1 Kings 21:20

20 Ahab said to Elijah, "So you've found me, my old enemy!" "I found you," Elijah said, "because you've enslaved yourself by doing evil in the LORD's eyes.

1 Kings 21:20 Meaning and Commentary

1 Kings 21:20

And Ahab said to Elijah, hast thou found me, O mine enemy?
&c.] So he reckoned him, because he dealt faithfully with him, and reproved him for his sins, and denounced the judgments of God upon him for them:

and he answered, I have found thee;
as a thief, a robber and plunderer, in another's vineyard; he had found out his sin in murdering Naboth, and unjustly possessing his vineyard, which was revealed to him by the Lord; and now was come as his enemy, as he called him, as being against him, his adversary, not that he hated his person, but his ways and works:

because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord;
had given up himself wholly to his lusts, was abandoned to them, and as much under the power of them as a man is that has sold himself to another to be his slave; and which he served openly, publicly in the sight of the omniscient God, and in defiance of him. Abarbinel gives another sense of the word we render "sold thyself", that he "made himself strange", as if he was ignorant, and did not know what Jezebel had done; whereas he knew fully the whole truth of the matter, and that Naboth was killed through her contrivance, and by her management purposely; and so he did evil in the sight of that God that knows all things, pretending he was ignorant when he was not, and this Elijah found out by divine revelation; so the word is used in ( Genesis 42:6 ) ( 2 Kings 12:5 2 Kings 12:7 ) , but the former sense is best, as appears from ( 1 Kings 21:25 ) .

1 Kings 21:20 In-Context

18 Get up and go down to meet Israel's King Ahab in Samaria. He is in Naboth's vineyard. He has gone down to take ownership of it.
19 Say the following to him: This is what the LORD says: So, you've murdered and are now taking ownership, are you? Then tell him: This is what the LORD says: In the same place where the dogs licked up Naboth's blood, they will lick up your own blood.
20 Ahab said to Elijah, "So you've found me, my old enemy!" "I found you," Elijah said, "because you've enslaved yourself by doing evil in the LORD's eyes.
21 So I am now bringing evil on you! I will burn until you are consumed, and I will eliminate everyone who urinates on a wall that belongs to Ahab, whether slave or free.
22 I will make your household like that of Jeroboam, Nebat's son, and like the household of Baasha, Ahijah's son, because of the way you've angered me and because you've made Israel sin.
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