1 Kings 16:29-34

THE BEGINNING OF AHAB’S REIGN, 1 Kings 16:29-34.

Critics have not failed to notice that with the beginning of Ahab’s reign commences a new epoch in the history of Israel: new, not so much in the more flagrant forms of wickedness that manifest themselves, as in the relative importance of the kingdom of Israel during the reigns of Ahab, Ahaziah, and Jehoram. With the exception of Jeroboam the reigns of Ahab’s predecessors are very briefly noticed, occupying but parts of two chapters; but the incidents of the three following reigns, embracing a period of about thirty-five years, extend from this passage to the tenth chapter of 2 Kings. During this period the kingdom of Judah receives comparatively little notice, and then only as an ally of the northern kingdom, which stands out predominantly as the mightiest ruling power in the land. During this period appeared those greatest, sternest, most mysterious of prophets, Elijah and Elisha, whose lives and acts, with strange romantic blendings, present on the one hand the fierce vindictiveness of the theocratic spirit towards sin, and on the other the tender and shrinking humanity which shows them up as men of like passions with ourselves. By means of Jezebel, the Zidonian princess, Phenician idolatry is introduced and sanctioned in the kingdom, and Baal’s prophets are multiplied by hundreds. Wars, attended with varying fortunes, are carried on with several hostile kingdoms, while within the land the few pious weep in desolate sadness, and hide themselves in caves and dens of the earth.