Lesson 9 – King Ahab in Israel

In this lesson we will focus on one king: Ahab of Israel.

¹As he is introduced in verse 29, we learn several things about Ahab.

1. His dynastic affiliation: Ahab was the son of Omri, who founded a new dynasty.
2. When his reign began: In the 38th year of Asa’s reign in Judah. He was a new king ruling opposite an experienced king to his south. But we know that within a few years Asa would die and a new king would come on the scene in Judah.
3. How long he reigned: According to the text, he reigned for 22 years. Compared to the kings of Israel we have been looking at, this is a relatively long time.
4. Where he reigned: Following the pattern of his father, Ahab lived and established his court in the city of Samaria.

²Scripture says the Ahab was the most evil king of Israel to date. This means he was more wicked than Jeroboam and his father Omri, who were the previous standards of wicked rulers. Rating Ahab would have to give us a number like 9 or 10 on a Wickedness Scale.

³Politically, it was probably beneficial for Ahab to marry into the royal family of the Sidonans. They were a powerful sailing and trading city to the north of Israel, a leading city of Phoenicia. This wedding probably gave Ahab access to their wealth and trading prowess. However, on a spiritual level, Jezebel was a wicked woman who was fully committed to her idols. To please her, Ahab built a temple to Baal in Samaria, worshipped the Baal himself and built an Asherah for worship as well. Marrying outside of Israel also went against God’s instructions to not marry foreigners lest they lead Israel astray with idols. From God’s perspective, marrying Jezebel was a very bad idea.

⁴To oppose Ahab, God raised up a prophet named Elijah. Through him, God worked miracles that frustrated the King of Israel. Ahab maintained a tense relationship with Elijah the prophet. In this portion of the story, Elijah picked a fight with the priests of Baal and Asherah. Jezebel supported nearly nine hundred people to carry out the worship to those false Gods. Her support meant that the royal kingdom was behind their practice.

When Elijah issued the challenge to the priests of Baal and Asherah, he essentially challenged Jezebel their sponsor and Ahab her husband. Any defeat experienced by the priests would roll back to the king and his wife. The insult was even greater because Elijah said he would singlehandedly take on over 800 opposing priests. He was essentially suggesting that their numbers weren’t a testament to their greatness, but they were so weak that their overwhelming count couldn’t defeat a single man.

⁵Elijah’s battle against the priests of Asherah and Baal is a famous Bible story. The challenge was to call down fire from heaven to consume an offering on an altar. While the priests petitioned their gods most of the day, Elijah mocked them, suggesting their god was taking a nap or indisposed. After giving then ample time with no results, Elijah set up his altar to God and drenched it in water. This would have deterred fire from consuming the offering. But with a single prayer, God answered, consuming the sacrifice, the water and even the stones of the altar. The power of God so impressed the people who had gathered to watch the showdown when Elijah commanded them to capture and kill the false priests, they did.

⁶When God gave the law to Moses, He clearly spelled out that if anyone would entice the people to follow foreign gods, they would incur the judgment of death. Elijah must have known God’s prescription for leading the people away, and took advantage of God’s power to ensure that the judgment was carried out.

⁷Ahab was at the showdown, but Jezebel was not. When Ahab returned to his palace and told Jezebel what had happened (and that her priests would not be coming home) she was furious. She sent a messenger to find Elijah and tell him that he was a dead man and that she had sworn an oath to kill him within 24 hours.

⁸Ben-hadad assembled a large army and began to raid into Ahab’s territory. With his superior force, everyone knew that he could defeat Israel. Rather than going through with the fighting against Samaria, he instead demanded that Ahab hand over all his gold and silver as a bribe against being attacked. When Ahab agreed, Ben-hadad replied that he also wanted Ahab’s wives and children – likely to be held hostage against any retaliation Ahab might consider. The king of Syria also said that his people would inspect Ahab’s house and take everything Ahab valued, not just the gold and silver.

If he agreed to Ben-hadad’s demands, his position as an independent kingdom would be devastated. His successors would be in the hands of his enemy and the loss of treasure and valuables would impoverish his kingdom. These were the stakes that he took to his advisors and the people. They told him to resist and fight rather than give in to such heavy demands. Ahab agreed and sent back a rejection of the demands.

⁹As promised, the Syrians drew up their army against Ahab and the city of Samaria. Ahab marched out to meet them with his inferior forces, and won a miraculous route against the much larger army. God intervened on Israel’s behalf and the Syrians fled before Ahab’s army. Ben-hadad’s advisors told him that the reason he had lost was because his gods were only strong in the plains. Since the battle had taken place in the hills, Israel’s God had been able to prevail. But if he brought another army and fought in the plains, he would be victorious.

The next spring Ben-hadad mustered another army and came against Israel in the plains. In order to prove His great power in the plains and the mountains, God told Ahab through a prophet that he would win again. Exactly as God promised, Ahab went out against the Syrian army and soundly defeated them. He even captured Ben-hadad. But rather than killing his enemy, Ahab treated him as a “brother king” and ransomed him back for a return of the territory Ben-hadad had taken from Israel and economic considerations

¹⁰God sent a prophet to confront Ahab about his decision to let his enemy go. The prophet pretended to have been a soldier who was given control of a captured enemy and charged to guard him at the cost of his own life. But in the chaos of the fighting, he lost track of the captive. Ahab delivered judgment by saying “you knew the terms and the price of failure. You have to pay it.”

The prophet then revealed himself to Ahab. He said that God demanded a life. But because Ahab had his enemy in his hand and let him go, Ahab would be called to pay the price. Ahab’s own judgment in the case of the soldier who lost the captive would be used against him in the matter of the release of Ben-hadad. This put Ahab in a foul mood and he returned to his home.

¹¹Later, Ahab wanted the vineyard of his neighbor, Naboth. He offered to buy it or trade for it. But Naboth rejected all his offers and said he wanted to keep the property. Being rejected like this, and denied the vineyard, Ahab fell into a foul mood.

¹²When Jezebel heard of Naboth’s answers and Ahab’s bad mood, she took matters into her own hands. She conspired with the leaders of the town to frame him for blasphemy. When this happened as Jezebel designed, they took Naboth out and killed in punishment for the crime of which he had been (falsely) accused. With Naboth dead, Ahab could simply take the vineyard as his own.

God sent Elijah to confront Ahab about killing Naboth and taking his vineyard. When Ahab saw Elijah, he called him “my enemy” (but he had called Ben-hadad, the foreign king who tried to conquer him “my brother king”). Elijah spoke God’s judgment to Ahab:

1. I will bring disaster upon you.
2. I will burn you up
3. I will kill your descendants (just like Jeroboam and Baasha)

God also promised that Ahab’s wife Jezebel would die. He used the same language as with Jeroboam and Baasha for the dogs eating any of Ahab’s descendants who died in the city and the birds eating anyone who died in the country.

Upon hearing the judgment, Ahab repented and dressed in sackcloth and ashes. This was an extraordinary response for the man who was known for his unrepentant worship of false gods and idols. God did not divert from the judgment pronounced against Ahab. But He did offer a measure of grace that Ahab would not see his dynasty wiped out. It would happen after he had died.

¹⁴After three years of peace between Israel and Syria, Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, came to visit Ahab. Ahab asked if Jehoshaphat would help him reclaim some territory that Syria had taken from him. Before agreeing, Jehoshaphat asked that they inquire of the word of God regarding this idea. Ahab complied and brought forth 400 prophets who all promised God would give them victory if they attacked Syria.

Jehoshaphat must have thought something was off about this “word from the Lord,” so he asked if there was another prophet. Ahab agreed, but said this last prophet never said anything good to him. When Micaiah answered, he said that all the other prophets had been speaking from a lying spirit given by one of God’s servants in order to entice Ahab to go to war. If he attacked Syria, he would die.

¹⁵Ahab and Jehoshaphat listened to the majority voice and chose to attack Syria. Ahab must have been worried about what Micaiah said because he did not wear his ornate kingly armor. Instead he work normal armor so he would blend in with the other soldiers and not stand out. He did, however, encourage Jehoshaphat to wear ornate armor and draw the attention of the people who wanted to kill the king.

Ahab thought he had outsmarted God. But a Syrian archer shot an arrow at random and it hit him. The arrow penetrated a weak spot in his armor. Ahab collapsed in his chariot and had the driver take him immediately from the battle. As he fled, he died, and his blood ran into the bottom of his chariot. When the driver returned to Samaria after the fighting, he washed the blood out of the bottom where it pooled. Ahab’s blood flowed into the same spot that Naboth’s blood had flowed when he was killed. Thus the word of the Lord was fulfilled regarding Ahab’s death.