1 Kings 21.11-15:
| 21.11ויעשו אנשי עירו | Thus do the men of Navoth’sα city— |
|---|---|
| הזקנים והחרים אשר הישבים בעירו | the elders and nobles which live in his city— |
| כאשר שלחה אליהם איזבל | just what Itzavelβ sends out to them, |
| כאשר כתוב בספרים | just what she writes in the scrolls |
| אשר שלחה אליהם׃ | which she sends out to them. |
| 21.12קראו צום | They call a fast. |
| והשיבו את נבות בראש העם׃ | They make Navoth sit at the people’s head. |
| 21.13ויבאו שני האנשים בני בליעל | Two men, sons of Belial, come. |
| וישבו נגדו | They sit down in front of him. |
| ויעדהו אנשי הבליעל את נבות | The Belialistsγ charge Navoth |
| נגד העם לאמר | before the people, saying, |
| ברך נבות אלהים ומלך | “Navoth praisesδ God and the king.” |
| ויצאהו מחוץ לעיר | They make him go out of the city.ε |
| ויסקלהו באבנים | They stone him with rocks. |
| וימת׃ | He dies. |
| 21.14וישלחו אל איזבל לאמר | They send out to Itzavel, saying, |
| סקל נבות | “Navoth is being stoned.ζ |
| וימת׃ | He dies.” |
| 21.15ויהי כשמע איזבל | It is that Itzavel hears |
| כי סקל נבות | how Navoth is being stonedζ |
| וימת | and he dies. |
| ותאמר איזבל אל אחאב | Itzavel says to Achav,η |
| קום רש את כרם | “Rise. Take ownership of the garden |
| נבות היזרעאלי | of Navoth the Itzre’eli,ϑ |
| אשר מאן לתת לך | which he refuses to give to you, |
| בכסף | even for silver. |
| כי אין נבות חי | For Navoth isn’t alive; |
| כי מת׃ | for he dies.” |
Ahab seems pretty passive in this story—he only shows up after Jezebel’s evil plan is finally carried out—but let’s not fool ourselves. Ahab had authorized Jezebel to write her letters, stamp them with his seal, and carry out the plot. Jezebel was, in essence, functioning as Ahab’s shabbos goy. This is a Yiddish term for a Gentile employee of an observant Jew, who does certain things for the Jew, on the Sabbath, that the Jew cannot. An observant Jew can’t run down to the supermarket for soymilk on the Sabbath—that’s work—so the shabbos goy does it, and in so doing violates the Sabbath so that the Jew doesn’t have to.
But since he’s an employee of the Jew—paid or volunteer—it’s technically the Jew who violates the Sabbath by not giving his employee the day off. Likewise Ahab violates the Law by letting his Gentile wife commit murder.
The leaders of Jezreel put Jezebel’s plan into action exactly as she laid it out: They throw a fast for Ba’al, put Naboth into position, put the followers of Belial into position, have them accuse Naboth of Yahwism, and have him stoned to death.
Stoning was pretty ritualized in ancient Israel. Most cities were on hills—for defensive reasons—so you’d drag your victim to the edge of the nearest cliff and throw him off. Usually the fall would kill him. In case it didn’t—note Stephen in Acts 7.59—the rocks were meant to finish him off. Contrary to the way people throw stones nowadays, these weren’t small rocks. These were as big a rock as you could heave off the cliff, and the idea was to crush the victim to death and end his suffering. Others in the crowd might throw small rocks—to indicate they approved of the death—but that wasn’t mercy; that was vengeance, sort of like the folks who cheer outside of Death Row whenever an inmate gets executed.
Since ancient Hebrew lacks verb tenses as we understand them, we don’t know whether the leaders waited for Naboth to be finally dead before they sent word to Jezebel, but since it’s really unlikely that anyone would survive a stoning, it wouldn’t have hurt them to get a message to their queen and not keep her waiting longer.
Jezebel immediately goes to Ahab and tells him that Naboth is dead, and now he could take the garden. The commentators don’t point out—though maybe it’s because this is sort of obvious—Ahab still couldn’t take the garden. By default, Naboth’s land went to his family: his kids, his brothers, or his clan. If there was anything resembling eminent domain, it was that God decreed property ownership always reverted back to the tribe. Unless Ahab was of the same tribe or family—which, you know, might be a possibility, though it seems unlikely since Naboth flatly refused to sell—he had no claim on the land at all. His only recourse, then, would be to flatly steal it—move the boundary markers and claim it was his. Naboth might have been murdered by Ahab’s shabbos goy, but stealing the land was all Ahab.
Application. Let’s not fool ourselves. If someone commits a sin on our behalf, it’s our sin. If we profit, even unintentionally, by another’s act of murder, it’s our act of murder. (That’s why it’s correct to say that we killed Jesus, not just the Romans.) The only way to be innocent is to renounce any benefits we’d receive, and join in the prosecution of the murderer. That’s what Ahab should have done, and he didn’t.
Likewise, if we stand to profit by a crime—misdemeanor, felony, or one that’s never prosecuted, we need to clear ourselves of it before God. Let’s not just shrug and say, “Well, someone should accept the benefits.” Sometimes someone should; but that someone is not you. Let’s avoid being complicit in other people’s sin, and discourage any such sins from taking place. Too many of them already do.
α. Naboth.
β. Jezebel.
γ. Lit. “the Belial.”
δ. Usu. “curses,” but I dealt with this in the last post.
ε. Lit. “go to outside, before the city.”
ζ. More accurately, “is stoned,” but of course that doesn’t mean what it used to.
η. Ahab.
θ. Or “Naboth of Jezreel.”
