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Ahab's Apostasy
Amongst the considerations which led Ahab to make friends of his neighbours, the increasing perception of the danger which threatened the kingdom from the side of Assyria was probably one of the most important. What befell the Phœnician cities under Asurnasirpal could leave no possible doubt as to what was to be expected in course of time from that quarter. This perception of the coming danger reveals Ahab's statesmanlike insight. Besides, Israel was still at feud with Damascus. The ancient alliance with the Phœnicians had been in abeyance since the days of Solomon. The two kingdoms in Israel had been too much occupied with their own inner feuds to be able to turn their attention to foreign countries. Besides, as they had been weakened by civil war, they were not valuable allies for anybody. Now, however, the common danger which threatened from the east, and the recollection of their racial kinship and common interests, forced Israel and her western neighbour once more together. Even before the time of David, Tyre (Sôr) seems to have taken the place of the more ancient Sidon, and to have exercised, as it did at this period, a predominant authority amongst the Phœnician cities.
Tyre is at present a small and wretched place, with the pretence of a bazaar, in which beans, tobacco, dates, and lemons are the chief articles for sale. It is only a collection of miserable houses, of one or two storeys, with filthy lanes for streets, and lies on what was once the famous island-site of the ancient city. Along the sea-face the rocks are rugged and picturesque, cut out at many points by the ancient population, with great patience and ingenuity, into a series of small harbours, landing-places for boats, shallow docks, and salt-pans. The whole length of the site is only about 1200 yards from north to south and about a third less from east to west, so that the Tyrians must have been wonderfully crowded within the walls, for the island was, doubtless, in great part covered with tall warehouses, landing-wharves, sailors' barracks, and all the other accessories of a huge commerce. It is impossible, now, to trace the docks in which the great Tarshish ships lay safe from the winds, for the sea and man have long since removed nearly all remains of the past. Pillars of granite and syenite taken from ancient temples or public buildings, for binding the wall, now lie, sometimes in numbers, on the sand and the rocks. At low water, remains of ancient concrete pavement are to be seen, full of bits of pottery, smoothing the roughness of the ledge, and enabling boats to land safely. There are still some remains of a mole, and at the very north of the island a stone nearly seventeen feet long, and six and a half feet thick, shows the splendour of the sea-wall of Old Tyre thousands of years ago. The harbours are now entirely sanded up. Ruins of the wall still remain, showing that it once ran round the whole extent, looking down on the sea edge, over the waves, twenty to thirty feet below. Of the ancient industries of Tyre-the glass factories and dye-works, once so noted-the only traces remaining are fragments of glass, which have become consolidated into a hard mass with the sand of the rocky slopes, and thick layers of crushed shells of the murex, which, having yielded the famous purple, were cast out near the town.1 [Note: Cunningham Geikie, The Holy Land and the Bible, 404.]
2. Jezebel was a woman in whom, with the reckless and licentious habits of an Oriental queen, were united the fiercest and sternest qualities inherent in the old Semitic race. Her husband, in whom generous and gentle feelings were not wanting, was yet of a weak and yielding character which soon made him a tool in her hands. Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, the king of Sidon and high priest of Astarte, with all the stern, fierce, fanaticism of her blood, ruled over both Ahab and his kingdom of Israel. The subtle queen had her hundreds of priests at her beck and call. The splendid ritual of Baal-enforced by the example and patronage of her court, made fascinating to the mob by every trapping of magnificence, performed by a priesthood whose influence was unbounded, backed by all the despotic power of the fashion of Tyre and Sidon-at last triumphed everywhere. A temple and an altar to Baal, as well as an Asherah-pole, were erected in Samaria.
In the Canaanitish high places Baal was represented not by an image, but by a pillar or obelisk (Massēbah), Exo_23:24, Lev_26:1, 2Ki_3:2 (Revised Version), wrongly translated as “image” in A.V. And close to it and the altar would be the Asherah, wrongly translated in A.V. as “grove” (cf. A.V. and R.V., 1Ki_18:19). What kind of object the Asherah was appears from Deu_16:21 : “Thou shalt not plant an Asherah of any kind of wood (or, an Asherah, any kind of tree) beside the altar of Jehovah”; it must therefore have been either a living tree, or a tree-like post, and in all probability either form was originally admissible. The Asherah was undoubtedly an object of worship (Isa_17:8). The Asherah was a sacred symbol, the seat of the deity. The opinion that there was a Canaanitish goddess called Ashera (the female partner of Baal) does not seem to rest on any sure foundation. Upon the Asherah votive offerings would be hung, and even to this day in Palestine the traveller frequently meets with holy trees hung with rags as tokens of homage. In the process of time the pillar or obelisk (Massēbah) (with which we may perhaps compare the maen-hir or single upright stone occasionally met with in North Wales and in Brittany, perhaps some remnant of Druidical worship) would come to be fashioned and carved in various ways, till ultimately it becomes a statue, or anthropomorphic idol of stone, and the sacred tree or post (Asherah) ultimately developed into an image of wood. And the pillar and the Asherah would be looked upon as holy, because the worshipper believed that the god comes into the stone or wood, dwells in it, and animates it, so that for practical purposes the stone is thenceforth an embodiment of the god, and may be spoken of and dealt with as if it were the god himself. The Massēbah, which was originally an upright stone, uncut and unchiselled, came to be looked upon as a phallic symbol, appropriate only to sensual nature worship, and as such was attacked by the prophets (Isa_17:9; Mic_5:13-14; cf., however, Isa_19:19).1 [Note: E. Sinker, in Church and Synagogue, iii. 81.]
3. To supersede Israel's national deity, Jehovah, by the Tyrian Baal seemed an easy task. To a superficial observer the difference between the worship of Ephraim and that of Samaria might appear trifling. Both Baal and Jehovah were worshipped with similar sacrificial accompaniments. Moreover, Northern Israel had for centuries been exposed to all the influences which their more highly civilized Canaanite neighbours had introduced (Jdg_2:12-13), and even the very name Baal, “Lord,” was current in their speech as an appellation of Jehovah (Hos_2:16-17). Yet there was one deep distinction which marked off the Jehovah of Mosaism from the Baal of the Canaanites. The religion of Mosaism was free from sensual taint, whereas the worship of Baal was essentially the worship of mere power, not necessarily or originally an evil power, but the worship of power as distinguished from righteousness. Such a worship would naturally develop licentiousness, and would certainly have its temple attendants, probably Tyrian Kedeshim and Kedeshoth. Baal did not indeed take the place of Jehovah as the national god, or even attract to himself the entire worship of the court, as appears from (a) the names (compounded with jah or jo) which were borne by some of Ahab's children (Ahaziah, Jehoram, Joash, Athaliah); (b) the attendance upon Ahab of Obadiah (who, both by his name and by his own confession was a servant of Jehovah); and (c) the assembling in Ahab's presence even at the close of his reign, of prophets who professed to speak in Jehovah's name. But the influence of Jezebel led not only to the protection and toleration of Baal-worship, but also to its active dissemination and the persecution of those prophets of Jehovah who opposed her religious zeal. Some of the Lord's prophets were cut off, others imprisoned, others hidden; His altars were thrown down; His sacrifices ceased; His people were driven into obscurity. The light of the land was darkened; the land was defiled with blood; deeds of abominable wickedness were unblushingly committed. The land was ruled by Ahab: Ahab was ruled by Jezebel: Jezebel was under idolatry to Baal and Ashtoreth: and Baal and Ashtoreth were gods of blood and of uncleanness.
In the “Quarterly Statement” of the Palestine Exploration Fund for October 1909, Mr. Stanley A. Cook, M.A., describes some remarkable traces of the cult of Baal and Astarte which have been found in England. The evidence includes an altar of cream-coloured sand-stone discovered at Corchester, the Roman settlement near Corbridge between Hexham and Newcastle. The front of the altar bears a Greek inscription which reads, “Thou seest me an altar of Astarte: Pulcher set me up.” Another Greek inscription found at Corchester is in the form of a hexameter line, and, translated, reads, “To the Tyrian Heracles, Diodora the Archpriestess.” The ornaments on the altars include a oenochoe, or jug, a patera, a garland, the head of an ox, and a sacrificial knife. At Chesters near Corbridge were also found the remains of a draped statue of a female, standing on some animal, highly suggestive of a goddess of the Astarte type. Other traces of Semitic culture brought to light include an altar, which was found near at Carvoran (the Roman Magna), and which was erected by the first cohort of Hamians to the Syrian goddess. The Hamians were famous archers, and their name is supposed to be derived from Hamath in Syria. They are believed to be closely related to the more celebrated Iturean bowmen-the Ituraei frequently mentioned by Latin writers. That they should have cherished their native cult so far from home is no matter of surprise, nor is it unlikely they should have left traces of it in several places. “It is difficult, at first sight,” says Mr. Cook, “to determine under what circumstances the worship of Astarte and this Baal of Tyre reached our country. It is well known that under Roman influence the cult of Mithra spread throughout the Roman Empire as far west as England; and, when we recollect the popularity of Eastern cults in Rome, it does not seem improbable that the same indirect influence accounts for the evidence from Corchester. The alternative suggestion is that among the Roman soldiers at Corchester were foreign mercenaries of veritable Semitic origin.”
4. The stern ascetic Elijah suddenly emerged from the solitudes of Gilead as the “personified conscience” of the nation. After publicly predicting that Jehovah would chastise the apostasy of Israel by a prolonged drought, he vanished as suddenly as he had appeared. An interval of three years elapsed, during which Ahab made fruitless efforts to lay hands on the prophet, and the land was utterly wasted with famine. A parched land and a famished population wrought at last a salutary change. Elijah, miraculously preserved during the famine, appeared suddenly before the king, and challenged the priests of Baal to a trial of their respective faiths. He summoned the priests of Baal, made his solemn appeal to Heaven, and brought down fire on the sacrifice. The momentous issue was decided. In an access of zealous fury, the people fell upon the false prophets at Elijah's bidding, and slaughtered them mercilessly at the brook Kishon. Ahab acquiesced in all this; he appeared, as it were, to take part in it; he was, one might almost think, reconciled to Elijah; the heavens were opened; the prophet was acknowledged; all was rejoicing, all forgiveness and mercy. Ahab went up to eat and drink; his chariot was ready; Elijah himself attended him, and he entered Jezreel.
5. “And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and withal how he had slain all the prophets with the sword.” A cloud of blackness gathered on the queen's face, and her eyes flashed as the vivid lightning. At the suggestion of submission to the popular judgment, such a glance of ineffable contempt darted upon Ahab that it transformed his very thoughts; and in a moment all appeared to him in a new and opposite light. Though he had felt the curse of God upon the land; though he had seen the fire descend from God; though he had witnessed, without the power to prevent it, the destruction of his prophets; though he had heard the storm of wind, and been out in the pelting storm of rain; though he knew that the hand of God was upon Elijah, nevertheless he feared his wife more than Elijah, or his prophets, or Baal, or God-more than all of them put together-and meekly stood by while she sent her messenger to threaten death to the Tishbite. He allowed the only man who could help him to be driven with threats from his court.
“Le mystère de l'existence, c'est le rapport de nos erreurs avec nos peines.” Do you not understand that? It is the kind of connexion which is the mystery. Crime is less severely treated than error. A weakness of the heart produces more misery, more both to self and others, and is more severely chastised, than a deliberate wickedness. It has often made me ponder. Look at weak Eli, only a little too indulgent. The result-a country's dishonour and defeat, two profligates, a death-bed of a widow and mother on which despair sits, and the death of a wretched old man, for whom it would have been a mercy if his neck had been broken before his heart. Then, again, Pilate, only irresolution-the result the ruin of the Holiest.1 [Note: Life and Letters of the Rev. F. W. Robertson, 239.]