Ahab of Israel [V]

Naboth in his vineyard

Ahab had received bitter news from the unnamed prophet of God after his victory at Aphek, but more bad news was coming. Ahab was spending time at his winter palace in Jezreel when he noticed a lush vineyard that abutted his palace walls. Ahab’s winter palace was excavated in the 1990s: the rectangular enclosure covered eleven acres and was surrounded by a casemate wall with corner towers. It boasted a six-chambered gate, a fosse (a moat intended to prevent tunneling under the walls), and earthen ramparts that were cut from rock; some of these ramparts stretched thirty feet in width and nearly twenty feet in depth. From atop these walls Ahab envied the neighboring vineyard. He approached its owner – Naboth the Jezreelite – and expressed his interest in purchasing the vineyard as a vegetable garden for an extension of his palace. He gave Naboth two choices for purchase: he could arrange for him a better vineyard in a different location or pay Naboth the vineyard’s worth. Naboth turned down both options, refusing to sell. His refusal isn’t surprising: possession of the land was a gift of the covenant, and the land allotted to the tribes had been sectioned off to clans and families. Patrimonial landholdings constituted each family’s inclusion in Yahweh’s covenant promises and benefits. These holdings were intimately connected to the covenant God made with His people and weren’t to be passed around lightly. Naboth’s insistence on keeping his land despite benefiting from Ahab’s generous offer may indicate Naboth’s commitment to the covenant. He may have been a devoted follower of Yahweh. God’s repugnance at what comes next implies that Naboth was, at the very least, an upstanding citizen of Jezreel.

Ahab laments not being able to have Naboth's vineyard

Ahab didn’t hide his disappointment at Naboth’s refusal. He was not only disappointed but severely dismayed, and his childish emotions got the best of him: he threw a temper tantrum, pouted in his private chambers, and refused to eat. Jezebel noticed and asked him what was wrong. He relayed his conversation with Jezebel, and she sneered, ‘Are you or are you not the king? Perk up, Buttercup. I’ll get you your vineyard.’ The Israelites believed that the land belonged to Yahweh, but Phoenicians saw land only as royal fiefdoms; all land was on grant from the king. Israelite kingship had been designed to be less despotic than the surrounding monarchies; the king was not above the law, but Jezebel, true to her Phoenician roots, wasn’t taken with such niceties. She connived against Naboth, forging letters of instruction in Ahab’s name, sealing them with the royal seal, and sending them to the elders and nobles who lived in the city. A fast was to be declared in Jezreel; such a command would indicate that a curse had befallen the city because of some unknown sin. Naboth was to be put at the head of the table of a gathering of the elders; by putting him at the head of the table, Jezebel gave Naboth a prominent status, and as such his actions would be capable of affecting the whole community. Two scoundrels – or sons of Belial, ‘worthless men’ – were to be seated close to him where they could claim to hear words spoken under his breath. The scoundrels were to publicly charge Naboth with cursing both God and the king, a capital crime (Exod 22.8; Deut 13.11); at that the elders were to order Naboth dragged out of the hall to meet his Maker. The elders obeyed: the fast was declared, Naboth was given the prominent seat, the scoundrels did their dirty work, and Naboth was dragged outside the city walls and stoned to death. The elders’ ready compliance with Jezebel’s order highlights not only the moral degradation of the people of Jezreel but also the terror Jezebel inspired – no elder dared cross her! When news reached the queen that the deed was done, she informed her husband; Ahab joyously claimed the land as his property. Because Naboth was put to death for treason, his land was forfeited to the government. 

Elijah confronts Ahab

The word of Yahweh came to Elijah, and God commanded the prophet to confront Ahab in the late Naboth’s vineyard. Because Ahab had shed innocent blood and seized the vineyard (though Jezebel had given the order, he was her head and responsible for her actions), he’d pay for it. Ahab was enjoying his new property when Elijah confronted him. He hadn’t seen the prophet since the Contest on Mount Carmel, and upon seeing him, he said, ‘Have you found me, O my enemy?’ These words could’ve been delivered in sarcasm or in terror at Elijah’s presence (the infamous prophet of Yahweh never had a good thing to say to the king!). Elijah cut straight to the meat of the matter: ‘Have you murdered and taken possession of that which wasn’t yours?’ Elijah’s prophecies cut to the marrow of Ahab’s bone: ‘In the place where dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, so, too, dogs will also lick up your blood!’ He prophesied doom on Elijah’s dynasty: just as Jeroboam and Baasha suffered lineages cut short, so, too, would Ahab, because he provoked Yahweh to anger and caused Israel to sin. ‘The dogs shall eat Jezebel within the bounds of Jezreel. Anyone belonging to Ahab who dies in the city the dogs shall eat; and anyone of his who dies in the open country, the birds of the air shall eat.’ The same dreaded destiny afforded to the lineages of Jeroboam by Ahijah and Baasha by Jehu were being given to Ahab by Elijah: his descendants wouldn’t be buried, and their spirits would be forced to wander restlessly. All this would come to pass because Ahab had ‘sold himself’ (i.e. completely surrendered himself) to do that which he knew to be evil in God’s sight. Ahab humbled himself before Yahweh, so Yahweh showed mercy and declared that the prophecies would be delayed – but not undone. Ahab’s descendants would suffer the consequences of Ahab’s sins, but this wouldn’t be a case of the innocent suffering for the guilty; God knew Ahab’s sons would be no better than their father.

Historian Cyrus H. Gordan captures the immensity of the story of Naboth’s vineyard in The Bible and the Ancient Near East (pp. 228): “The [Naboth] affair made a terrible impression on the people and determined the downfall of Ahab’s line because innocent blood had been shed. Israel’s institutions of ancient origins required that innocent blood be expiated by blood; and even if Ahab should die a natural death, his descendant(s) would have to pay for the crime, as actually came to pass. A single miscarriage of justice was enough to destroy the most powerful and effective dynasty that northern Israel ever had.”

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Ahab may have 'repented' in light of Elijah's dire prophecies, but the repentance wouldn’t hold. The last recorded episode of his life – the battle of Ramoth-Gilead – indicates that he still viewed Yahweh as ‘just another god’ and was rather disdainful of Him and His prophets. Ahab stands as an example of the sort of person who ‘repents’ multiple times throughout their lives – especially after suffering the temporal consequences of sin, or getting caught red-handed in sin – but who can never seem to ‘stay the course.’ Ahab’s ‘humbling’ before Yahweh lacked staying power: he was back to his old tricks in no time. 

Ahab was slain by an arrow

The Battle of Ramoth-Gilead is recounted in detail in the previous chapter on Jehoshaphat of Judah, so here we need only recount a few poignant details. Most importantly, it is the battle at which King Ahab died. His death fulfilled two prophecies given in his lifetime. Following the Battle of Aphek, an unnamed prophet of God had declared that because Ahab had spared the life of Ben-hadad II (whom God had chosen for execution), Ahab would suffer Ben-hadad II’s fate: while the Aramean king lived, Ahab would die. At Ramoth-Gilead Ahab went against his Aramean nemesis and was killed in the battle. After being wounded by an arrow, Ahab climbed into his chariot and tried to save the battle as he bled out. He failed, the Israelite army scattered, and his blood-slicked chariot rattled its way back to Samaria where it was washed out beside a pool. Dogs licked up the blood, fulfilling Elijah’s prophecy. It should also be noted that Ahab’s leniency towards Ben-hadad II after Aphek didn’t pay off in the end. The Aramean king had promised to return territory he’d snatched from Israel in the days of King Baasha, but he was untrustworthy and hadn’t done so (this breach of contract is what motivated an Israelite-Judean army to march against Ramoth-Gilead). Though Ahab’s leniency after Aphek had enabled he and Ben-hadad II to stand united against Assyria in 853 BC, it had done little to ease the ever-present tensions between the two countries. It was only a matter of time before Israel and Aram were fighting again; one is led to wonder how things might have been different in Ahab had followed God’s will and slain Ben-hadad II at Aphek!

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In 853 BC - sometime after the Naboth Debacle but before Ahab’s death at the Battle of Ramoth-Gilead – Ahab and Ben-hadad II linked hands to thwart an Assyrian invasion of the Mediterranean coast. We know of this only because of Assyrian annals; the Bible doesn’t mention it. Biblical scholars have puzzled over its absence in the biblical narrative, but the answer may be very simple. The author of 1 and 2 Kings works diligently to showcase the evils of northern Israel against the (occasional) piety of Judah. Ahab was militarily skilled and saw many victories during his reign; the victories recorded in Kings – the Siege of Samaria and the Battle of Aphek – were fought by Yahweh, so though Ahab was victorious, it was Yahweh who received the glory. The writer of Kings, though likely aware of Qarqar, had no information on God fighting for Ahab at the battle, so he left it out; he wanted to show that the wicked Ahab’s victories could all be attributed to Yahweh. The author of Kings compiled his work from numerous sources – we can assume that every king had a ‘court historian’ who kept records of the kingship; these records, though lost to history, are mentioned time and again in the Bible – and many of these sources may have mentioned Qarqar. However, because the Battle of Qarqar doesn’t fit with the author of Kings’ agenda, it was left out. Our knowledge of Ahab’s presence at Qarqar, then, comes from non-biblical (i.e. Assyrian) sources.

mounted warriors involved at Qarqar

In the sixth year of his reign, Shalmaneser III of Assyria (who reigned from 858 to 824 BC) launched a massive campaign of conquest to seize the lands west of the Euphrates (he had already subjected the lands east of his hometown). Shalmaneser III’s army was the most sophisticated and complex the ancient world had ever seen (at least according to reliefs on the bronze gates at Balawat in ancient Iraq). These reliefs showcase armed corps of infantry – some heavily armored; others, the ‘light infantry,’ had no armor at all – fighting alongside three-crewed chariots. Heavy foot-archers were protected by shield-bearing comrades. An impressive siege train included scaling ladders, breaching tools, mobile four- and six-wheeled rams protected with sheet metal or hides, along with boats, rafts, and inflatable animal skins used for river crossings. The Assyrians utilized precisely laid-out fortified camps that could be erected on the march. The cavalry – armed with lance, spear, and bow – were able to execute complicated tactical operations (such as how a mounted archer would be protected by a shielded comrade when firing his bow). Shalmaneser’s army reached the Upper Orontes Valley, but when they moved southwards they were blocked by a coalition of different armies that had banded together to oppose the Assyrian advance. Two of the biggest players were Aram under Ben-hadad II and Israel under Ahab. Shalmaneser’s annals have preserved the forces arrayed against him:

Hadadezer [Ben-hadad II] of Damascus: 1200 chariots, 1200 cavalrymen, 10,000 foot soldiers; Irhuleni of Hamath: 700 chariots, 700 cavalrymen, 10,000 foot-soldiers; Ahab the Israelite: 2000 chariots, 10,000 foot-soldiers; Que: 500 foot-soldiers; 1000 soldiers from Musri [either a Syrian state or Egypt]; Arqad: 10 chariots, 10,0000 soldiers; Shian: 30 chariots, 10,000 foot-soldiers; 1000 soldiers from Ammon; Gindibu the Arab: 1000 camel riders.

Taken together, the coalition’s forces numbered 3940 chariots, 1900 horse cavalry, 1000 camel riders, and 52,900 infantry. We can assume that the Assyrian historian dared not decrease the size of the enemy forces, given that Qarqar was an Assyrian defeat (to decrease the numbers would humiliate Shalmaneser). The fact that the numbers aren’t blown way out of proportion (such as we have seen at the Battle of Mount Zemaraim, for example) has led historians to concur that the numbers are probably accurate. 

Ahab fighting from his war chariot

Though Ahab is placed third on the list, it’s likely he was one of the principal players of the coalition, especially since he’d bested Aram several years before at Aphek. It’s worth noting that he had the largest contingent of chariots; his two thousand chariots numbered eight hundred more than those of Aram. This large number of chariots makes sense: we know that the militant-minded Ahab was overly fond of chariots, his alliance with the commercially-viable Phoenicians would’ve enabled him to purchase and fund numerous chariots (even if many of these were mercenary in nature), and he may even have counted some Judean chariots among his forces due to his alliance with then-king Jehoshaphat of Judah. Though Judah’s territory wasn’t advantageous to chariots, Jehoshaphat no doubt had a few of his own. Chariots were good to have in a crunch, and they were viewed as ‘markers’ of power and prestige. We know that Jehoshaphat was doing quite well as king, so it makes sense that he would have a decent number of chariots, if only because he could. The small numbers of Israelite foot-soldiers can be explained by Ahab’s reluctance to strip his country of armed forces; he had to make sure Israel was appropriately garrisoned against the Philistines to the west and tribal incursions from the east – and the Moabites needed to be kept at bay (Moab, remember, had been under tribute to Israel since the days of Ahab’s father; they were boiling against Israel’s heavy-handed lordship and could strike out at any moment). The small numbers of Israelite infantry may also reflect his use of trained regulars rather than pulling from the national levy. 

The coalition succeeded not only in repelling the Assyrian army but also in mauling it so severely that, at least for the time being, Shalmaneser III abandoned his military ambitions for Syria and the Palestinian land-bridge. Though Shalmaneser boasts that he killed 14,000 of the enemy, the fact remains that he turned around and headed home. If it was truly a victory, it was pyrrhic in nature.