Greater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 331. Ahab's Death

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Greater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 331. Ahab's Death


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IV



Ahab's Death



1. It was three years after the murder of Naboth that the first part of Elijah's curse, in its modified form, fell on the royal house. The scene is given at length, apparently to bring before us the gradual working-out of the catastrophe. The Syrian war, which forms the background of the whole of the history of Omri's dynasty, furnished the occasion. To recover the fortress of Ramoth-gilead was the object of the battle. The kings of Judah and Israel were united for the grand effort. The alliance was confirmed by the marriage of Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab, with Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat. The names of the two royal families were intermixed for the first time since the separation of the kingdoms. Jehoshaphat came down in state to Samaria, and Ahab proposed to him that they should go up to Ramoth-gilead, and take it out of the hand of the king of Syria, who was unjustly retaining it under his own government. Jehoshaphat asked that the prophets might be consulted before the attack on Syria. Four hundred of them were assembled, and all with one voice promised success. The king of Judah apparently mistrusted their glib optimism, and inquired whether there was any other prophet of Jehovah besides these. One more there was, Micaiah the son of Imlah, but he was a prophet of evil and hated by Ahab. He was summoned at Jehoshaphat's request, and arrived just as the prophets were giving a great display of sycophancy before the two kings who sat in front of the gate of Samaria. Micaiah at first, with evident irony, assured the king that his campaign would prosper. But when adjured in Jehovah's name to speak the truth, he boldly delivered his unpalatable message: “I saw all Israel scattered upon the mountains, as sheep that have no shepherd: and the Lord said, These have no master; let them return every man to his house in peace.” The intrepid Micaiah was at once arrested, and cast into prison; the self-deluded Ahab had no need for a prophet of the truth.



2. In the battle that followed, under the walls of Ramoth-gilead, everything centred on the foredoomed destruction of Ahab. Unwilling to believe, and yet superstitiously afraid of, the prophet's word, he disguised himself before going into battle. It was in vain; an archer of the Syrians aimed at him, not knowing who he was, and inflicted a mortal wound. He felt it his death-wound; but with a nobler spirit than had appeared in his life, he would not have it disclosed, lest the army should be discouraged. At even he died, and his death was the sign for a general retreat of Israel. His body was brought to Samaria for burial, and the historian notes the exact fulfilment of Elijah's grim prophecy: “And they washed the chariot in the pool of Samaria; and the dogs licked up his blood.”



Thus died on the field of battle the most active and energetic warrior who ever sat on the throne of Northern Israel. Ahab's courage in battle and his sagacity as a diplomat are unquestioned; but his ambition and his attitude towards his subjects were those of a tyrant. His latter days witnessed the beginning of the decay of that kingdom for which he had sacrificed the nobler religious ideals of his race. His supreme mistake was in trampling upon the liberties of his subjects and in disregarding Jehovah's claim to the complete and absolute loyalty of His people. The good is often the enemy of the best. In the pursuit of a worthy, but not the noblest ambition revealed to his race and age, Ahab sinned and brought ultimate disaster upon his house and nation.



On several occasions Napoleon declared that the morality of the Christian religion was merely that of Socrates and Plato. Sometimes he expressed doubts whether Jesus Christ ever existed: and he declared emphatically his preference of Mohammedanism to Christianity for the Eastern peoples. Clearly this preference was founded largely on military motives. He seems to have considered that Christianity made men afraid of death; and he once said to Gourgaud that if he had believed in a God who dealt out retribution, he would have been afraid in war. Mohammedanism, on the contrary, was a fine fighting creed. At bottom, then, Napoleon viewed religion as a political force, capable of rousing men to fiercely aggressive activity, or of consolidating order after a time of chaos, and at all times serving to console the poor for the hardships of their lot. It mattered not whether they understood religious services. On one occasion he declared that Roman Catholicism was better than Anglicanism, because in the former the people did not understand what was sung at Vespers and only looked on. It was better not to throw light upon these things.1 [Note: J. H. Rose, The Personality of Napoleon, 218.]