1 Kings 16.29 - 17.1:
| 16.29 ואחאב בן עמרי מלך על ישראל | Achav ben Amri,α king of Israel. |
|---|---|
| בשנת שלשים ושמנה שנה לאסא מלך יהודה | In Year 38, the year of Asa, king of Judah, |
| וימלך אחאב בן עמרי | Achav ben Amri |
| על ישראל בשמרון | becomes king of Israel in Shomron,β |
| עשרים ושתים שנה׃ | for 22 years. |
| 16.30 ויעש אחאב בן עמרי הרע בעיני יהוה | Achav ben Amri does evil in Yahweh’s eyes, |
| מכל אשר לפניו׃ | more than all who are before him. |
| 16.31 ויהי הנקל לכתו | It is trivial to walk |
| בחטאות ירבעם בן נבט | in the sins of Yaravam ben Nevat.γ |
| ויקח אשה את איזבל בת אתבעל | He accepts the woman Itzevel bat Ethba’al,δ |
| מלך צידנים | Ethba’al being king of the Tsidonim. |
| וילך ויעבד את הבעל | He walks and enslaves himself to Ba’al |
| וישתחו לו׃ | and pays homage to him. |
| 16.32 ויקם מזבח לבעל | He sets up an altar to Ba’al |
| בית הבעל | —a house of Ba’al— |
| אשר בנה בשמרון׃ | which he builds in Shomron. |
| 16.33 ויעש אחאב את האשרה | Achav makes an asherah.ε |
| ויוסף אחאב לעשות | Achav continues to do things |
| להכעיס את יהוה אלהי ישראל | to piss offζ Yahweh, God of Israel, |
| מכל מלכי ישראל אשר | more than everything the kings of Israel |
| היו לפניו׃ | do before him. |
| 16.34 בימיו בנה חיאל בית האלי את יריחה | In his day, Hi‘el of Betheloiη builds Yerichoh.θ |
| באבירם בכרו יסדה | On Aviram, his firstborn, he founds it. |
| ובשגיב [ובשגוב] צעירו הציב דלתיה | On Shegov, his youngest, he sets up its gates. |
| כדבר יהוה | All this according to Yahweh’s word, |
| אשר דבר ביד יהושע בן נון׃ | which He says by the hand of Yehoshu’aι ben Nun. |
| 17.1 ויאמר אליהו התשבי מתשבי גלעד אל אחאב | Eliyahuκ of Tishbi, from Tishbi, Gil’ad, says to Achav, |
| חי יהוה אלהי ישראל | “By the life of Yahweh, God of Israel, |
| אשר עמדתי לפניו | whose face I stand before, |
| אם יהיה השנים האלה | for these years there won’t be |
| טל ומטר | dew and rain |
| כי אם לפי דברי׃ | until my mouth speaks.” |
This is the first appearance of Elijah. There’s nothing more about his background other than that he’s from Tishbi (present day el-Ishtib, 22 miles south of Lake TIberias, in the mountains) and that he was hairy and wore leather (2Ki 1.8) From this it’s usually deduced that he was a Nazir, an ascetic who swore a special vow to abstain from grapes, hair-cutting, and corpses. I doubt it, ’cause he had to touch the dead in order to raise them from the dead. (Plus there’s that glass of wine we leave for him at Passover.)
I figured I should look at Elijah on account of James’s comment about him, which suggests that this drought Elijah proclaims in 17.1 is actually his own idea—done in conjunction with God, to be sure, but Elijah’s prayer gets the credit. James calls him “a person like us,” and so I’m gonna look at what sort of person he was.
Well, first of all, we see some pretty miserable times. The nation of Israel was divided in two after Solomon died, and the guy who took over northern Israel—Jeroboam ben Nebat, formerly one of Solomon’s administrators—went heretic on God and set up golden calves to worship in Dan and Bethel. Technically they were worshipping Yahweh, but the calves made a pretty strong case otherwise.
Jeroboam’s house was the third dynasty to rule Israel (after Saul’s and David’s), and Omri’s was technically the sixth; there had been a lot of overthrowing and rebellion since Jeroboam. (Contrast this with the fact that David’s house still ruled over Judah by this point.) Anyway, Omri ruled 12 years, sucked as a Yahwist, (1Ki 16.25-26) died in 873BCE and his son Ahab took the throne.
Ahab wasn’t any better than his dad—worse, according to the historian, because he wasn’t just a heretic; he was a pagan. He worshipped Ba’al instead of Yahweh. He married Jezebel, a pagan foreigner; Josephus claims her father was actually a Ba’alist priest. He put an altar and temple of Ba’al in Samaria, with an asherah to match. And he allowed someone to rebuild Jericho, despite Joshua’s curse on anyone—and his firstborn, and his youngest—who would try. (Js 6.26) But if you’re not familiar with your bible, you’d hardly be expected to know this.
(Interesting note: The Joshua historian says this was Joshua’s oath, but the Kings historian says this was God speaking through Joshua. The Kings historian likely felt the curse actually happening was a good sign it came from God, though I wonder if it wasn’t just God going along with what Joshua had said. It is, after all, the whole question about how much God interacts with our statements that got me studying this passage.)
Ahab might, politically, have been the most awesome king ever, and a lot of historians actually make a good case for this. He had a good political marriage—with a wife he actually seems to have got along with. He had material prosperity. His enemies were conquered. He managed to not get overthrown. But because he worshipped Ba’al, the historian—and generations of Jews, Christians, and Muslims thereafter—consider him probably the worst king Israel ever had.
In the midst of this Elijah shows up. We don’t know if he’s a wandering prophet or an official prophet; we don’t know how extensively he was connected to the local prophetic school; we don’t know if he’s rich or poor (though he seems to be able to afford servants); we don’t know what he does for a living; we know very little about Tishbi. The historian doesn’t give us any other background. He’s just there, telling Ahab:
By the life of Yahweh, God of Israel, whose face I stand before, for these years there won’t be dew and rain until my mouth speaks.
And there wasn’t.
He didn’t put any conditions on it, either. He didn’t say, “Stop worshipping Ba’al and then there will be rain.” He just said the rain would stop. Then he left, and drought came. Awfully dramatic of him.
What Elijah did here was not demand repentance; he demanded attention. When he came back, he definitely had it. Then he could make his point. As things were, it was pretty hard to argue that Yahweh was the strongest god after Ahab got finished with his building program. You could tell people Yahweh was great until you were blue in the mouth, but actions speak louder than words, and nothing gets people’s attention like depriving them of something they need. (Something Ba’al, as the weather god, was supposed to be in control of.)
Perhaps we need to do that more often—we need to demonstrate that God is more powerful than the other gods people depend upon. Sometimes people just honestly don’t know who to follow, and would follow God if they only knew He’s here. We don’t need to call them to repent; we just need to show them that their gods are powerless and our God is powerful.
And it can be done in the most basic ways. Make money worth nothing. Make the credit lines dry up. Make the real estate lose value. (Wonder if someone’s been praying this already?)
α. Ahab, son of Omri.
β. Samaria.
γ. Jeroboam ben Nebat.
δ. Jezebel, daughter of Ithobaal I of Tyre.
ε. Usu. “sacred pole.” An asherah was a stone or wooden pillar usually set beside an altar to a god; it represented the god’s consort. Ba’al’s wife Ashtart was worshipped this way. In some cases, people even set an asherah next to Yahweh’s altar and worshipped His consort, the “queen of heaven.” (Dt 16.21 condemns this practice.) I’m not sure whether Ahab put an asherah next to Ba’al’s altar or God’s; either way, the historian doesn’t like it.
ζ. Or “provoke to anger.”
η. Bethel.
θ. Jericho.
ι. Joshua.
κ. Elijah.
