The Gerizim and Ebal Mountain Range to the South and Tabor and Gilboa Mountain Range to the North
I Kings 21:1 – “And it came to pass after these things that
Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard
which was in Jezreel, next to the
palace of Ahab king of Samaria.
Yair Davidiy with Brit-Am - "The Sages (Sanhedrin 48:b) said that Naboth was the son of a brother of (King) Omri father of Ahab, i.e. Ahab and Naboth were cousins. Ahab had a palace in Samaria (1 Kings 22:39) which was further to the south in addition to the one (Royal Palace) in Jezreel (Jezreal) spoken of here.
It could be that the palace in Jezreel was an inheritance from Omri. It was the private property of Ahab as distinct from that belonging to the monarchy per se. This would solve the legal problem concerning the rights of a king. Legally (1 Samuel 8)) if the king for the purpose of his monarchy need the property of someone else he may take it but had to compensate whoever he takes it from.
Ezekiel 46:18 – “Moreover the prince shall not take of the people’s inheritance by oppression, to thrust them out of their possessions; but he shall give his sons inheritance out of his own possession: that my people be not scattered every man.
The verse says that the vineyard “was in Jezreel, next to the palace of Ahab king of Samaria”. Jezreel probably refers to a city in the territory of Issachar in the Valley of Jezreel. Ahab was king over all Israel, not just over Samaria. Perhaps the verse emphasizes the connection of Ahab with Samaria since that was where his capital was and it was that area where he could as king have shown a genuine interest in real estate and not elsewhere.
In the attached map “Sebaste” is the site of the ancient royal city of Samaria. The Valley of Jezreel is the Plain of Esdraelon (Megiddo) and the city of Jezreel was probably somewhere in its eastern section near the foothills of Mount Gilboa.
I Kings 21:2-3 – “So Ahab spoke to Naboth, saying, Give me your vineyard, that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near, next to my house; and for it I will give you a vineyard better than it. Or, if it seems good to you, I will give you it’s worth in money. But Naboth said to Ahab, “The Lord forbid that I should give the inheritance of my fathers to you!”
The Royal Palace and Vineyards of King Ahab at Jezreel at the base of Mount
Gilboa
“The inheritance of my fathers” refers to inherited properties that had been distributed when the Israelites for conquered the Land of Canaan. There were special laws and traditions concerning these lands:
Leviticus 25:23-25 – “The land shall not be sold permanently; for the land if Mine, for you are strangers and sojourners with Me. And in all the land of your possession you shall grant redemption of the land.
If one of your brethren becomes poor, and has sold some of his possession, and if his redeeming relatives come to redeem it, then he may redeem what his brother sold. Or if the man has no one to redeem it, but he himself become about to redeem it, then let him count the years since its sale, and resort the remainder to the man to whom he sold it, that he may return to his possession.
But if he is not able to have it restored to himself, then what was sold shall remain in the hand of him who bought it until the Year of Jubilee; and in the Jubilee it shall be released, and he shall return to his possession.
Maimonides (Laws of Shemittah and Yovel 11.1.3) explains that it was forbidden to sell such lands unless the money was desperately needed. Otherwise the land was meant to be kept in the family.
The fact that Naboth and Ahab were close kin may further complicated the issue since it could have led to a conflict of rights at the Time of Jubilee when the ancestral lands were to be returned! King Ahab or his successors could then have found some excuse to claim the land was supposed to have been their inheritance in the first place.
I Kings 21:4-7 – “So Ahab went into his house sullen and displeased because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite has spoken to him; for he had said, “I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers.”
And he lay down on his bed, and turned away his face and would eat no food. But Jezebel his wife came to him and said to him, “Why is your spirit so sullen that you eat no food?”
He said to her, “Because I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite, and said to him, ‘Give me your vineyard for money; or else, if it please you, I will give you another vineyard for it.’ And he answered,” I will not give you my vineyard.’”
The woman (Queen Jezebel) was taking over (throne of Israel). (King) Ahab let her though he was unaware of what exactly she would do.
Then Jezebel his wife said to him, “You now exercise authority over Israel! Arise, eat food, and let your heart be cheerful; I will give you the vineyard of Naboth and Jezreelite.”
And she wrote letters in Ahab’s name, sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters to the elders and the noble who were dwelling in the city of Naboth. She wrote in the letters, saying,
“Proclaim a fast, and seat Naboth with high honor among the people; and seat two men, scoundrels, before him to bear witness against him saying, “You have blasphemed G-d and the king, Then take him out, and stone him that he may die.'"
By Yair Davidiy - Brit-Am, “Ahab and the Vineyard of Naboth – January 31, 2010
The Territorial Relationship between the Divided Kingdoms of Judah and Israel
BibleSearchers Commentary – The Biblical Story of King Ahab, Queen Jezebel and Naboth’s Vineyard in the city of Jezreel surrounds the plot of Queen Jezebel against King Ahab’s cousin, the son of King Omri’s brother. Here was a family inheritance through King Omri’s brother that was not of royal Davidian inheritance through the Tribe of Benjamin, but belonged to the Tribe of Issachar.
Apparently the city of Jezreel was sitting at the base of Mount Gilboa, in the region of the Tribe of Issachar. Kings Omri, Ahab, and Naboth were Princes of David and royal descendants of the Royal Dynasty of the House of Kings David and Solomon. Therefore they were heirs to the throne of Israel and Judea. Prince Naboth was potentially a threat to the throne of King Ahab. Here we have a complicated family relationship in which Queen Jezebel now used it to plot her power to eventually a coup to take over the throne of Israel.
Queen Jezebel was a Princess of Tyre, a descendant of the famed King Hiram, the personal friend of King David, who allied themselves in several international trading missions to bring vast possessions of the gold of Ophir back to the United Kingdom of Israel and the powerful maritime City-State of Tyre. Was there in the making a potential of an international coup by the Royal Throne of Tyre to take over the Throne of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and eventually topple the Kingdom of Judah? If so, the G-d of Israel had a different agenda on His mind.
What we also do not know, how did the Prince of David Namoth receive inheritance from the Tribe of Issachar? It would appear that Prince Naboth’s mother, maybe one several wives of King Omri was of the Tribe of Issachar. If so, by the “death by stoning” secondary to the charges of “blasphemy” by two false witnesses, the legacy of the possession of a famous vineyard that became a part of the Royal Gardens of the Northern Palace of King Ahab in the northern province of Issachar near the city of Jezreel could not be comprehended.
This royal plot by Queen Jezebel put in a chain of reactions and responses by the G-d of Israel. A man’s life had been slain by false witnesses even though it appeared that is was done according to the law of Moses at Sinai (ie. halakhah). This plot now directly threatened the integrity of the G-d of Israel and the divine response was now in the royal court of the throne of the Almighty. There on the place where Naboth was stoned to death, the G-d of Israel gave His first divine decree through the mouth of the Prophet Elijah
1 Kings 21:19 – “In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, dogs shall lick your blood, even yours.”
Here also began the bloody sequence of events that brought the famous seer and Prophet Elijah the Tishbite in conflict with the Royal House and Dynasty of Kings Omri and Ahab. Before it was all over, it would bring the Prophet Elijah in a direct confrontation between the Priests of Baal on Mount Carmel where the G-d of Israel sent a mighty “blast” and a bolide flue of billions of bolts of electromagnetic energy that burnt up the sacrifice, the altar, and all the water that was put upon the altar of G-d erected by Elijah.
The story of the “Great Barbecue” on Mount Carmel was now surrounded by initially the plot to destroy Prince Naboth, the cousin and rival to the throne of King Ahab by a different royal family dynasty of the House of King David and Solomon. Yet this divine barbecue also left the altars of Baal remaining cold and neglected for raven and birds of prey to scavenge after all the priest of Baal were slaughtered in the surrounding valley by the Prophet Elijah.
The dynasty of King Ahab was now doomed by divine decree as all the males of the House of Ahab would die, and the entire royal dynasty would become extinct.
1 Kings 21:21-22 – “Behold, I will bring calamity on you. I will take away your posterity, and will cut off from Ahab every male in Israel, both bond and free. I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah, because of the provocation with which you have provoked Me to anger, and made Israel sin.”
Yet, the provocateur of this entire plot was due to a weak king and a wife, King Ahab chose to marry in defiance of Torah law. By violating the “Blessings and Curses” given by G-d through the mouth of Joshua, the plotting Queen Jezebel almost accomplished a coup d’état of royal House of King David and Solomon to be replaced by the Kings of Tyre. Is it any wonder that the Prophet Isaiah later compared the “King of Tyre” to Lucifer, the “anointed cherub” who, as G-d’s divine chariot, he transported the Throne of G-d as he plotted to take over the throne of the Almighty One of Israel.
Isaiah 14:12 – “How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations!
For you have said in your heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars (angels) of G-d; I will also sit on the Mount of the Congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the most High.’
Yet, you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit.”
Baal worshippers were not worshipping a mythical god called Baal, they were worshipping a real person, who was the King of Tyre, the ruler of Phoenicia, who now had become the personification and the incarnation of Lucifer, the anointed cherub.
Ancestral Genealogy of Queen Jezebel
Abibaal (c.993-981 BCE) à
Hiram I (980-947 BCE) – contemporary of Kings David and Solomon à
Baal-Eser I [Balazeros I,Ba’l-mazzer I] (946-930 BCE) à
Abdastartus [‘Abd-‘Astart] (929-921 BCE à
Astartus [‘Ashtart] (920-901 BCE – Killed predecessor -1st of 4 brother rulers à
Deleastartys [Dalay-‘Ashtart’] (900-889 BCE) - 2nd of 4 ruling brothers à
Astarymus [‘Ashtar-rom] (888-880 BCE) – 3rd of 4 brothers to rule à
Phelles [Pilles] (879 BCE) – Last of 4 brothers to rule à
Ithobaal I [Ethbaal I] (878-847 BCE – Killed predecessor à
Queen Jezebel, wife of King Ahab of the Northern Kingdom of Israel
It would be Lucifer’s divine fate that with his revolt, he would take with him 1/3rd of the angelic hosts in war against the Almighty One of Israel. Here we read oracles against the King of Tyre by the Prophet Ezekiel, that describes him in the same language describing Lucifer (Isaiah 14:12-14).
Ezekiel 28:2, 13-16 – “Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyre, Thus says the Lord G-d; Because your heart [is] lifted up, and you hast said, I [am] a god, I sit [in] the seat of G-d, in the midst of the seas; yet you [art] a man, and not G-d, though thou set your heart as the heart of G-d:
Thou hast been in Eden the garden of G-d; every precious stone [was] thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of your tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that you were created. Thou [art] the anointed cherub that covers; and I have set thee [so]: thou was upon the holy mountain of G-d; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
Thou [was] perfect in thy ways from the day that thou was created, till iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.”
This coup by the Phoenician dynasty now provoked the next response by the G-d of Israel to effectively cast out total rebellion in the House of Israel that may in the future destroy the Kingdom of Judah. This plot threatened to doom G-d’s divine plan in His covenant with the Jews of the House of Judah for the preservation of the Torah Law, and the TaNaKh (Hebrew Scripture). The Prophet Elijah continued:
1 Kings 21:23 – “And concerning Jezebel, HaShem also spoke, saying, ‘The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel.’ The dogs shall eat whoever belongs to Ahab and dies in the city, and the birds of the air shall eat whoever dies in the field.”
But there was no one like Ahab who sold himself to do wickedness in the sight of the Lord, because Jezebel his wife stirred him up.”
Mount Horeb that was called the “Mount of Sinai”
And so ended the saga and tale of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel yet it caused the Prophet Elijah to flee Israel and hide in the cleft of the rock on Mount Horeb in the mountain range of Seir (Esau) where Moses stayed when he received the Divine Ten Commands of the G-d of Israel on top of the Mount called Sinai. In the final rebellion before the One World Order under the rule of Lucifer in his last stand against the forces of The Messiah, we must not forget the message of HaShem to the Prophet Elijah at Horeb.
1 Kings 19:11-18 (parts) – “Then G-d said, “Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great a strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; but after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire’ and after the fire a still small voice.”
In the aftermath, the Prophet Elijah was sent back to the Wilderness of Damascus to anoint Hazeal as king over Syria, Jehu the son of Nuimshi as king over Israel, and anoint his successor Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel Meholah to take Elijah’s mantle of prophetic authority. It came with one admonition, even though Elijah felt that there is no one left to worship the G-d of Creation, HaShem (G-d of Israel) spoke to Elijah as He does to us today in the “still small voice” as we ponder the cascading apocalyptic events at the time of the end:
1 Kings 19:18 – “I have reserved seven thousand in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed to Baal”.
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