Year 1, Day 362: 1 Kings 21

1 Kings 21 gives us the story of Naboth and his vineyard.  Even more importantly, this passage gives us the story of the fickleness of the human spirit and the deception of the human heart.  Let’s start with Naboth.

Naboth and His Death

Naboth dies having done nothing wrong.  He was tending the land that the Lord gave to him.  He was caring for his inheritance.  And apparently he was doing a good job of it, too!  Had he been tending the land poorly I doubt Ahab would have wanted it for himself.  So Naboth dies for simply being obedient to the Lord and for being a good steward.

Welcome to life, really.  Don’t we have a cliché in our English language that says “No good deed goes unpunished?”  So often it seems like the people who are simply doing what they should be doing are the ones who get abused by the people who break the laws of the land – or in this case, God’s law.  This doesn’t mean that we stop obeying the law.  Nor does it mean that we repay evil for evil.  It means that we go through life realizing the understanding that just because we are doing what we should be doing doesn’t mean that we will be free from trouble.  And we also need to firmly trust that God will sort it out in the end.  The job of repaying evil doesn’t fall upon our shoulders.

Ahab

Now let’s move on to Ahab.  Ahab is pretty pathetic in this story.  He can’t have what he wants, so he gets depressed about it.  He can’t have the object of his desire, so he lives like his life is over.  That is really pathetic.

Of course, I say that it is pathetic not so much in judgment of him but in judgment of myself.  How often am I the same as Ahab?  How often do I mope around when things don’t go my way?  How often do I reject my current appliance, computer, or phone simply because it isn’t the “newest and best” even though it works just fine?  How often am I not satisfied with the lavish blessings that God has given to me simply because the desire of my heart hasn’t been filled to my satisfaction?  Of course, the sad reality is that even if God did fill my desire to my current satisfaction, I’d still want more anyway. 

Really, this is all so pathetic.  Human beings and our fickle desires are just so pathetic.  It’s no wonder that happiness is so elusive in our culture.  When our hearts are so fickle that the absence of luxuries depresses us beyond what the joy of having our needs met can sustain – well – that’s pathetic.  It’s pitiable, weak, dismal, and feeble.

Jezebel

Finally we move onto the corruption of Jezebel.  This really should not surprise us.  It has been Jezebel who has been running Ahab’s kingdom from behind the scenes all along. It is Jezebel who set out to kill the prophets of God and establish the worship of Ba’al.  It is Jezebel who set out to kill Elijah after the slaughter of the priests of Ba’al.  It is Jezebel who now devises a plan to kill Naboth.

When a human being is fully given over to evil, there will be no point at which the means do not justify the ends.  A person who is devoted to pure evil will do anything that gets them what their heart desires.  Think about Hitler in Germany.  Think about Napolean in France.  Think about Nero in Rome.  Think about Mao Zedong (Mao Tse Tung) in China.  Think about Joseph Stalin in Russia.  Within Christianity, think about the Inquisition in Europe.  Or within American Christianity think about the Salem Witch Trials.  There is no place that is free from the influence of people who are bent on evil purposes and willing to use their power and influence to bring about their desired goals.

Jezebel is no different.  She sees her husband “suffering.”  With no respect for the law and no respect for God’s will, Jezebel has Naboth killed so that her husband can have the desire of his heart.  A man dies so that another man – the wealthiest man in the country, no doubt! – can possess a vineyard.  It is a sad truth about humanity.  But it is what happens when we let our fickle hearts pine over non-essentials and allow people to exert their power to unlawfully get us what we desire.

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