1 Kings 16:29-33
As if it had been a light thing
The introduction is a list of things done rather than events: an altar for Baal, a house for Baal in Samaria, and a grove. The comparison is with every king before him.
People of the Bible
Ahab
Did more to provoke the LORD than all the kings before him, and is mostly remembered for sulking about a vegetable garden.
Ahab is introduced with a verdict before he has done anything: he did evil above all that were before him, and as if the sins of Jeroboam were a light thing, he married Jezebel and built a temple for Baal in Samaria. Most of his reign is a contest with Elijah that he keeps losing in public and never learns from. He sees fire fall on Carmel and rain come after three years of drought and goes home and reports it to his wife. He wants a vineyard next to the palace, is refused, and lies down on his bed with his face to the wall.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Ahab
- 01
- 02
1 Kings 18:17-40
Are you he that troubles Israel
They meet after three years of drought and each accuses the other. Four hundred and fifty prophets call from morning until noon, and Elijah pours twelve barrels of water into the trench before he prays.
- 03
1 Kings 18:41-46
The sound of abundance of rain
Elijah tells him to eat and drink because rain is coming, then bows to the ground with his face between his knees. Ahab rides for Jezreel with the storm behind him and Elijah running ahead of the chariot.
- 04
1 Kings 21:1-16
He turned his face to the wall
Naboth will not sell an inheritance. Ahab goes home heavy and displeased and will not eat, and his wife asks whether he governs Israel, and tells him to get up.
- 05
1 Kings 22:29-38
Disguised into the battle
Warned by Micaiah and told the truth he did not want, he goes anyway in borrowed armour and puts Jehoshaphat in royal robes. A man draws a bow at a venture and hits him between the joints.
Why it matters
Ahab is the study in a man who is never quite the worst person in the room and is responsible anyway. He does not kill Naboth; he lets it happen and then goes down to take the land. He is also the one place in the story where the pattern breaks: when the sentence is pronounced he tears his clothes, puts on sackcloth and goes softly, and God says to Elijah, do you see how he humbles himself, and delays the disaster into his son’s days. The delay is real and the sentence still stands.
10 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
