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Introduction: Most Christians are aware of the wickedness of the kings of Israel. In about 931 BC, following the death of Solomon, the kingdom of Israel divided North and South because of the foolishness of Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. The North became known as Israel and the South as Judah after the principle tribe of Judah. God placed Jeroboam over the North, but Jeroboam turned away from following the Lord and set up calf worship in Dan and Bethel, the northern and southern extent of Israel. This set up a long line of wicked kings who continued calf worship and idolatry. The greatest hope Israel had of actually turning back to the Lord was a king God personally appointed, a king named Jehu. However, the primary part of the story begins with Ahab in 1 Kings 16.
The Wickedness of Ahab & His House
Ahab reigned 22 years, and as most know, was the worst king of the Northern Kingdom.
As the kings before him, Ahab not only followed calf worship, but also added to his sin by marrying Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians. He served and worshipped Baal, set up an altar for Baal and built a temple for Baal. And he made a wooden image to the Canaanite goddess, Asherah.
The wickedness of Ahab reached its worst in an incident with a righteous man named Naboth whose house and vineyard was next door to the king’s palace. Ahab wanted his vineyard because of its proximity and because he wanted to make a vegetable garden. Ahab offered to buy the vineyard or trade it for an even better vineyard. But Naboth rightly refused because it was the inheritance of his fathers dating back to their entrance into Canaan.
Now most people would not fret long over such a thing, but Ahab, being a spoiled son of previously powerful and wicked king (Omri), went to his room and lay on his bed and sulked, even refusing to eat. Of course, when his wife Jezebel heard about this, she derided him: You call yourself a king and you can’t get a vineyard you want! So Jezebel then took matters into her own hand.
She sent a letter to the elders of the city for them to proclaim a feast for Naboth and set him in honor, but have two scoundrels testify that he had blasphemed God and have him stoned. This whole matter did not seem to bother Ahab a bit. As soon as he heard that Naboth was dead, he went down to the vineyard to happily admire his new possession.
But God called on the great prophet Elijah to go and meet Ahab as he took possession of Naboth’s vineyard. And from the mouth of Elijah came the words of God’s judgment. There is always a day of reckoning; we must always remember that. Now, Ahab, here is yours:
In the place where dogs lick Naboth’s blood, dogs will lick your blood.
Every male of your house will die throughout the entire land of Israel.
As for Jezebel, dogs will eat her by the wall of Jezreel where Naboth’s vineyard is.
Whoever of Ahab’s house dies in the city, dogs would eat; whoever dies in the country, birds would eat.
Amazingly, when Ahab heard these words, he repented. “He tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his flesh and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went about dejectedly.” Now if Ahab humbling himself is a shock, I think an even greater shock is that when God saw his change of heart, he had mercy on him and changed his verdict to be delayed until after his death. It is amazing how much God desires to show mercy and compassion if we will only turn to him.
Unfortunately, Ahab’s humility was short-lived. Three years later, God determined it was time for him to die. Ahab determined that he should take the city of Ramoth-Gilead back from the Syrians. In order to succeed, he solicited the help of King Jehoshaphat of Judah. He was a good king but with the weakness of wanting to be friends with Ahab.
Jehoshaphat immediately agreed to go, but asked that they first inquire of the Lord. Ahab paraded his 400 prophets, who all told Ahab wanted he wanted to hear: “You will succeed!” Jehoshaphat wasn’t fooled: “Is there not a prophet of the Lord we may inquire?” Ahab’s response is pitiful: “There is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the LORD, Micaiah the son of Imlah, but I hate him, for he never prophesies good concerning me, but evil.”
Micaiah was called and told ahead of time to tell the king what he wants to hear. Micaiah and Ahab must have had a long history together because Micaiah’s first reply was, “Go up and triumph; the Lord will give it into the hand of the king.” The way Micaiah said those words must have been in a surly, disgusted manner because Ahab knew he wasn’t being truthful. “How many times shall I make you swear that you speak to me nothing but the truth in the name of the LORD?” Funny, he didn’t seem to want the truth from any of his false prophets!
Micaiah’s true story: God’s plan was to let an angel be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets so he would go to battle and die. And what do Ahab and Jehoshaphat do? They go to battle with Ahab disguising himself and convincing Jehoshaphat to wear his kingly robes to fool the Syrians. I don’t know who is dummer, Ahab or Jehoshaphat!
Of course, Ahab did not fool God. Some Syrian soldier just decided to shoot an arrow randomly, not even pointing, and God guided the arrow exactly between the joint of Ahab’s armor. He stayed in the chariot propped up till evening and died. As they washed out his chariot, the dogs lapped up his blood.
Ahaziah, Joram, and Jehu
Ahab’s son, Ahaziah took the throne but died after two years when he fell through the lattice of his upper chamber and inquired of Baal-zebub instead of the Lord. Since he had no children, Joram, his brother took the throne.
After reigning eleven years, Joram, son of Ahab was injured in battle at Ramoth-Gilead and went back to Jezreel (remember that name!) to heal of his wounds. In the meantime, the new king of Judah was Ahaziah, son-in-law to Jezebel. Ahaziah came to visit Joram while he was recuperating.
God’s time had now come from the complete recompense against the house of Ahab. Elisha sent a prophet to anoint Jehu, a captain in Joram’s army while battling at Ramoth-Gilead. The prophet told Jehu that he was to destroy all that was left of the house of Ahab. Jehu immediately gathered his men and headed for Jezreel where both Joram and Ahaziah were.
In one of the funnier scenes in the Bible we see Joram and Ahaziah in confusion and panic when the watchman on the tower announced that there was a company of men coming. Joram sent a messenger to find out if it was peace. Jehu simply told the messenger, “What do you have to do with peace? Follow me.” This happened twice until finally the watchman said, “The driving of the chariot is like the driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi, for he drives furiously!”
Joram and Ahaziah got in their chariots and went to meet Jehu…”Is it peace, Jehu?”…. “What peace as long as the harlotries of your mother and her witchcraft are so many!” Jehu then drew his bow and shot Joram in the back as he was fleeing. His body was thrown in the field of Naboth for the dogs. Then they turned and chased Ahaziah and killed him too.
Jezebel was next. So Jehu went into Jezreel to the house of Jezebel (next door to Naboth’s). Jezebel, having heard about Joram, put on her make-up, looked out the window and said, “Is it peace, Zimri, murderer of your master?” (Zimri, a previous captain of king Baasha, committed treason killing Baasha.) Jehu simply looks up and says, “Who is on my side?” Two or three eunuchs looked out and he said, “Throw her down.” Horses trampled her. Jehu went in and ate while the dogs ate Jezebel.
Jehu then sent letters to the men of Samaria who had reared the 70 sons of Ahab telling them to choose one of the sons to be king and prepare to fight. But these men were too afraid so they sent back to Jehu telling him they would do whatever he wanted. Jehu told them to send the heads of the 70 to him by the next day. This they did, Jehu putting heads in two heaps at the entrance to the gate.
Then Jehu then killed all the remained of the house of Ahab, all his great men, his close acquaintances, and his priests.
Jehu’s final work for the Lord was to destroy all the Baal worshipers. He went to Samaria and announced that he would serve Baal even more than Ahab did. He then called for all the prophets of Baal and all who served Baal to come to a great sacrifice to Baal. Whoever would not come would die. So all the worshipers of Baal assembled in the temple of Baal. After making sure there were no worshipers of the Lord inside, he sent in 80 men who killed them all and then tore down the altar and the temple, ridding Israel of Baal worship.
We have to be impressed with Jehu, especially as a king of the Israel. God even commended him: “Because you have done well in carrying out what is right in my eyes, and have done to the house of Ahab according to all that was in my heart, your sons of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel.”
Conclusions and Lesson
But the conclusion of the story is not found in the history of the kings, it is found in Hosea 1:3-5. During the days that Jehu was king Hosea made this prophecy through the naming of his firstborn. Jezreel means, “God will sow/scatter.” He would bring an end to the house of Israel and scatter them. But notice that He would also avenge the bloodshed of Jezreel on the house of Jehu. You might say, “Jehu shed that blood in Jezreel at God’s command! Why would He now punish Jehu for doing what God commanded?”
The answer is found in the fact that Jehu turned to calf worship after seemingly obeying the command of the Lord to destroy the house of Ahab and destroy Baal worship. He proved by his calf worship that his intent in destroying Ahab’s house was not to obey the Lord, but to do his own will. He killed the house of Ahab because he hated them. He obeyed the Lord’s command because he happened to agree with the Lord on this point, not because he respected the Lord.
Do you see the point? Intent has everything to do with whether or not we are really obeying the Lord or if we are just doing this because we think it is the best way. Let’s be honest, none of us are in favor of everything the Lord has commanded, especially when it comes to whether he is first in everything in our lives. We can appear to be faithful for many years, until one day the choice between our desires and God’s way is more than we can handle. That’s when we find out if we really love the Lord.
That’s when we discover we were like Jehu: zealous for what we want to do and happy that is so happened to be the Lord’s will too. But when doing the Lord’s will crosses what we desire, we discover our utter rebelliousness. The fact is that all those years in which we seemed to be obedient, we hadn’t done a thing the Lord commanded! Everything we did, was our own will. Submission is when we deny our will for his. Otherwise, we never did obey.
So, what is your “obedience” like? Is it truly submission? Or, is it that we obey God’s commands the 90% of the time we are in agreement?