Fall of the House of Ahab
133
like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah,” the Lord declared through
His servant, “for the provocation wherewith thou hast provoked Me to
anger, and made Israel to sin.”
And of Jezebel the Lord declared, “The dogs shall eat Jezebel by
the wall of Jezreel. Him that dieth of Ahab in the city the dogs shall
eat; and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat.”
When the king heard this fearful message, “he rent his clothes, and
put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went
softly.
“And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, Seest
thou how Ahab humbleth himself before Me? because he humbleth
himself before Me, I will not bring the evil in his days: but in his son’s
days will I bring the evil upon his house.”
It was less than three years later that King Ahab met his death at
the hands of the Syrians. Ahaziah, his successor, “did evil in the sight
of the Lord, and walked in the way of his father, and in the way of his
mother, and in the way of Jeroboam.” “He served Baal, and worshiped
him, and provoked to anger the Lord God of Israel,” as his father Ahab
had done.
1 Kings 22:52, 53
. But judgments followed close upon the
sins of the rebellious king. A disastrous war with Moab, and then an
accident by which his own life was threatened, attested to God’s wrath
against him.
Having fallen “through a lattice in his upper chamber,” Ahaziah,
seriously injured, and fearful of the possible outcome, sent some of
his servants to make inquiry of Baalzebub, the god of Ekron, whether
[208]
he should recover or not. The god of Ekron was supposed to give in-
formation, through the medium of its priests, concerning future events.
Large numbers of people went to inquire of it; but the predictions
there uttered, and the information given, proceeded from the prince of
darkness.
Ahaziah’s servants were met by a man of God, who directed them
to return to the king with the message: “Is it because there is no God
in Israel, that ye go to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron? Now
therefore thus saith Jehovah, Thou shalt not come down from the bed
whither thou art gone up, but shalt surely die.” Having delivered his
message, the prophet departed.
The astonished servants hastened back to the king, and repeated to
him the words of the man of God. The king inquired, “What manner