The section of 1 Kings that chronicles Ahab’s life is easy to read from a perspective of Elijah as the main character. There are parts of the text that focus entirely upon where God sends him and how he was cared for. However, Ahab didn’t see himself as a supporting character in his own life. It is instructive to consider how a person who we generally see as a sort of antagonist of the story could possibly have made the terrible decisions he did.
Baal Worshipper
And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all who were before him. And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, he took for his wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal and worshiped him. He erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he built in Samaria. And Ahab made an Asherah. Ahab did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him.
1 Kings 16:30-33
Israel, at this point, had already had a long line of kings who worshipped idols and had experienced terrible consequences as a result (some who’s reign is measured in days!). These predecessors should have served as an object warning against leading this way. Instead, Ahab committed to still worse behavior than even they had!
Looking at it from his perspective, however, things likely looked very differently. Growing up in the household of Omri (who had been made king by the army he led in attacking Zimri who, himself, was king because he had killed the previous king and his family), he had been witness to no end of violent political ambitions.
The expectation of these rulers was that they would serve idols and seek to gain power by any means necessary. It would have seemed like the “way of the world” for him, and he was doing it well to have become king himself.
God’s Warning
However, God didn’t just leave him to puzzle out the lessons of the past. He then sends Elijah with a judgement of drought.
Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.”
1 Kings 17:1
While Elijah was sent out to the wilderness and a widow, Jezebel has been rounding up the prophets of God and having them killed.
This lends us a little insight into what Ahab would have experienced as a result of the judgement in his home. It seems his wife was committed to shooting the messengers rather than taking the message to heart. Rather than hear the message of judgement and repenting, the kingdom decided it was best just to shut up those who called out for their repentance.
God’s Victory
Following the drought, Elijah is instructed to set before the people of Israel a demonstration. 450 prophets of Baal were allowed half a day of pleading with their god to send fire to a sacrificial pyre. For over half a day, these prophets cut themselves and cried out for Baal to send fire, but nothing happened.
Then Elijah instructs the people to dig a trench around his pyre and cover the whole thing with water, even to filling up trench around it. God then sets the whole soaking wet stack aflame, and the people repent.
Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God.”
1 Kings 18:38
Ahab witnessed this miracle. It was a very obvious reason to repent. All the people would be on his side in doing so, and he’d just witnessed with the rest of them the fact that God triumphed over Baal worship. He even sent rain for the first time since the judgement began.
Trouble at Home
Ahab goes home and tells his wife all that he saw. Rather than acknowledge her wickedness, she reacts as she always had by calling for the death of Elijah, God’s messenger.
Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.”
1 Kings 19:1-2
It is common to hear people demanding proof for God, and Ahab had just received the show of a lifetime. However, his wife not only rejects that evidence but also chooses to set herself against the life of the man whom God had used to deliver it. While the correct thing would have been for him to straighten her out a bit, the temptation is to go along with her to avoid conflict even now and this is exactly what he does.
God is His Hope
This time, God demonstrates his goodness not by judgement against this wickedness but with a blessing in the midst of their rebellion. 32 kings gathered their armies together against Israel and demanded Ahab give silver, gold, and even their family members as slaves! It is unimaginable to be in a situation so dire and he agrees to these terms.
However, then the kings come back with new, even more extreme, terms. They say they’ll send people into the city to search through all their houses and take anything that could be pleasing.
God then sends a prophet to tell him that God will deliver them but that the king of Syria will return during the normal season for war. After witnessing the victory God gives him, it would have been a good time to commit himself to the God who delivers. God even gives him a second victory when the king of Syria, as warned, did return.
However, the king of Syria promises to restore cities to Ahab and set up an honorific bazaar in the capitol of Syria, and this promise of riches and fame is enough for Ahab to surrender the complete victory God had given him.
And Ben-hadad said to him, “The cities that my father took from your father I will restore, and you may establish bazaars for yourself in Damascus, as my father did in Samaria.” And Ahab said, “I will let you go on these terms.” So he made a covenant with him and let him go.
1 Kings 20:34
Naboth’s Vineyard
Not only had God blessed Ahab with a kingdom, but that kingdom had been expanded though Ahab making bad deals with Ben-hadad. It may be easy to look on from the outside and think how he had every reason to be content with so much authority. However, we find Ahab, instead, extremely distraught that Naboth (his neighbor) wouldn’t sell him a vineyard for his vegetable garden (because God had commanded that land could not be sold to members of a different clan of Israel).
Rather than be content, he fumes over how this section of territory was outside his reach. However, his wife devises a plan to have Naboth murdered so that they can claim the land for themselves. This may seem shocking (and is horrible, obviously) but from the perspective of the rulers of that time murder and intrigue was often the way men claimed what they wanted.
At this final straw, God pronounces judgement against the family of Ahab and he finally mourns at the loss of his legacy.
And when Ahab heard those words, he tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his flesh and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went about dejectedly. And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, “Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster in his days; but in his son’s days I will bring the disaster upon his house.”
1 Kings 21:27-29
Wrap Up
The repentance isn’t complete. Ahab imprisons Micaiah for delivering yet another warning from God, and dies in the following battle he decided to wage to conquer Ramoth-gilead. Because he had humbled himself, he is buried honorably, though his blood is drained at a pool to be lapped up by dogs and used by prostitutes for bathing. His wife and children, however, are killed and their bodies left to be desecrated by wild animals.
This story, seen from the perspective of Ahab, sheds a lot of light on the Biblical definition of a “fool”. Not because, when seen from the perspective of Elijah, Ahab seems to take every opportunity to sabotage himself but because, from his own perspective, it probably didn’t look like sabotage at all!
This is why God so often warns against relying on our own understanding. For Ahab, who grew up among godless, ambitious men, it would be natural to strive and scheme to expand his fame and influence. When we reject the council of God and depend upon our own view of what’s “best” for us, we end up making fools of ourselves.
Just like Ahab, we can be convinced in our own minds to view our actions as practical, rational, and beneficial when really we just keep setting traps that we ourselves will fall into! The principles for life that God has laid out are so much better than our own, extremely limited understanding.
