>> Jen: Good morning, friends and faithful listeners, and welcome to the Bible Explained podcast on, um, this very chilly, chilly morning. So grab your cup of tea or your cup of coffee and stay warm because we're going to be discussing 1 Kings 21 today. So this story that we read today is probably the one that really shows the best how evil Jezebel and Ahab really are, because they just do something absolutely sickening in today's
episode. So let's go ahead and read it. I'll be reading out, uh, the Web, and this is going to be 1 Kings 21. 1 - 16 after these things. Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard which was in Jezreel next to the palace of Ahab, king of Samaria. Ahab spoke to Naboth, saying, give me your vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near my house, and I will give you for it a better vineyard than it. Or if it seems good to you,
I will give you its worth in money. Naboth said to Ahab, may Yahweh forbid me that I should give the inheritance of my fathers to you. Ahab came into his house sullen and angry because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him, for he had said, I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers. He laid himself down on his bed and turned away his face and would eat no bread. But Jezebel his wife, came to him and said to him, why
is your spirit so sad that you eat no bread? He said to her, because I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite and said to him, give me your vineyard for money, or else if it pleases you, I will give you another vineyard for it. He answered, I will not give you my vineyard. Jezebel, his wife, said to him, do you now govern the kingdom of Israel? Arise and eat bread, and let your heart be merry. I will give you
the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite. So she wrote letters in Ahab's name and sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters to the elders and to the nobles who were in the city who lived with Naboth. She wrote in the letters, saying, proclaim a fast and set Naboth um on high among the people. Set two men, wicked fellows, before him and let them testify against him, saying, you cursed God and the king. Then carry him out and stone him to
death. The men of his city, even the elders and the nobles who lived in this city, did as Jezebel instructed them in the letters which she had written and sent to them. They proclaimed a fast and set Naboth on high among the people. The two men, the wicked fellows, came in and sat before him. The wicked fellows testified against him, even against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, naboth cursed God and the king. Then they carried him out of the city and stoned him
to death with stones. Then they sent to Jezebel, saying, naboth has been stoned and is dead. When Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned and was dead, Jezebel said to Ahab, arise, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give you for money, for Naboth is not alive, but dead. When Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, Ahab rose up to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite to take possession of it.
God is already pretty furious with Ahab and with Jezebel because of the way they treated his prophets and just the really terrible things that they did. But this is the one story where God is like, I've had enough with these two. There was this man named Naboth the Jezreelite, and he had this vineyard which was very close to the palace that Ahab lived in in Samaria. And so Ahab was like, that vineyard is the perfect location for me to plant a garden.
So I'm gonna go to Naboth, and I'm going to request that he sell me his field, and I will pay him what it's worth, or I'll give him, actually, an even better field that is further away from me. This field is in the prime location for me to have a veggie garden. And I don't know, it just sounds kind of ridiculous, you know, for Ahab to go to that length, to these lengths in order to have a vegetable garden. And actually, the web says an herb garden, a garden of
herbs. So Ahab just wanted the convenience of where Naboth's land was situated. That's all he cared about. As we've seen before with Ahab's personality, He was definitely a man that enjoyed his convenience, enjoyed his luxuries, and didn't really want to have to do much of anything. He just wanted to live a quiet, comfortable life. So of course he's going to want Naboth's field. But Naboth actually says to Ahab, may Yahweh forbid me that I should give the inheritance of my fathers to you.
And this was not something. I don't think Naboth was being mean here when he said this to Ahab. Like, who are you to demand my field? Like, how dare you? I doubt Naboth was acting like that, because Naboth is just trying to go off of what the Old Testament law says. So here was a command from God in Numbers 36, 7 - 9. It says, no inheritance in Israel is to pass from one tribe to another, for every Israelite shall keep the tribal
inheritance of their ancestors. Every daughter who inherits the land in an Israelite tribe must marry somebody in her father's tribal clan so that every Israelite will possess the inheritance of their ancestors. No inheritance may pass from one tribe to another. For each Israelite tribe is to keep the land it inherits. So that's why Naboth did not want to sell this piece of property to Ahab, because he was really trying to
keep the Old Testament laws. Even if, you know, a better field of Ahabs might sound tempting to Naboth. Naboth was like, no, I want to keep these inheritance that God gave me, and I want to follow the law that says we shouldn't, you know, trade our property around or give it away to other people. And the reason God put that law in place was so that Israel and the different tribes wouldn't
expand their borders. In fact, there was actually a law put in place as well where God said for Israel also not to expand its borders, like, as a nation, so that his people don't become warmongers, and so that the Israelite tribes don't start turning on each other because they're like, oh, you've got a better piece of land over there in the tribe of Reuben. And, uh, you know, I
want that particular piece of land. And so God was making sure that the tribes were just unified, that they get the piece of land that they get, and it should not trade hands. And actually, even in Leviticus, it says that, um, if somebody is extremely poor and they just cannot afford to live on the land that they've been given, they can actually lease out that land to somebody else, to somebody who is richer, and gain the money from
that. But on the year of jubilee, the owner who leased it out must return it to the poor man. So even in that case, like, if somebody was super poor, it never exactly leaves their hands. They can just lend it out or lease it out to somebody else to use for a period of, like, seven years or something like that. And so land was not supposed to trade hands in Israel. And this is why Naboth says to Ahab, I'm not selling you my piece of land because I just can't go
against the Old Testament law like that. But Ahab is super infuriated. He's so angry because his convenience has now been taken away from him. He now has to use the other fields that are further away. And, you know, this is too much for him. So. So he goes into his house, sullen and angry because of what Naboth said to him. And so he lies himself down on his bed and turned his face away and would eat no bread.
So he had an adult temper tantrum. And Jezebel, his wife, comes into the room, and she's like, why are you lying on your bed like that, not eating bread? Like, why are you having a temper tantrum? And so he says to her, because I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite and said to him, give me your vineyard for money or else, if it pleases you, I will give you another vineyard for it. But he answered me, I will not give you my vineyard. So he lied to his wife. This is not exactly what Naboth
said. Naboth says, I can't give it to you. God forbid that I give my inheritance that belongs to my sons to you. I just can't do it. Even if you offer me more money than it's worth, even if you offer me a better piece of land. I can't go against the law like that. But of course, Ahab does not relay the story correctly. He just is acting as if, you know, in defiance, Naboth would not sell this land to him. But regardless, I mean, Jezebel was a really crappy person.
I, uh, mean literally. Her name actually means crap. So she says to Ahab, she's like, do you not govern the kingdom of Israel? She's like, are you not a king? Why don't you act like a king? You know, I married a king. She says, arise and eat bread and let your heart be merry. I will get you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite. And so, of course, Ahab allows his wife to do whatever she wants. Because once again, Ahab, he was wimpy. He had no
backbone at all. He just would let people do whatever they wanted to do. And not only this, he was also an evil person. So he never stood up for anything. And he didn't care what happened to people's lives. He only cared about himself. He was a very selfish, spineless, wicked king. And he is very aware of how evil Jezebel is. I mean, Jezebel had already killed many of Yahweh's prophets. She threatened to kill Elijah. She was a, uh, very terrible person. So now
she says, I'm gonna get you that land. And, you know, Ahab should have known and probably did know that she was gonna go kill Naboth, but he didn't care. So Jezebel, in verse eight, writes letters in Ahab's name and sealed them with his seal and sent the letters to the elders and to the nobles who were in the city who lived with Naboth. She wrote in the letters saying, proclaim a fast and set Naboth
on high among the people. Then set two men who are wicked fellows before him and let them testify against him, saying you cursed God and the king, then carry him out and stone him to death. So here was the plan. Well, actually, let me back up a little bit. Notice here that Jezebel is just fine using some of the Old Testament laws and Yahweh's name, m in order to do something extremely evil, such as
killing an innocent man. You know, before, Jezebel wanted nothing to do with God, nothing to do with the Old Testament laws, nothing to do with Yahweh whatsoever. But now she's totally fine invoking God's name. Because here's the plan. She's proclaiming a fast, which would signal to the people that something bad was going on. Like, typically, you don't fast when things are good. You fast when
something is very bad. And you need to pray and you need to focus more on God, and you're just showing God, like, God, I am distraught. That is the purpose of a fast. So she's making this fast day to show the people in the city of Jezreel that something really bad is going on. And then during this fast, there is going to be a meeting. I don't know if it's a, uh, prayer meeting or what exactly, but at this meeting, she would have Naboth be
front and center. So he'd be seated in the best possible place, like, at the head of the table, and everybody else would be surrounding him. And near the head of the table, there'd be two men, two witnesses. That is an Old Testament law. Two men testifying falsely about Naboth, saying, you're the reason all of this happened. You're the reason we have to fast. You're the reason Israel is in danger. And Jezreel right now is in danger because you cursed Yahweh and you cursed the
king. And of course, the people would be all up in arms because they'd be like, oh, my gosh, you know, the king called for a fast. You know, something really bad must be happening here in Israel for the king to
call a fast. What is happening? And then when they hear these two witnesses at this meeting, you know, going off on Naboth saying, we heard you, Naboth, saying all these terrible things about God and the king, and this is why, uh, terrible things are happening to Israel right now and why we have to fast, the people would get scared, and they would take Naboth out in fear and stone him. And this was the plan that Jezebel came up with. And it worked perfectly, is what it says
in verse 11. The men of his city, even the elders and the nobles who lived in the city, did as Jezebel had instructed them in the letters which she wrote and sent to them. So the elders went along with this. They knew that they were going to potentially kill Naboth with this plan, but they went along with what Jezebel said, either because they were fearful of Jezebel, which could have been the case, or because they also
didn't really care very much. They were also wicked leaders that maybe were benefiting from Jezebel and from Ahab and they wanted to stay on Jezebel's and Ahab's good side. So they just did what she told them to do. It says they proclaimed a fast and set Naboth on high among the people. The two men, the wicked fellows, came in and sat before him. They testified against him, even against Naboth in the presence of the people, saying, naboth cursed God and the king.
And like I said, Jezebel was both invoking the name of God in this plan and also using Old Testament laws and fast days in order to get what she wanted. You know, the Old Testament law said that you have to have two witnesses to come before somebody in order to enact some sort of punishment. If just one witness comes and says, like, hey, I heard so and so say this, then you're to disregard that witness. There had to be two or more witnesses, which is why Jezebel put two false
witnesses there. So she's just a really, really terrible person. So these two false witnesses said evil things about Naboth in the presence of the people, saying, naboth cursed God and the king. Then they carried him out of the city, and they stoned him to death with stones. So Jezebel used the people's fear and panic in order to get Nabith killed in order to get what she wanted. Does that not sound familiar?
I mean, just four years ago, five years ago now, we were in, like, mass hysteria over the COVID I remember even me, like, I was in the grocery store, and they put these stupid lines on the floor where you had to, like, follow them, and you couldn't go the direction you wanted to go. You had to follow these dumb lines through the grocery store. So you didn't, like, cross paths with anybody. So it was just, like, one long line throughout the
grocery store. Well, anyway, I was looking for something specific in one of the aisles, and I passed it, and I'm like, no, I am not going all the way back to the beginning of the store to get Something that is 10ft behind me. And so I literally put my cart there, and I turned around and I grabbed what I needed 10ft away from me. And this older woman screamed at me. She yelled at me. She was like, you're going the wrong way. And I was like, well, I
forgot something. You know, I mean, I probably was not that kind. I was a little bit less kind than that. But, yeah, I mean, the mass hysteria, it really works in order to get people to do a specific thing. And that's why governments throughout history, including Jezebel right here, has used it in order to gain from people's panic. So it works. The people are panicked because they don't understand why they're fasting. There could be another, you know, army on the way to come
kill everybody in Jezreel. There could be another famine on the way. They have no clue why they're fasting. And then they hear all these bad things being said about Naboth, and they're just like, oh, my gosh, Naboth is part of the problem here. Naboth is the problem. We gotta get rid of Naboth. And so the people take him out, and they stone him to death with stones. And here's what's really sad about this. It likely wasn't just Naboth. The people probably also stoned his
sons. 2 Kings 9:26 says, and this is God speaking. Yesterday I saw the blood of Naboth and the blood of his sons, declares the lord, and I will surely make you pay for it on this plot of ground, declares the lord. So it wasn't just Naboth that died. It was Naboth and possibly his entire family. Due to Jezebel and due to these two false witnesses and due to the panic of the people who refused to think Logically, about something who refused to ask questions and just went with the crowd.
So many people were involved in the murder of this innocent man and his innocent sons also. And Jezebel is super happy. She hears that Naboth has been stoned. And so she goes to Ahab and she says, arise and take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give you for money, for Naboth is not alive but dead. And in verse 16 it says, Ahab heard
that Naboth was dead. He rose up and went down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite to take possession of it, because there is nobody left to take possession of this land, because as we saw with what God said in 2 Kings 9, Naboth's sons were also dead. So there was no person to inherit this field, and Ahab took it for his own. So what can we learn from this? Nowadays, we need to avoid being like the people that
stoned Naboth. We need to make sure we think logically about something, that we research what we are hearing, that we don't just go along with the crowd and whatever mass hysteria is happening next. We have to be very, very careful not to allow panic and fear to influence our decisions, because we could potentially do something really awful to somebody else if we do. Alrighty, faithful listeners, I hope you enjoyed today's episode and if you did, share it and tell people that the Bible Explained
podcast exists. But faithful listeners, I will see you guys all tomorrow as we discuss Second Corinthians Chapter three, I believe. Until then, happy listening and God bless.