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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 332. Ahab's Character
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Ahab's Character
2. But it is only the moral issues of history that are really of permanent importance. We have to look at Ahab's life, not at his acts: not at his alliances, not at his victories, not at his luxury and his magnificence, not at his ivory house. We have to look at the man, brought up without God, living in open rebellion against God, striven with for at least twenty-two years, knowing the truth, and yet selling himself to work wickedness, and at last dying by the hand of God in the open day.
But for Jezebel, Ahab had not subjected himself to this dreadful doom. He was all his life alternately under the influence of Jezebel or Elijah, under the influence of the world or religion. He was ambitious; he was brave; he had in him many elements of nobleness, for do we not see him again and again listening to the voice of the prophet, attending to his warnings, submitting to his stern public rebukes, standing silent whilst eight hundred of his prophets and priests of Baal were slain, repenting in sackcloth and ashes his evil words in consenting to the death of Naboth the Jezreelite? Moreover, where his conscience was clean he could be bold. But he was less daring and decided in evil than Jezebel, just because he had more conscience than she. When he wedded her, he thought only of the glory of his Zidonian alliance, and the strengthening of his hands against his Syrian foes; but she made him participator in a crime which drew down on his house the curse of extermination, and poisoned the happiness of his remaining years upon the earth. Thus the very means which he used to secure the glory of his kingdom and the permanence of his dynasty proved the ruin of both.
It is vain for man to seek protection against the doom of heaven and the just penalty of his crimes. There is a weak spot in every armour. Underneath the insignia of royalty, beneath the hairy tunic of the religious recluse, under the coloured robes of prosperity, and the sober dress of respectability, there is the sin-conscious, sin-stained heart that admits of no disguise and suffers no escape. So it was with Ahab. His sin had found him out. He was given his chances, and he had lost them for ever. For golden opportunities, when let pass, never return. A stray arrow from a foeman's hand revenged the blood of the slaughtered saints, the murder of Naboth, the profanity of the court, and the sorceries of his wife, who did not long survive him, and his works and kingdom were soon swept away.1 [Note: F. R. M. Hitchcock, Hebrew Types, 138.]
3. In spite of his courage and his genius, which made him a great king, Ahab was pre-eminently a weak man. Indeed the most prominent influence throughout his whole life is the working of a self-deceiving conscience. His sin is ever as a serpent that hides its head: it has some cloak or shelter, rather than being of that open and bold character which defies God “heavy and displeased,” he broods over sinful wishes; and is glad to reap fruits of that wickedness which he did not dare by himself to commit. If the worship of Baal was introduced, it was Jezebel's doing, he might say, not his own; if the prophets of God were slain, if Elijah was persecuted unto the death, it was his wife, and not Ahab; if Naboth was slain by false witnesses, and under the pretence of a religious fast, it was Jezebel's deed. When he goes forth to the battle at Ramoth-gilead, there is the same self-deceiving hypocrisy; he sits on the throne with the king of Judah, and in a solemn and religious manner has brought before him the prophets to consult them; but there is one prophet that he avoids, and only at the requirement of the king of Judah will he meet him, or face the eye of God. This double-dealing is the very thing which Scripture condemns, as proving that there is not in the heart the love of God. And what is the final verdict of Scripture upon him? “There was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to do that which was evil”; “Ahab did yet more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.”
On the occasion of his visit to London in 1824, Carlyle spent an evening at Highgate with Coleridge, then at the height of his fame. To his brother John, Carlyle thus described his impression of the poet and metaphysician: “I have seen many curiosities; not the least of them I reckon Coleridge the Kantian metaphysician and quondam Lake poet. He is a kind, good soul, full of religion and affection, and poetry and animal magnetism. His cardinal sin is that he wants will. He has no resolution. He shrinks from pain or labour in any of its shapes. His very attitude bespeaks this. He never straightens his knee-joints. He stoops with his fat, ill-shapen shoulders, and in walking he does not tread but shovel and slide. My father would call it ‘skluiffing.' His eyes have a look of anxious impotence. He would do all with his heart, but he knows he dares not. The conversation of the man is much as I anticipated-a forest of thoughts, some true, many false, more part dubious, all of them ingenious in some degree, often in a high degree. But there is no method in his talk: he wanders like a man sailing among many currents, whithersoever his lazy mind directs him.”1 [Note: J. A. Froude, Thomas Carlyle, 1795-1835, i. 222.]
Oft as I act, or think, or speak,
Comes battle of two Wills within,
This like an infant poor and weak,
That like a Demon strong for sin.
This labours, flutteringly alive,
As if a cold spark went and came
That other doth against it drive
Red torrents of devouring flame.
Yet, mark th' exceeding Power of God,
How like a rock His Promise stands-
That Demon to the dust is trod,
Slain by the feeble Infant hands.
That fluttering life so faint and cold,
That one pale spark of pure desire
Sun-like arises, and behold!
God's Rainbow in the falls of fire.
O Mystery far beyond my thought!
I trembled on the brink of Hell:
Into what Paradise am I caught!
What Heavenly anthems round me swell1 [Note: Philip S. Worsley, Poems and Translations.]