1 Kings 21:20

20 Ach'av said to Eliyah, Have you found me, my enemy? He answered, I have found you, because you have sold yourself to do that which is evil in the sight of the LORD.

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 Arise, go down to meet Ach'av king of Yisra'el, who dwells in Shomron: behold, he is in the vineyard of Navot, where he is gone down to take possession of it.
19 You shall speak to him, saying, Thus says the LORD, Have you killed and also taken possession? You shall speak to him, saying, Thus says the LORD, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Navot shall dogs lick your blood, even your.
20 Ach'av said to Eliyah, Have you found me, my enemy? He answered, I have found you, because you have sold yourself to do that which is evil in the sight of the LORD.
21 Behold, I will bring evil on you, and will utterly sweep you away and will cut off from Ach'av every man-child, and him who is shut up and him who is left at large in Yisra'el:
22 and I will make your house like the house of Yarov`am the son of Nevat, and like the house of Ba`sha the son of Achiyah for the provocation with which you have provoked me to anger, and have made Yisra'el to sin.
The Hebrew Names Version is in the public domain.