The kings of Israel and Judah

King Ahab

The kingdom of Israel (the north) · Reigned twenty-two years (1 Kings 16:29) · Evil before God · 1 Kings 16:29 to 22:40

Ahab, the son of Omri, was the most infamous king of the northern kingdom. He married Jezebel, a Sidonian princess, built a temple to Baal in Samaria, and led Israel into full Baal worship, doing more to provoke the LORD than all the kings before him. His reign was the arena of the great prophet Elijah, the contest on Mount Carmel, and the drought. Warned again and again, he died in battle exactly as the prophets foretold, and dogs licked up his blood.

And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD above all that were before him.1 Kings 16:30 (KJV)

Evil above all before him

Ahab did evil in the sight of the LORD above all that were before him. As if the sin of Jeroboam were a light thing, he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of the king of the Sidonians, served Baal and worshipped him, built a house and an altar for Baal in Samaria, and made a grove, doing more to provoke the LORD God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel before him.

Under Jezebel's influence the worship of Baal became the state religion, the prophets of the LORD were hunted and killed, and hundreds of prophets of Baal ate at the queen's table. It was the deepest apostasy the northern kingdom ever reached.

Elijah, Carmel, and the drought

Into Ahab's court strode the prophet Elijah, who announced that no rain would fall except at his word, and for three and a half years the land withered under drought. At the climax, Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel: the god who answered by fire would be God. Baal was silent all day; then the LORD sent fire that consumed Elijah's soaked sacrifice, and the people fell on their faces crying, The LORD, he is the God. The prophets of Baal were slain, and the rain returned.

Yet Ahab did not repent, and Jezebel swore to kill Elijah, driving the exhausted prophet into the wilderness where God met him not in wind, earthquake, or fire, but in a still small voice.

The wars with Syria and the lying prophets

Twice the Syrians under Ben-hadad came against Israel, and twice, though Ahab did not deserve it, God gave him the victory, sending a prophet each time so that Ahab would know that I am the LORD. But when Ahab spared the defeated Ben-hadad and made a treaty with him, a prophet rebuked him: because thou hast let go a man whom I appointed to utter destruction, thy life shall go for his life. Ahab went to his house heavy and displeased, as he so often did when confronted with God's word.

The pattern reached its climax at Ramoth-gilead. Ahab gathered four hundred prophets who all promised success, but the godly king Jehoshaphat of Judah, his ally by marriage, asked for a prophet of the LORD. Ahab said he hated Micaiah, for he never prophesied good concerning him. Micaiah foretold defeat and the scattering of Israel like sheep without a shepherd, and revealed a lying spirit in the mouth of the false prophets. Ahab threw him in prison on bread and water, and went to battle anyway, and there the arrow shot at random found him.

Naboth's vineyard and the coming judgment

The depth of Ahab's wickedness showed in the affair of Naboth's vineyard. When Naboth refused to sell his ancestral land, Ahab sulked, and Jezebel had Naboth falsely accused and stoned to death so the king could seize the vineyard. Elijah met Ahab there with a terrible word: In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, and the dogs would eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel.

Confronted, Ahab tore his clothes and humbled himself, and God, always ready to show mercy, delayed the judgment to his son's days. But the doom was fixed. Ahab, disguising himself in battle at Ramoth-gilead against God's word through the prophet Micaiah, was struck by an arrow shot at random, bled to death in his chariot, and the dogs licked up his blood, as the LORD had said.

The biblical verdict and where it points

Ahab is judged the worst of Israel's kings up to his time, a man who sold himself to work wickedness, driven by a wicked wife and a hardened heart, who could show flashes of remorse yet never truly turn. Around him God raised his mightiest prophet, so that the reign of the worst king became the stage for one of the greatest witnesses to the living God in all of Scripture.

The contest on Carmel poses the question the whole Bible answers: who is the true God? Baal, who could not send fire or rain, is exposed as nothing, while the LORD answers by fire and by rain. That God who answers by fire would one day send his own Son, the true Prophet greater than Elijah, and the true King utterly unlike Ahab, who would not seize a poor man's vineyard but give his own life for the poor, and conquer not by killing but by dying and rising.

A note on the record: everything here is drawn from the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. Kings and Chronicles sometimes tell a reign differently, Chronicles often adding a king's repentance or building works, and where they differ this is said plainly rather than smoothed over. The exact lengths and overlaps of the reigns are genuinely complex, because kings often shared the throne with a son for a time, so the totals in Scripture do not always add up in a simple line. The verdict good or evil is the Bible's own assessment, whether a king did right or evil in the sight of the LORD.

Related: Omri · Ahaziah of Israel · Jehoshaphat · All the kings of Israel and Judah