1 Kings 21:1-15

The Martyrdom of Naboth.

History tells of few crimes of its kind more flagitious, more cruel and cold-blooded than this. Here we see that spectacle which one of the ancients said was dear to the gods—a just man suffering shameful wrongs with dignity and patience: we see a man because of his fidelity to God and His law judicially done to death by the representative of God, by the authority appointed to execute the Law.

And just as the crime has few parallels, so has the history few equals in point of graphic force and quiet pathos. It is like one of those sketches by the hand of a master, which set us wondering to see how much effect can be produced, and how much meaning conveyed, by a few broad lines and touches. We see in the first place the king, from his palace lattices, or from his garden slopes, casting hungry, envious eyes on the rich vineyard of his neighbour. He must have it at any cost. The residence is incomplete without it. We then hear him making overtures to the sturdy owner. There is a smile upon his face. His words are smoother than butter. Nothing could be fairer, as it seems at first, than his proposals. Surely Naboth will do well to sell or exchange on such liberal terms as these. But we find him straightway shrinking in pious horror from the idea. There is nothing to soften or modify his blunt and abrupt refusal. He cannot, he will not, do this thing and sin against God. We see a cloud of vexation gather on the king's brow. He is foiled. The project on which he has set his heart he cannot realize. With a mortified scowl, a look in which suppressed rage and bitter disappointment are equally blended, he terminates the interview and hurries to his palace, while Naboth, strong in the consciousness of right, but not without misgivings as to the issue, goes to tell his story to his wife and children at home.

And now the scene changes. We are admitted to a room, a bedroom of the palace of Samaria. We see on an ivory couch, in an ivory house ( 1 Kings 22:29 ), or in a chamber celled with cedar, and painted with vermilion ( Jeremiah 22:14 ), a man whose soul is so vexed and troubled that he can eat no bread, that he has a word for no one, but turns his face sullenly to the wall. Can this be the king of Israel? can this be Ahab, whose recent victories over the Syrians have rung through many lands? It is Ahab indeed. The great conqueror is a slave to himself. By his side there stands his dark, malignant, Phoenician consort. We hear his pitiful, almost childish, complaint, that he cannot have the vineyard he so much covets, and we straightway see a look of something like scorn upon her face. We hear her almost contemptuous rejoinder, "Art thou, then, so helpless, so utterly without resources, as to lie here and grieve like a spoilt child? Is it for nothing that thou art a king, or art thou king in name only? If thou art baffled, I am not. Arise, and eat bread. Banish dull care and give thyself up to feasting. I will give thee the vineyard of this wretched peasant."

The next tableau introduces us to another chamber of this same royal residence. The king may keep his bed if he will, but the queen is up and doing. The scribes are now writing at her command. She it is who dictates the words, who stamps the writings with the king's seal. The scribe's hand may well tremble as he pens the infamous decree, for the letter consigns Naboth to death; but she knows no fear, has no scruples. The letters are despatched, the royal posts carry their sealed orders to Jezreel, and the murderess sits down to eat and drink, and rises up to play.

Again the scene changes. We find ourselves in s village convocation. The elders of Jezreel, the officers of the royal borough, have proclaimed a fast. Their town has incurred the wrath of God, and they must find out and expiate the sin. Naboth is there. He fears this meeting bodes him no good, but he is compelled to attend. He finds himself, to his great surprise, set "at the head of the people." But who shall picture the astonishment and pain in this man's face, when there rise up in that assembly, two miserable varlets who swear that he, Naboth, the humble servant of the Lord, the man who has honestly striven to keep the law, even against his king, has committed a horrible breach of law, has blasphemed God and the anointed of God. He thinks, perchance, at the first, that the charge is so utterly reckless and improbable, that none of these his neighbours, who know him so well, and have known him from his youth up, will entertain it for a moment. But he is speedily undeceived. He finds that he has not a chance with them, that all steel their faces and hearts against him. He perceives that there is a conspiracy against him. In vain he protests his innocence; in vain he appeals to his blameless life. His cries and those of his wife and children are alike unheeded. In a trice he is condemned to die the death of the blasphemer.

And now we find ourselves hurried along by a tumultuous crowd. We pass through the city gate, we reach the open space outside the walls. So far, Naboth has hardly realized that they are in earnest, so suddenly has the thing come upon him. Surely it is some grim jest that his neighbours play upon him. It cannot be that he is to die, to look for the last time on the faces of those he loves, on his native fields, on the blessed light of the sun. But if he has any lingering hopes of deliverance they are rapidly dispelled. He sees them making preparations for his execution. They are going to stone him on the spot. "O God in heaven!" he thinks, "is it for this I have kept Thy law? Is this agony and death the reward of mine integrity? Must I then die, when life is so sweet! Is there no power to rescue me out of the jaws of the lion? Has God forgotten me? or will He look on it and require it?" ( 2 Chronicles 24:22 .) It is true the history says nothing of any such thoughts, of any prayers, appeals, entreaties, threatenings; but the history, it must be remembered, is but an outline, and that outline it is left for us to fill up. And we cannot doubt that Naboth had some such thoughts as these. But whatever they were, they were speedily brought to a close. "The king's business required haste." Time for reflection would mean time for repentance. The witnesses speedily divest themselves of their abbas ; they lay them down at the feet of the elders; they take up stones and rush upon him. At the first blow he quivers from head to foot with a great throb of pain, but blow follows fast upon blow; he sinks senseless; the blood streams from his wounds; the dear life is crushed out of him, and Naboth's name and the names of his sons are added to those on the glory roll of the noble army of martyrs.

But it is now for us to ask what led to this shameful deed. There were five parties to this tragedy—Naboth, the king, the queen, the elders, the witnesses. Let us see how each of these contributed, though in very different ways, to diabolical result. We shall thus see how Naboth, who was murdered in the name of law and religion, was a martyr to law and religion. And let us consider—

1. The piety of Naboth . For it was his religion brought this doom upon his head. He had but to comply with the request of the king—and what loyal subject would not wish to gratify the Lord's anointed?—and all would have gone well. So far from being stoned, he would have been honoured and rewarded. And that request seemed so reasonable. There was no attempt at robbery or confiscation. The king offered an ample equivalent; a better vineyard than it, or bars of silver which could buy a better. Was he not perverse and wrong headed to let a scruple stand in the way? We should not have done so. No; but is not that precisely because we have not the steadfast piety of Naboth? There is no reason to think that he was not loyal. Doubtless he would have been glad to oblige his king. But there were two considerations stood in the way. First, his duty to God; secondly, his duty to his forefathers and to his posterity. His duty to God. For God's law said, "The land shall not be sold forever" (Le 25:2-3); it laid down that every child of Israel should "cleave to the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers" ( Numbers 36:7 ). And Naboth knew this, and Ahab knew it. But to the latter the law was a dead letter; to the former it was a living reality. To him there was no God but one, no will to be considered in comparison with His. If Naboth could but have consented to do as others had done ( 1 Kings 16:24 ), he would have kept his life. But he could not. He "did not fear loss, but sin." It was a crime against Jehovah, and he would not consent. Moreover it was—though perhaps this thought had comparatively little influence with him—a wrong to his ancestors and to his posterity. For generations past, ever since it was allotted to his first father, had that vineyard been in his family. It had been transmitted through a long line to him. It was his duty to transmit it intact to those who came after him, and he would do it. It was for these reasons—sentimental reasons some would call them—that Naboth died, because of his belief in a living God, and because he kept His law, and especially the first and fifth commandments of the Decalogue.

2. The impiety of Ahab . Just as the action of Naboth arose out of his belief, so did that of Ahab spring out of his practical unbelief—an apt illustration of the close connexion between our faith and our practice. This crime had its beginning, its fons et origo, in idolatry. It was because Ahab worshipped gods many and lords many that his allegiance to the Divine law was shaken. The law of Baal, he argued, did not forbid the alienation of land—why should the law of Jehovah? The root of this sin, therefore, like the root of all sin, was unbelief. And its blossom was a direct violation of the Decalogue. Out of the breach of the first commandment sprang violations of the sixth, eighth, ninth, and tenth. Just as Naboth, the believer in the one true God, stands out conspicuously as a keeper of the ten words, so do all the other parties in the tragedy stand convicted of violating them. It was primarily the tenth commandment that Ahab set at nought. He had no right to set his heart upon that vineyard, which the great King had given to another. And a breach of law was the less excusable in his ease, insomuch as he was the guardian of law and was acquainted with its provisions ( Deuteronomy 17:18 ). Of all men, he should have been the last to defy or disregard it. But it is only when we consider that when his subject, to whom he should have been an example, set him an example, and refused to participate in his sin, that then, so far from repenting and praying that the thought of his heart might be forgiven him, he mourns and repines that he was not allowed to consummate it—it is only when we consider this that we realize its hue character. His was a sin against light and knowledge; a sin against his helper and benefactor ( 1 Kings 20:13 , 1 Kings 20:28 ); a sin in spite of manifold warnings; a sin which led to blacker sin still. He coveted an evil covetousness to his house. That "love of money" was a root of false witness, of foul murder. And in this estimate of Ahab's sin it is assumed that he neither knew nor sanctioned Jezebel's designs. If he gave her the royal seal with the least idea of the malignant purpose to which she would apply it, he was virtually an accessory before the fact, and so was guilty of murder and robbery. And even if he was ignorant of her intentions, still the readiness with which he reaped the fruits of her crime makes him a partaker in her sin. It is a common saying that the "receiver is as bad as the thief." And he must have known that "Jezebel could not give this vineyard with dry hands."

3. The depravity of Jezebel . Great as Ahab's guilt was, it was altogether eclipsed by that of his wife. At her door lies the real sin of the murder. The hands that accomplished it were not so guilty as the heart that suggested it and the mind that planned it. Ahab broke the tenth, Jezebel the sixth, eighth, ninth, and tenth commandments. Covetousness, false witness, murder, confiscation, she stands convicted of them all. But what lends its most hideous feature to her sin is the consideration that she, the sworn foe of the law of Jehovah, availed herself of its forms to compass Naboth's death. Was ever such black-hearted ingenuity as hers? We can fancy her laughing in her sleeve at the crafty use she made of the hated system of the Jews. We can see her shaking her finger at Naboth and saying "Simple fool! thou hast stood out for the law; thou shalt have a surfeit of it this time." It is possible that she rejoiced at the base part to which she commits the elders of Jezreel. If they will cling to their austere and gloomy creed, she will make them carry out its provisions. To this shameful murderess it added zest to her sin that she scored a triumph against the followers and the law of the God of Israel. We must also observe the evident satisfaction, the malicious triumph, with which she hears of Naboth's death. So far from feeling the least compunction, she hurries with the good news to her husband. Her part, so far as we know, is absolutely without a parallel of all the daughters of our first mother. What name is there so deservedly infamous as hers?

4. The corruption of the elders . We may readily acquit them of liking the task entailed upon them. They could not embark on that course of crime without many qualms of conscience and secret self upbraidings. But the name of Jezebel inspired so much terror that they dared not resist her will. Their sin was, first, that they feared man more than God. It was unbelief at bottom; they had more faith in the finger of the queen than in the arm of the Almighty. They argued, as the Turkish peasant does, that the queen was near and God was a long way off. It was, secondly, that they abused their office. In defiance of law ( Exodus 23:2 , Exodus 23:6 ; Deuteronomy 16:19 ), they wrested judgment and condemned the innocent ( Deuteronomy 27:19 , Deuteronomy 27:25 ), and so they share with Jezebel the guilt of the murder. It is idle to plead the constraint put upon them, to say that they would have died had they resisted her; they should have died rather than slay the innocent. But for their complaisance, the queen might have been baffled. One might reasonably expect elders— the "judges and officers" of the land ( Deuteronomy 16:18 )—to answer, "We ought to obey God rather than man." History tells of many judges who have withstood the corrupt commands of their sovereign. During the Mohammedan rule in Spain one of the caliphs took forcible possession of a field belonging to one of his subjects. This man, as a forlorn hope, stated his grievance before the kadi, a man renowned for his integrity, and the kadi promised to bring his case before the king. Loading his mule with a sack of earth which he had taken from the stolen field, he strode into the presence of the prince, and asked him to be so good as to lift the sack of earth to his shoulders. The caliph tried to comply with his request, but the burden proved too heavy for him; he could not move, still less carry, it. "Wretched man!" cried the judge, "see what thou hast done. Thou canst not carry one mule's burden of the earth of this field of which thou hast deprived thy subject. How, then, canst thou hope to sustain the whole field on thy shoulders in the dreadful day of judgment?" The appeal was successful; the prince made immediate restitution and rewarded the judge. But nothing of this kind did the elders of Jezreel. They only feared for their skins. They argued that one or the other must die, and if so it must be Naboth. And so he died, and they bore the stain of blood upon their souls.

5. The perjury of the witnesses . It is hardly correct to describe their sin as perjury. It was much more than that. It was actual murder also. As witnesses, they had to cast the first stone—to take the principal part in the execution. Even without this they were guilty of murder, for it was upon their testimony that Naboth was condemned to die. They share with the elders, consequently, the guilt of violating the sixth and ninth commandments. But they were "sons of Belial" to begin with. They were not ministers of God; still less were they the "Lord's anointed." And they were but instruments in the hand of others. The elders were the hand; the queen was the head.

It is clear, then, that Naboth's death was a true martyrdom. He died a victim to his faith in God and his obedience to law. He was a witness ( μάρτυς ), consequently, for God no less than Elijah or Elisha. Like Elijah, he was a public vindicator of the law, and he sealed his witness with his blood. He died because he would not deny it; because others, its guardians and executors, violated and abused it.

But if any deny his right to be enrolled in the army of martyrs, it only needs to compare his end with that of the protomartyr Stephen, and indeed with that of our blessed Lord. The analogy could not well be closer.

1 . The same passions and influences were at work in each case. It was unbelief and pride and covetousness occasioned the death of Naboth. These were the forces arrayed against our Lord and against Stephen. Was there a coveted vineyard in one case? so there was in the other ( Luke 20:14 , Luke 20:15 ).

2 . The tribunals were equally corrupt. The Sanhedrim was the counterpart of the elders; the council of Jerusalem of that of Jezreel ( Matthew 26:59 ; Acts 6:12 ).

3 . The princes of this world occasioned the death of Naboth; the princes of this world took counsel against the Christ ( Acts 4:26 , Acts 4:27 ), and crucified the Lord of glory ( 1 Corinthians 2:8 ).

4 . The charge was the same in every case, viz; blasphemy ( Matthew 26:65 ; Acts 6:13 ). The variation is extremely slight: "God and the king" in one case; "against Moses and God" in another ( Acts 6:11 ).

5 . The charge was made in each instance by men who were conspicuously law-breakers ( John 17:19 ; Acts 7:58 ), and it was made in the name of law ( John 19:7 ; Acts 6:14 ).

6 . The means used to compass the death were alike in every case, viz; false witness ( Matthew 26:59 , Matthew 26:60 ; Acts 6:11 , 18).

7 . Each of these three martyrs suffered without the gate ( Acts 7:58 : Hebrews 13:12 ). Like Naboth, Stephen was stoned; like Naboth, our Lord would have been stoned if the Jews had had the power ( John 18:31 ), and if the counsel of God had not willed otherwise ( Acts 4:28 ).

8 . There is indeed one difference, and that is suggestive. The martyrs of our religion prayed for their murderers ( Luke 23:34 ; Acts 7:60 ); the martyrs of Judaism could only cry, "The Lord look on it and require it" ( 2 Chronicles 24:22 ). The blood of the covenant speaks better things than the blood of Naboth.