1 Kings 16:30

Never, in the course of Israel's history, had the moral condition of the nation been so low as in the reign of king Ahab. Of this weak and wicked man we read that he "did evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all who were before him." The law was broken. The worship of idols was almost universal: men bowed down to the golden calves at Bethel and Dan. False prophets conducted their idolatrous rites in the Lord's land. The king and his idol-worshipping wife led the way. The nation turned away from the Lord and proved itself ripe for judgment.

The kings before Ahab reigned only a short time — Nadab one year, Elah two years, Zimri seven days — apart from Omri. Ahab's reign, by contrast, is a long one: twenty-two years. Ahab has time before him for doing only evil. He follows the idol worship of Jeroboam, but does worse still. He marries Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians. He bows down before Baal, and builds him an altar and a temple at Samaria.

His great sin was that he took as his wife the daughter of Ethbaal, King of the Zidonians. By entering this worldly alliance he lost his place and authority as king. He allowed this wicked woman to rule. She even wrote letters in his name and signed them with his seal. Under her rule she led the whole country into idolatry. She protected the false prophets of Baal, and she persecuted the prophets of the Lord.

There is not so much as a word about God in Ahab's orders to his servants. Not a word about the sin that had brought God's heavy displeasure and judgment down on the land. No; the word is, "Go to all fountains and brooks." Such was Ahab's thought — his poor, low thought. His heart did not turn to the Lord in true humility. He did not cry to Him in the hour of his need. So his word is, "perhaps we may find grass." God is shut out, and self is the all-absorbing object. As long as he could find grass, he did not care about finding God.

It is in such days that God, provoked to anger, goes out to show His power in testimony against the evil. He also goes out to deliver this miserable people, who were deliberately serving demons. What a God is ours! He chooses the moment when man has completely rejected Him to show that He is God, He alone.

1 Kings 16:29-33 shows us what kind of man Ahab was. Ahab, Jezebel, and the four hundred and fifty prophets led those in Israel who had abandoned God and worshipped Baal at that time. Obadiah and the seven thousand mixed in with the people (1 Kings 18). They did not serve the idol, but they were friends of Ahab. Elijah was the friend of God. He kept completely apart from this falling away, and he was the only witness of the truth while all the evil went on.

How sad for Jehoshaphat and his descendants that he ever agreed to this unholy alliance! He made peace with the man "who did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him." But such is man, even at his best.