1 Kings 20 Commentary
That the LORD still deals with Ahab’s Israel is one very strange attribute of God’s character. Under Ahab, the nation is nearly a hundred percent apostate. They no longer know the God of their fathers.
Without Israel asking or even showing signs of wanting help, the LORD moves in compassion and saves the nation from Ben-Hadad’s hand.
But Ahab is so much out of sync with the purposes of the LORD that he allows Ben-Hadad to live. The LORD had wanted Ben-Hadad dead.
The two victories against Aram were won against the background of idolatry. You sense these victories are a message to the errant king and his subjects that the LORD still thinks about Israel. It is this message that the gospel gives us. The LORD decided to help us in our hopelessness!
The behavior of Ahab here reminds us of Saul’s behavior when he spared Agag, king of the Amalekites. The LORD is not happy, and Ahab would die instead.
The courage of the prophet who confronted Ahab is impressive! But we are also left wide-eyed by the punishment inflicted on the prophet’s “disobedient” companion.
Elijah is Ahab’s main nemesis, but the LORD God raised several other prophets, some unnamed, who delivered God’s word to the king.
We have seen this formula before. First: God saves Israel from enslavement in Egypt. Second: He sits down to “clean” them up and give them guidelines (Law) on how to live under His rule. Ahab’s Israel is both helplessly and hopelessly wicked, but the LORD God saves them from Syria’s hand. But does Ahab know anything about his Savior?
You cannot be saved and continue with your own rules and preferences. At this point, you have asked for real trouble from your Savior!
Consequences are real and immediate for the prophet’s companion. He is an example! How the LORD disciplines His own children! But Ahab isn’t one of them! Definitely not one of the seven thousand “whose knees have not bowed down to Baal”.
Ahab and Ahab’s Israel have had chance after chance to return to the Creator God. The justice of the LORD is such that every sinner in hell will admit to their own foolishness in consistently rejecting the voice of reason and the ever-present knock!
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