1 Kings 21:20

20 Ahab answered Elijah, "My enemy! So, you've run me down!"

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 "On your feet; go down and confront Ahab of Samaria, king of Israel. You'll find him in the vineyard of Naboth; he's gone there to claim it as his own.
19 Say this to him: 'God's word: What's going on here? First murder, then theft?' Then tell him, 'God's verdict: The very spot where the dogs lapped up Naboth's blood, they'll lap up your blood - that's right, your blood.'"
20 Ahab answered Elijah, "My enemy! So, you've run me down!"
21 'I will most certainly bring doom upon you, make mincemeat of your descendants, kill off every sorry male wretch who's even remotely connected with the name Ahab.
22 And I'll bring down on you the same fate that fell on Jeroboam son of Nebat and Baasha son of Ahijah - you've made me that angry by making Israel sin.'"
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.