1 Kings 21:1-4
He laid him down upon his bed, and turned away his face
A king sulks over a vegetable patch. The refusal he received was legal, and the account lets the pettiness stand undescribed.
Places of the Bible
Jezreel
A king wanted a vegetable garden, and the whole dynasty ended on the piece of ground he took for it.
Ahab has a palace here and next to it is a vineyard belonging to Naboth the Jezreelite. The offer made is reasonable: a better vineyard, or the worth of it in money. The refusal is not stubbornness, it is law. The LORD forbid it me that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee. Land in Israel is not property that moves, and Naboth is quoting a statute rather than haggling.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Jezreel
- 01
- 02
1 Kings 21:8-14
She wrote letters in Ahab’s name
The murder is done by correspondence, with a proclaimed fast, two hired witnesses, and the elders of Naboth’s own city doing the work.
- 03
1 Kings 21:17-20
Hast thou killed, and also taken possession
Elijah meets him in the vineyard itself. Ahab’s greeting is hast thou found me, O mine enemy, which answers the question before it is asked.
- 04
2 Kings 9:30-37
Throw her down
Jezebel paints her face and dresses her hair and meets Jehu at a window with a question about peace. Her own attendants throw her out of it.
- 05
2 Kings 9:25-26
In the portion of the field of Naboth
Jehu quotes the word spoken in the vineyard decades earlier and has the body cast on that exact plot. The geography is the sentence being carried out.
Why it matters
Ahab goes home heavy and displeased and lies down and turns away his face and will not eat, and Jezebel asks why, and then writes letters in his name and seals them with his seal. Two sons of Belial testify, Naboth is stoned outside the city, and Ahab goes down to take possession. Elijah meets him in the vineyard with a sentence naming the exact place, and a generation later Jehu drives furiously into this town, has Jezebel thrown from a window, and the account is careful to say whose plot of ground the bodies land on.
5 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
