1 Kings 21:20

20 et ait Ahab ad Heliam num invenisti me inimice mee qui dixit inveni eo quod venundatus sis ut faceres malum in conspectu Domini

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 surge et descende in occursum Ahab regis Israhel qui est in Samaria ecce ad vineam Naboth descendit ut possideat eam
19 et loqueris ad eum dicens haec dicit Dominus occidisti insuper et possedisti et post haec addes haec dicit Dominus in loco hoc in quo linxerunt canes sanguinem Naboth lambent tuum quoque sanguinem
20 et ait Ahab ad Heliam num invenisti me inimice mee qui dixit inveni eo quod venundatus sis ut faceres malum in conspectu Domini
21 ecce ego inducam super te malum et demetam posteriora tua et interficiam de Ahab mingentem ad parietem et clausum et ultimum in Israhel
22 et dabo domum tuam sicut domum Hieroboam filii Nabath et sicut domum Baasa filii Ahia quia egisti ut me ad iracundiam provocares et peccare fecisti Israhel
The Latin Vulgate is in the public domain.