1 Kings 22

In his novel Moby Dick, Herman Melville gave the name Ahab to the deranged captain of the whaling vessel Pequod. (Melville also included a “prophet” named Elijah.) The Ahab in the Bible is a weak man who destroyed himself and his family because he allowed his evil wife, Jezebel, to turn him into a monster. The name Jezebel is familiar to people today and has even made it into the dictionary: “Jezebel—an evil, shameless woman.” To call a woman “a Jezebel” is to put her on the lowest level of society (see Rev. 2:20–23). The prophet Elijah described the man accurately when he told Ahab, “I have found you, because you have sold yourself to do evil in the sight of the Lord” (1 Kings 21: nkjv).

These chapters describe four events in Ahab’s life: three battles with the Syrians (Aram) and a land-grab scam that involved an illegal trial and several murders. Because he wasn’t rightly related to the Lord and His Word, Ahab was enslaved to sin, but “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23), and Ahab received his wages with dividends. We will look at the four events and see Ahab’s varied responses.