Please note that this article is derived from a sermon series on 1 Kings given in Bermondsey Gospel Hall, the audio of which can be found here.
Here in the United Kingdom, we are used to recording our history in periods referencing the King or Queen on the throne. We talk about the time of the Normans, Tudors and Stuarts. We speak of the Elizabethan, Georgian and Victorian ages. At least in this way, the books of 1 & 2 Kings should be familiar to us. Originally one book, split into two parts so the scroll wasn’t overly long, Kings records the history of Israel from King David until the exile in Assyria and Babylon not by referencing the date of events, but the monarch on the throne. Over and over again it tells us who reigned where and for how long, before drawing our attention to the key events that took place during that period. Over the coming months, I want us to spend time together in a particular period. One section of 1 Kings that records the reign of King Ahab. He isn’t the first king that comes to mind when you think of the Kings of Israel. And yet it is the reign of Ahab and his descendants that occupies the central part of this book. From 1 Kings 17 to 2 Kings 10, the storyline is set during the reign of the house of Ahab in Israel. However, before we begin our journey through the Age of Ahab, we need to arrive there. We need to understand what has happened in the narrative up to that point. What takes place in 1 Kings 1-16 that results in Ahab sitting on the throne? That is what I want to consider as an introduction today.
1 Kings 1-16 largely breaks into three sections: (1) The Decline of David (1 Kings 1); (2) The Slide of Solomon (1 Kings 2-11); and (3) The Idolatry of Israel (1 Kings 12-16), which is the immediate context and backdrop to Ahab ascending the throne in 16:29-34. From their titles, you may already notice that the narrative does not move in a positive direction. Dale Ralph Davis summarises the story of 1 Kings as a ‘story of the sadness and stupidity of sin’. For while there are some great and glorious achievements contained within it, any glory is short lived and ultimately gives way to a downward spiral of sinful disobedience and its subsequent destruction.
1. THE DECLINE OF DAVID (1 KINGS 1)
‘When David was a shepherd boy; He did as he was told. He watched the flocks in Bethlehem; In rain or shine or cold. And when the roaring lion came; And then the growling bear; He asked the Lord to strengthen him; To slay them then and there. He also slew the giant bold; With simple stone and sling; So God chose out the shepherd boy; To be His people’s king. When David was the people’s king; He led them bold and brave; His enemies could not withstand; this one whom God had gave.’ Perhaps such children’s songs summarise your view of King David. A young man chosen by God to be king. The giant killer. The Philistine defeater. Of course, we remember that David sinned against God, his adultery with Bathsheba and murder of Uriah. However, that is perhaps seen as a footnote, a momentary blip, in the life of a great king.
David was a great King, and yet if you read his story carefully, you realise that from that moment of sin with Bathsheba, his reign and life changes direction. The death of Bathsheba’s baby is quickly followed by the rape of David’s daughter by one of David’s sons. That son was murdered by another of David’s sons, who then led a rebellion against David and takes over Jerusalem. David flees his capital in fear of his life and though he eventually overcomes the rebels in battle, this only results in the death of his beloved, though traitorous, son. A famine hits the kingdom and then a terrible plague sent by God to punish David for further disobedience. The last years of David’s rule, from his sin with Bathsheba onwards, steadily declines into tragedy and disaster.
The author of Kings decides to open his book with a depiction of David at the end of his long decline. ‘Now King David was old and advanced in years’ (1:1). The author uses the opening words to announce that David is about to die. However, before he does, one last story is recorded. Though only four verses, it sums up the sorry state in which David ends up and sets the tone for the rest of the book. Though some paint this as a simple story of a human ‘hot water bottle’, for hundreds of years commentators have seen the not so subtle undertones of this passage which are sometimes lost in translation. However, in Hebrew the plan of the servants is clear. If they provided David with a new and beautiful young concubine, perhaps that would perk him up, get life rushing through his veins again. The language used is ‘young woman’, speaking of one who has reached sexual maturity, the place she is to lie is ‘in your bosom’, the same place that the prophet Nathan referenced when confronting David about Bathsheba (2 Samuel 12:3,8), and it is not for heat conducting capabilities that the servants were looking throughout Israel (v3), but for beauty. Once again, we find David with a beautiful young woman. The parallel with Bathsheba is clear. In 1 Samuel 11, David arose from his bed and, seeing a very beautiful woman, instructed his servants to bring her to him so that he could lie with her. In 1 Kings 1 we come full circle. The sinful story that started David’s decline is repeated here at the end. The only difference this time is that, unlike before, David is disinterested. Too old and infirm to care much about beautiful young women now. Neither clothes nor a concubine could comfort David as he neared death.
Friends, do you see how pathetic a picture this is? David, the man after God’s own heart, the giant killer, the philistine defeater, the brave and bold leader of Israel, lying old and cold in his bed. His intense interest in wives and women has now turned to infirm indifference. The young king who had once seized the beautiful Bathsheba, could do nothing more but lie beside the beautiful Abishag. It seems pathetic, even perverted. It is an ending you would think is more appropriate to the story of Hugh Heffner, the owner of Playboy whose wives kept getting younger even as he got older. And yet here it is at the end of King David’s story. Christians, do you see what sin does? Do you see here pictured the perverting, spoiling, ruining power of sin? How disobedience defiles, degrades, distorts, even destroys a man? How it takes a great and good young king, whose heart’s desire is to build a temple for God, and turns him into a weak and warped old man? See here the earthly effects and end of sin. See here the Read the rest of the chapter and see David’s divided family and directionless kingdom. See how far he has fallen from the first years of his reign and realise that his decline can all be traced back to one act of disobedience. See how one drop of sin can poison your life. Sin takes a great and good young king and turns him into a weak and warped old man. That is what the author depicts in the decline of David, and will show us again in the story of Solomon. For it is a case of father like son.
2. THE SLIDE OF SOLOMON (1 KINGS 2-11)
In 1 Kings 2 David dies and Solomon, chosen in chapter 1, is established as his successor. His reign is a glorious time. Fulfilling his promise to David, God blesses Solomon with wisdom, wealth and honour, Solomon’s reign sees the kingdom of Israel reach the peak of its greatness. The author records how King Solomon achieves many great things, the pinnacle of which is building the Temple. In his early days, David had dreamt about building a house for God, a place where his presence could finally rest in the midst of his people. Now, in Solomon’s reign, it was finally built. No expense was spared. The best timber, costly stones, bronze and gold, lots and lots of gold. It took almost 200,000 men seven years to finish it and at its grand opening, when the ark of the covenant was placed within, God’s glory came and filled it. It was a golden age, a period of peace and prosperity that Israel had never experienced before. And would never experience again. For it is Solomon that starts a slide that will last for 100 years and end in that Age of Ahab.
The seed of Solomon’s slide is planted very early in the story. Just a few verses before the author tells us that ‘Solomon loved the LORD’ (v3) and records how he receives wisdom from God, in 1 Kings 3:1 we are told that Solomon made a marriage alliance with Pharaoh of Egypt, taking Pharaoh's daughter as his wife. The importance of this statement remains unclear throughout chapters 3-10 as the author focuses on recording the greatness of Solomon’s reign. However, when we reach 1 Kings 11 we find that during that time Solomon has been sliding deeper and deeper into sin. In 11:1-8 we see how Solomon, defying God’s command, loved many foreign women and as God warned, they turned Solomon’s heart away to their foreign gods. David may have taken wives and concubines, but never turned away from worshipping God. Solomon slid deeper into sin than David ever descended. As new king Solomon sought the LORD, but his reign ended with him going after the god of the Sidonians. As a young man he had built the House of God in Jerusalem, but in his old age he built high places so that offerings could be made to the gods of Moab. By the time of Solomon’s death at the end of 1 Kings 11 a downward spiral of idolatry has begun that continues throughout 1 Kings.
Like his father before him, the end of Solomon’s reign seen rebellion by his people and rebuke from his God as he slid further and further into sin. With what wisdom Solomon himself speaks in Proverbs 6 when, describing the danger of sin, he asks, ‘Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned? Or can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched?’ (Proverbs 6:27–28) Solomon’s wise words are underlined by his foolish life. The failures of David and Solomon teach us we cannot touch sin without it touching, tainting, twisting us. Sin is not something we can tolerate. There can be no truce with those ‘passions of the flesh’ which Peter warns ‘wage war again your soul’ (1 Peter 2:11). For good reason, the puritan preacher John Owen wrote ‘Be killing sin or it will be killing you.’ See here in the story of David and Solomon how sin has corrupted kings and crippled kingdoms. What will it do to us if we let it? No wonder Paul urges Christians to, ‘Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry…you must put them all away….’ (Colossians 3:5–8)
3. THE IDOLATRY OF ISRAEL (1 KINGS 12-16)
Having spent 10 chapters in the 40 year reign of Solomon, the author now picks up his pace and spends only 4 chapters covering the next 60 years. If you were to read chapters 12-16 you would see that not only does the speed of the narrative increase, but so does the descent into disobedience and rampant idolatry. Whereas the sin of David, adultery, divided his family, the sin of Solomon, idolatry, splits the kingdom. As a judgement for Solomon’s sin, after his death the LORD split his people in two. The smaller, southern part of the kingdom, Judah, remain faithful to Rehoboam, heir of Solomon and David in Jerusalem, and occasionally in this period are faithful to God. However, Judah gradually moves into the background in 1 Kings 12-16 as the spotlight increasingly falls on the larger, northern kingdom, Israel, where a series of bloody and brutal events play out.
Jeroboam, the leader of the rebellion against Solomon’s son, is given the throne of Israel after the nation splits. While Solomon started the move towards idolatry in Israel, it is under King Jeroboam that its spread is secured. However, while Jeroboam’s idolatry is established, his throne is not. He passes the crown to his son Nadab, who only lasts two years before he is killed in a military coup. A man called Baasha takes the throne and upon his death once again passes the crown to a son, Elah, and again after two years another military uprising removes him. Zimri, one of his chariot commanders, kills Elah and takes the throne. However, Zimri only lasts seven days before being deposed by an army commander called Omri. Civil war breaks out between two commanders, Omri and Tibni, but eventually Omri wins and consolidates his control of the crown. He reigns for 12 years, building a new capital city called Samaria, before passing the crown to his son. It is following those rapid and ruthless actions that we arrive in the Age of Ahab, the son of Omri, at the end of 1 Kings 16. It is at this point the author put the brakes on his rapid retelling of 60 years, for we will remain in the age of Ahab until 2 Kings 10. The author clearly slows the story to draw attention to what happens in these years.
Different kings are famous for different things. William the Conqueror is famous for the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Henry VIII for his many wives. It was great victory over the Spanish Armada that lit up Elizabeth’s reign. Victoria’s success was secured by the industrial revolution and an expanding empire. For a monarch, one big success or failure can make or break their reign. What is it then that characterises the age of Ahab? What does the writer want us to focus on as he introduces us to this particular period? If we read between the lines, we might see some positives. There appears to be political stability, there are no military coups during this period and strategic international alliances are formed. Perhaps there is also economic prosperity, large building programs likely stimulated the economy and brought this about. In many ways, the age of Ahab was a good time to be alive. Perhaps the best since the days of Solomon. And yet, when you stop reading between the lines and start reading the lines themselves, any positive picture disappears. The author is not primarily concerned by political stability or economic prosperity but chiefly focuses on one thing: religious idolatry.
Here Ahab not only followed Solomon and Jeroboam’s lead, but took their failures to a new level. Solomon had set the direction of travel, and with Ahab we arrive at the final destination. ‘And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD, more than all who were before him.’ (1 Kings 16:30) With Ahab we have finally spiralled to the bottom of the barrel. What is it that the writer identifies as the cause? Like Solomon, Ahab took a foreign wife, Jezebel. She was the not so secret source of all Ahab wickedness, successfully turning the heart of her husband to a false god, the Sidonian god Baal. This is unsurprising when you see Jezebel’s background, her father, King of Sidon, was called ‘Ethbaal’, literally ‘Baal exists’, and we soon see that Jezebel evidently shared her father’s belief. In 1 Kings 18 we find 450 prophets of Baal feasting at Jezebel’s table even while she hunts down and kills the prophets of the LORD until those that remain are forced into hiding and live from morsels of bread and trickles of water in caves. Jezebel is such an evil queen that her example echoes to the very end of the Bible, where in Revelation 2:20 her name is used to refer to an evil woman in those days seducing Christians into idol worship. Jezebel is infamous for idolatry, and Ahab is influenced as a result. Ahab not only fully embraces Baal worship, but turns it into the state religion. He not only builds an alter for Baal, but a house of Baal in Samaria. What a contrast this is to the house of God built by Solomon in Jerusalem. The meaning could not be clearer. The age of Ahab stands as the complete opposite of what the nation should have been. It is no longer the kingdom of God, but the kingdom of Baal, it is an anti-kingdom, the reverse reality of what Israel was called to be.
And yet, it is another building that is identifies as the pinnacle of Ahab’s infamous reign, the rebuilding of the city of Jericho. ‘In his days Hiel of Bethel built Jericho.’ (16:34) That great fortress city that once prevented the people of Israel from entering the Promise Land was overcome by faithful obedience to God’s word. Jericho’s walls had fallen down in Joshua’s day and had never been rebuilt. Though people lived there (Joshua 18:21; 2 Samuel 10:5), no one had dared to relay the foundations of those great walls, to set up the giant gates and re-establish it as a fortress again. On the day of its destruction, Joshua 6:26 warned, "Cursed before the LORD be the man who rises up and rebuilds this city, Jericho. At the cost of his firstborn shall he lay its foundation, and at the cost of his youngest son shall he set up its gates.’ No one had dared to defy that word of God. Until the age of Ahab. Ahab’s idolatry created an atmosphere that allowed God’s warning to be openly defied. Yahweh, the God of Israel’s fathers, had been replaced by Baal, the god of Jezebel’s father. Yahweh was old news, redundant, no longer relevant. And so his word was considered worthless. His warning disregarded. In highlighting Jericho as a demonstration of the state of the nation in the Age of Ahab, the writer tells us above all else, the age of Ahab was an age in which God’s Word was defied.
Do we not live in such an age? We must take care when comparing Old Testament Israel and our gentile nation. And yet we cannot deny that the atmosphere is familiar. God’s word is largely considered to be irrelevant. In 2018, a survey estimated that only 5% in the UK strongly agreed that God’s Word, the Bible, has the authority to tell us what to do. Secularism, not Baalism, is the religion of our nation, and yet the atmosphere is alike. In days as evil as the Age of Ahab, what hope is there? After sin has split and shaped the nation for 100 years, has crippled and corrupted the kings and the kingdom, after God has been abandoned and idolatry accepted, when things have got as bad as they possible could get, when we reach the bottom of the barrel, the end of the line, what is God doing is such days? Where is his response? After sin has such success, is salvation coming?
We can take comfort that it is in this evil Age of Ahab, that God chooses to send two of the greatest prophets in the Bible. The Age of Ahab is really better known as the Era of Elijah and Elisha. Read just one verse further and see that sin has not succeeded: ‘Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, "As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives…"’ (1 Kings 17:1). God is not finished with his people. Wallace explains: ‘We need not despair when we see great movements of evil achieving spectacular success on this earth, for we may be sure that God, in unexpected places, has already secretly prepared his countermovement… wherever evil flourishes it will always be a superficial flourish, for at the height of the triumph of evil, God will be there, ready with his man and his movement and his plans to ensure that his own cause will never fail.’
How well the Psalmist captures it in Psalm 2: ‘Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying, "Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us." He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, "As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill."’ (Psalm 2:2–6) The days of Ahab were dark, but though it may seem difficult to believe, days were coming that would be darker still. Though there would be some momentary pauses in the decline, the spiral ultimately continues throughout the rest of 1-2 Kings. It records 400 years of sin followed by slavery in Babylon. And yet even then, the days would get darker still. At the end of the Old Testament, there were 400 years of silence. God was silent, it seemed that sin and Satan had succeeded. And yet, even then Paul explains, ‘But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son…’ (Galatians 4:4). God would set a King on Zion. A King so great that David himself would call him Lord. A king who would explain in Matthew 13:24, ‘something greater than Solomon is here.’ A sinless King, a sovereign Saviour. The Son of David and Son of God, Jesus Christ, come to save his people from their sins.
Christian do not despair. God is on the move even in evil days. Trust in his timing and his plans. Older Christian do not let your last days be like those of David and Solomon. What sad ends to such great lives. Stay faithful, fight sin, until the very end. If you are not a Christian, if you have yet to confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9), do you see here the earthly effects of sin? The chaos and corruption that it brings? Do you see how great a problem it is, this source of all suffering in the world that is inside each one of us? Think too of the eternal effects, how it not only twists and taints us, turning our hearts away from God now, but how it destines us for eternal destruction in the future, as God pours out his just punishment on all that disobey his good and perfect Word. Know that Jesus Christ came to save sinners. He came to save his people from their sins. To bear the punishment for the sins on the cross, paying their eternal penalty, and break the power of sin in our lives, giving us new life and strength by the Holy Spirit to fight sin and be faithful to him. Ask Christ for forgiveness today, confess your faith before the world by being baptised and join his people in the church as we seek to fight sin and be faithful to him together.
ALEXANDER ARRELL