1 Kings 21 Study Notes

21:15-16 Ahab’s scruples had disappeared.

21:17-18 The prophet Elijah, who had faded into the background for a while, reenters the story.

21:19-24 The curse pronounced on Ahab came in two different statements. The first was expressed in God’s words to Elijah and described the way dogs would lick up Ahab’s blood in the same place that they licked up Naboth’s blood and the blood of his sons (see note at vv. 13-14). Second, disaster would come on all the males, both slave and free (or as some translations suggest, both “weak and incapacitated”), of Ahab’s house. Dogs and carrion birds would devour their corpses. The statement that dogs would lick Ahab’s blood in the same place that they licked Naboth’s blood did not happen exactly this way. Naboth was killed in Jezreel, and Ahab’s chariot was washed out in Samaria (22:38). However, the Bible implies that this prophecy of Elijah was fulfilled when Joram, Ahab’s son, was left for the dogs on Naboth’s land in Jezreel (2Kg 9:24-26). Iain Provan, on the other hand, points out that v. 19 can also be translated, “Instead of dogs licking up Naboth’s blood, dogs will lick up your blood—yes yours!”

21:25-26 Ahab was not excused of responsibility because his evil was influenced by his wife. See Gn 3:17.

21:27-29 In a surprising acceptance of a very shallow repentance (note Ahab’s continued rebellion in the next chapter), God pronounced that the prophesied destruction on Ahab’s house would happen only after Ahab’s death. We must accept God’s sovereignty on those occasions when he seems harsh by our standards and also when he seems too merciful by our judgment.