the sentence from the reprieve, and the reprieve is a real deferral of a real sentence rather than its cancellation. The calamity comes in the son's days, and 2 Kings records it coming.
The ground given for the sentence is the refrain of the two books. Ahab is charged with having provoked God's anger and caused Israel to sin, the phrase first spoken over Jeroboam at 14:16, which the chapter's exposition notes count seventeen times across Kings. Ahab's distinction is that he married that sin to a Phoenician cult.
The measure the historian reaches for at verse 26 is older than the monarchy. Ahab's idolatry is set against the Amorites whom the LORD drove out before Israel arrived, the nations whose cup of iniquity Genesis 15:16 said was not yet full in Abraham's day. Four centuries later a king of Israel fills the same cup on his own account.
Keep studying
Studies6
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, 1832 to 1869, on 1 Kings 21:7; Carl Friedrich Keil, The Books of the Kings, 1872, on 1 Kings 21:19; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on 1 Kings 21:9 and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 1 Kings 21:16.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Ambrose of Milan, On Naboth the Jezreelite, Chapter 3, 11; Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil, The Books of the Kings and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.