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And the last time he met the prophet had been on Mount Carmel; the last glimpse had
been when through the blinding rain he saw the dark figure running before his chariot
to the very gate of Jezreel, as if he had come to herald the triumph of Jehovah, and to
bring back a new God-devoted king. That had been a weird sight of the prophet,
through the storm; and it had been a short dim dream of Ahab's to make the scene on
Mount Carmel a reality in Israel. With Jezebel came back to him the evil spirit of his
"madness;" nay, it had even sought, or consented to, the destruction of him who but
yesterday had visibly brought God's fire on the broken altar, and God's rain on the
parched land.
And now he stood once more before him - Ahab knew only too well why. It was for
briefest but unmistakable message. Its first sentence swept away all self-deception. It
had not been Jezebel but Ahab who had killed. And now he had taken possession, as
if there were not Jehovah in heaven, nor yet the eternal reflection of His Being, and
the permanent echo of His speaking, in right and truth upon earth. Having thus not
only wakened the conscience of Ahab, but vindicated the authority of Him in Whose
Name he spoke, the next sentence of Elijah's message announced stern, strict, even
literal retribution. The retort of Ahab we regard as a childish lament to the effect that
Elijah, who had always been his personal enemy, had now at last "found him"^62 in
some actual sin, on which he might invoke Divine punishment.
It was an admission, indeed, in that moment of surprise, of his guilt and apprehension
of the Divine punishment announced. But it conjoined with it this - if not in excuse,
yet as a counter-charge - that Elijah was his personal enemy, and had lain in wait for
the occasion to call down Divine judgment upon him. It was against this attempt to
make it a merely personal controversy that Elijah's answer was directed (ver. 20). "I
have found (not 'thee'), because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of
Jehovah." What the prophet had spoken was not the outcome of personal enmity, nor
was what had occurred the result of a sudden temptation or rash mood of the king,
but of the whole direction of life which Ahab had deliberately chosen. And in this
two elements were closely marked: that he had sold himself as a slave (Romans
7:14), so that he had no longer freedom of action, but had, as it were, to obey his
master's behests; and that he had so sold himself, consciously or unconsciously, "to
do the evil in the sight of Jehovah."
Accordingly, the judgment which Elijah announced was not merely personal to
Ahab, as what he said about the dogs licking his blood; but it also struck his dynasty
and doomed it to extermination for this twofold reason: "on account of the wrath
which thou hast caused to go forth,^63 and hast made Israel to sin." On the other hand,
this general judgment should not take the place of personal punishment upon the
doers of such a crime as the judicial murder^64 of Naboth.
(^)