1 Kings 16:33

The whole line of kings from Jeroboam down had done evil in the sight of the Lord. But to do more than all of them marked a guilt of no ordinary kind. Yet such was Ahab. Such was the man who sat on the throne of God's ancient people when Elijah the Tishbite began his prophetic testimony.

Israel's kings rapidly went from bad to worse. Omri "did more evil than all who were before him" (ch. 16:25). Now Ahab does still worse. As God details his history before us, He keeps returning to this sad theme: "There was none who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the LORD like Ahab, whom Jezebel his wife incited" (1 Kings 21:25).

Tyrian historians mention an Eithobalus of Ahab's time, who was priest of Ashtoreth, the goddess paired with Baal. This was, in all probability, Jezebel's father. Her zeal for spreading and keeping up the worship of Baal and Ashtoreth, or Astarte, is therefore easy to explain. So is her deep hatred of the holy worship of Jehovah, and her murderous plans against His prophets. Behind it all, we may be sure, Satan was seeking by this new move to completely corrupt and destroy God's people and His truth from the earth… "And Ahab made a grove" — Asherah — an image, or pavilion, to Astarte.

The "groves" so often mentioned in the history of Ahab and Elijah were really statues of Ashtoreth. Baal seems to have represented the sun, and Ashtoreth the moon. God's charge against the Northern Kingdom came when Assyria carried the people away captive. It reads: "And they abandoned all the commandments of the LORD their God and made for themselves metal images of two calves; and they made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal" (2 Kings 17:16). From Job 31:26-27 we gather that worship of the sun and moon was the earliest form of idolatry.

Not only did he continue in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, but he also went and married a heathen wife; and on that he adopted the worship of Baal. Full-blown apostasy is therefore seen in Ahab.

Ahab was not the first to bring Baal worship into Israel. It had been known among them since they entered the land. But under his rule, and the powerful influence of his wife Jezebel, it became the established form of idolatry, just as Jeroboam had established calf worship. Baal was the sun-god of the earlier inhabitants of the land, and his worship came with the most obscene rites and impurities.

The reign of Ahab was the occasion for the testimony of the prophet Elijah. Israel at that time was hastening to its doom. But whatever their sin may be, God does not strike a people who have forsaken His ways without first sending them a testimony. He may chastise them beforehand, but He will not carry out His judgment on them in a final way.

And it is in such days that God, provoked to anger, goes out to show His power. He testifies against the evil. He also comes to deliver this miserable people, who were willingly 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.

Every light had gone out. Every voice of testimony had fallen silent… Then at last God, in His mercy to His poor oppressed and misguided people, raised up a bright and powerful witness for Himself in our prophet. But it is just at such a time that a real witness for God is likely to have the most powerful effect. His influence reaches the widest. It is after a long drought that a shower brings its full refreshing power.