- 37-
Jezebel knew this only too well, and with a terrible frankness wrote to each member
of that senate what would seem the king's directions. By these each recipient of the
letter would become a fellow-conspirator, and each feel bound to keep the horrible
secret. As if some great sin rested upon the city (comp. 1 Samuel 7:6), and, in
consequence of it, some heavy judgment were to be averted, (2 Chronicles 20:2-4;
Jeremiah 36:6, 9), the eldership of Israel gathered the people to a solemn fast. If it
had been so, and some great sin had been committed or were even suspected, it
would have been the duty of the city thus to purge itself of guilt or complicity. For
according to the deep and true idea which underlay all the institutions of the Old
Testament, there is solidarity (as it is called in modern language) between those
whom God has placed side by side. There is solidarity between all the members of
the human family - solidarity of curse and of blessing, of judgment and of promise,
because all have sprung from a common stock. There is solidarity also in a city, since
ten righteous men might have preserved Sodom from destruction; solidarity in a
nation, since the sins or the piety of its rulers were returned in blessing or in
judgment on the people - a solidarity which as it pointed back to a common ancestry,
also pointed forward to the full and final realization of its inmost meaning in that
great brotherhood of believers which Christ came to found. And hence it was that,
when blood had been shed and the doer of the crime-remained unknown, the elders
of the district had by a solemn act to clear themselves of the guilt (Leviticus 4:13,
etc.; Deuteronomy 21:1-9), and that, as here, when a great crime was supposed to
have been committed, all would humble themselves in fasting before they put away
the evil-doer from among them.
In the assembly thus called Naboth was to be "set on high," not in order to assign him
an honorable place, so as the more effectually to rouse public indignation when one
so honored was convicted of such crime, nor yet to give the appearance of
impartiality to the proceedings that were to follow. Evidently the fast had been
appointed in humiliation for a sin as yet unknown to the people, and the assembly
was called to set before them the nature of this crime. For this purpose Naboth was
"set on high," as one incriminated before the elders, against whom witnesses were to
rise, and on whom judgment was to be pronounced by the people of his own city.
This explains (ver. 10) how these "two sons of Belial"^59 who were to bear false
testimony against Naboth were "set before him."
The sacred text only informs us that the two witnesses (comp. Deuteronomy 17:6,
etc.; 19:15; Numbers 35:30) testified that Naboth had "blasphemed" - uttered
blasphemous language against "God and the king." It is scarcely conceivable that
Naboth should not have made some defense, nor that the people would have given so
ready credence to such a charge against one so well known, if some colorable
confirmation could not have been found for it. May it not have been that the refusal
of the vineyard to Ahab had become known to the townsmen of Naboth, and that
(^)