Ahab Coveting Naboth's Vineyard: A Sermon Preached in St. Thomas's Church, New Haven, Conn., December 16, 1917.

By William Agur Beardsley.

New Haven: St. Thomas's Church, 1917.

I Kings, xxi, 2.—“And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house.”

“Ahab Coveting Naboth’s Vineyard.” Who were these mentioned here? One, Ahab, was the king of Israel, the other, Naboth, was, so far as we know, just an ordinary individual, a resident of Jezreel, and a landholder. In Jezreel was the summer palace of king Ahab. Now, we probably never should have heard of Naboth, if it had not been that his vineyard was hard by the palace of Ahab. Poor Naboth! If he must own a vineyard, why could it not have been somewhere out of the way? If a vineyard or a country is right down next to the king’s palace or the king’s land so much the worse for that vineyard or that country. As the king sees it, it is where it ought not to be—unless it is the king’s.

Well, Naboth’s vineyard had come to him by inheritance. His fathers had owned it, and it had been passed down from generation to generation. We do not know how long it had been in the family, but long enough to give it a value in Naboth’s esteem above any mere money value. It was a fine vineyard, but it had the misfortune to lie hard by the king’s palace. That meant that the king wanted it. Let us draw a picture of the scene that we may see just how much he wanted it.

Perched on a hill about five hundred, feet high on the northern declivity of Mount Gilboa sat the little town of Jezreel. At its foot lay the fertile plain which descended eastward to the Jordan valley. It was an ideal spot, protected from the hot southern sun by the mountain rising behind it. Moreover, it commanded a beautiful outlook. To the north across the plain in the near foreground were the mountains of Galilee, while farther away rose, the lofty snow capped peak of Hermon. Eastward could be seen the deep depression through which, ran the swift-descending Jordan, and farther on still lay the long line of purple mountains. Such was the position of Jezreel.

Now on the eastern side of the town, close up to its walls, and seemingly forming a part of them, was the royal villa. This commanded a beautiful view all down the fertile valley which descended to the Jordan. On the slope near the villa was the vineyard of Naboth. You can, see at once that its position in reference to the villa made it a most desirable piece of ground for the owner of the villa to possess. And Ahab was anxious to possess it. It was just what he needed to complete the beauty and comfort of his summer, retreat. He would make a garden of it, and there in its delicious shade, and amid its wealth of fruits, he would derive solid joy and pleasure, when, for the time being, he could drop the cares of State, and withdraw to his villa in Jezreel.

What was there wrong about that? Was not that a perfectly legitimate desire on his part? Here was a piece of land which he wanted. From his windows he had looked down upon it with longing eyes time and again, and thought what an acquisition it would be to his villa, “narrowed, cramped and within the city walls” as it was. We do not know how many times he had made an offer to Naboth for it, or if indeed he had ever made any offer for it. But here we see him making” a good offer. “I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it; or, if it seem good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money.” That was perfectly fair. Ahab wanted the land, wanted, it very much, and he was willing to pay for it, pay anything in reason, that is.

But it takes two to make a bargain, and Naboth was unwilling to be the second party to this bargain. He did not wish to part with his vineyard, and he courteously declined to accept Ahab’s offer. His refusal did not springy from Churlishness, from any dog-in-the-manger spirit. He was. not tenaciously clinging to his vineyard just to be mean. He was not dickering for a larger price. His refusal sprang from something nobler than all that. “The Lord forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee.”

From the form of his answer it would seem as it he felt that he would be guilty of wrong, if he parted with his land. It is quite possible that he had in mind those passages of the Law which forbade the alienation of landed property, and especially the transfer of estates from one tribe, to another. But I think the real reason was that sentiment which prompted, and which prompts, men to cling to their ancestral estates. That bit of ground was the inheritance of his fathers. There they had worked generation after generation, and perhaps, according to Jewish custom, they were buried somewhere in it. At all events Naboth had associations with it which made that particular piece of ground more precious to him than any other piece of ground could possibly be, even though it were of far greater intrinsic value. Charles Kingsley has some characteristic words on this very point. He says, “The feeling which makes a man cling to his home and to his own land is a good feeling, and breeds good in the man. It makes him respect himself; it keeps him from being reckless and unsettled. It is a feeling which should not be broken through * * * One likes to see a family take root” in a place, and grow and thrive there, one generation after another.”

Naboth refused the king’s offer, and the king went home and went to bed, and he had no appetite for his supper. He was sullen, and sulked like a spoiled child. It was a pretty exhibition, of petulance and selfishness. Let it be said, however, to his credit that it apparently did not occur to him that he could take the vineyard by other than honorable methods. He recognized Naboth’s right” to his vineyard, and Naboth’s answer seemed to be final. That was why he was sullen and sulky.

But Ahab had a wife, who has been described as “one of those portentous women, who appear from time to time in human history, and who outdo what is brutal and bad in bad and brutalized men.” What if Naboth did not wish to part with his vineyard! That was a small master. Who was ruling in Israel anyway? “Get up and eat your supper, and let your heart be merry; I will get the vineyard for you.” And she did. But she got Naboth first, and then the rest was easy. Jezebel was not bothered with scruples, she-did not even have a bowing acquaintance with them, and so when word came to her that Naboth was dead, a fact which did not take her by complete surprise, she merely said to Ahab, “Go down and take your vineyard. You won’t need your check book, for Naboth isn’t alive, he is dead.”

And so Ahab got his vineyard. From his villa windows he’ could look down upon it with that delightful sense of ownership which one feels when at last he has in, his possession something upon which he has long cast envious eyes. Surely you can see him standing there rubbing his hands in satisfaction. The vineyard is his, and he is not concerned with any questions as to how it became his. The story betrays no curiosity on his part as to how Jezebel managed the affair.

But Ahab’s joy in the possession of his vineyard was short-lived. And right here is the moral of it all. When he went down into the vineyard to take possession of it, and to look around, whom should he meet but that man Elijah, who could speak more wholesome truth in a minute than Ahab could think in a year. And when Elijah had finished with him was Ahab enjoying his vineyard? No! Never mind what happened to him and his. We are not particularly interested in that now. It is a grewsome tale. But we are mightily interested in the lesson which the story teaches. And what significance that old Bible story has just now! There are rich vineyards hard by the domain of an Ahab, and they are coveted with an unholy desire. They cannot be bought, and so they must be taken and the vineyards are running red, not with the blood of grapes, but with the blood of men.

Covetousness! Of the sins which beset us, easily the most terrible, because it is back of most of the sins which hopelessly wreck our lives. What is it anyway? Desiring with a consuming desire that which we have no right to have, ending with the acquisition of it in ways that are damnable. Many a man and woman has gone down to perdition because of this sin. First, there was admiration, then came longings to be followed by desire which soon got beyond control, and then the crime was committed which blasted, perhaps forever, the life which promised so fair, blasted it certainly so far as usefulness here was concerned. Is not that the history of unnumbered human lives? And covetousness was back of it all. “Thou shalt not covet,” said the old law-giver as the accredited spokesman of Almighty God. It is the last Commandment
in point of order, but easily the first in point of importance, as we are seeing to-day.

It does, after all, make a difference how you get a thing. You may get it by crooked methods, thinking that when once you have it in your possession you will get all the enjoyment out of it which you anticipated. When Ahab went down to take a stroll in his newly-acquired vineyard he thought he was going to enjoy it. For long he had dreamed of that moment. Perhaps he knew how Naboth had died and perhaps he did not. But there in the vineyard he met Elijah the man of God, and he straightway opened the conversation by petulantly crying out to him, “Hast thou found me, O mine, enemy?” He had done things before to make Elijah his enemy, but it was not for past sins that his conscience was speaking in that petulant question. It was for his present sin, the sin of standing there in Naboth’s vineyard in the capacity of its owner, when he had no business to be its owner. “I have found thee: because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord.”

And God will find every man who does that. Is not God finding the Ahab who coveted, and finally took possession of, the little land by the sea, the little land hard by the great empire of Ahab? I believe He is. Certainly, there cannot be much present enjoyment in its possession, and it does not seem as if there could be any enjoyment in its future possession, if we could bring ourselves to think for a moment that there will be any future possession, in the face of the loathing and contempt of all decent men throughout the world.

We are witnessing in these taut and terrible days the logical and inevitable result of the sin of covetousness in its national aspect, as it takes possession of the national mind, and ever gets a stronger hold upon it, until at last, bursting all bounds, and stopping at nothing, it plunges the world into undreamed-of horrors, and makes of it a slaughter house for the finest and fairest of its manhood. Do we wonder that God in the very dawn of history put that into one of His “Thou shalt nots”? Knowing what we know, and seeing what we see, we should indeed wonder if He had failed to do so.

Now Ahab was not less guilty because the actual crime was committed by Jezebel or by her agents. He knew perfectly well that Naboth had not died of his own free will just to suit him. And yet he went down into that vineyard thinking to enjoy it, with somebody’s hands red with blood that he might enjoy it. Why could he not enjoy it? There was no blood on his own hands. O, was there not? And so the crime was all theirs who had thrown the murderous stones! God will not see it in that way, and any man who counts on His doing so is in for a terrible surprise. God will sift men when the time comes, and it is the big ones who will not go through, the Ahabs and the Jezebels, those who pull the strings for the dummies to work. And this is true whether they be the Ahabs and Jezebels of governments, of finance, of politics, of society. In the day of judgment I would rather take my chances with the men who threw the stones that killed Naboth than with Jezebel who gave the command, or with Ahab who meekly and eagerly acquiesced in her deviltry, because by it he was getting what he wanted; I would rather take my chances with the human machines who carried out the rape of Belgium than with the man, or men, who, for “strategic reasons,” ordered it. What I am getting at is that there is no such thing as shifting the responsibility for this sin of covetousness.

Though one may be once, or twice, or three times removed from the crime begotten of it, and knowingly profiting by it, he is guilty, and unless his conscience is so dead that it is incapable of response—if it is dead I suppose it could not respond—he will get no more enjoyment out of it than Ahab got out of his vineyard. That is something which we always want to remember. Our own covetousness, satisfied for’ the moment through the wrong-doing of others, will not experience, certainly it will not for long, the anticipated delight of ownership. Sooner or later, sooner than later I would fain believe, God “will come to us, come to. us in such a way that we shall know His displeasure, and henceforth joy has gone forever out of the thing we coveted.

For an individual, or for a nation, covetousness is the sin with awful possibilities. We are witnessing what those possibilities are when it becomes the sin of a great and powerful nation, and the experience of a life-time has shown us what they are when it becomes the sin of-an individual. Step by step it leads on to the final catastrophe. There is only one time when that can be averted, and that is when the sin is young in its progress. And so when from the old Law we hear, “Thou shalt not covet,” let us believe that as God spoke to ancient Israel, so is He speaking to us, speaking a warning which is eternally new, a warning which men in every age need to hear and heed.