Alicia's Bible Blog
1 Kings 20:7 "Then the king of Israel called all the elders of the land, and said, 'Mark, now, and see how this man is seeking trouble; for he sent to me for my wives and my children, and for my silver and my gold, and I did not refuse him.'"
The king of Israel here is Ahab, the poster-boy bad king of Israel; the bad king against whom all other bad Jewish kings are measured. The king of Syria, Benhadad, has come against Samaria and is besieging it. Benhadad originally sent to Ahab for all Ahab's gold, silver, and "fairest wives and children", and Ahab complied. Now Benhadad wants more, and plans to send his servants to search the king's house, and the houses of his servants, and take whatever pleases them. (1 Kings 20:1-6). The elders and people warn Ahab not to comply with this latest demand, and Ahab follows their advice (1 Kings 20:8-9). Eventually, God will send a prophet to Ahab, and Ahab will prevail in this battle (1 Kings 20:13-21 and see God Calls to Us Even in Our Wickedness).
What a terrible king Ahab was! He should have been strong enough, and trusted God enough, to resist Benedad from the get-go, but instead he responded to Benhadad's first order with "As you say, my lord, O king, I am yours, and all that I have", and handed over his wives, children, gold, and silver (1 Kings 20:4). Apparently, though, Ahab's wife Jezebel was not one of his fairest wives, since she's still around to make trouble after this. (See, e.g., 1 Kings 21).
The way Ahab simply gave in to Benhadad's first demand shows him to be a weak and defeated man. He got this way partly by letting Jezebel have too much control over him, leading him to become a misguided Baal worshiper who led his people astray, rather than a strong Jewish leader and king.
The story of Ahab and Jezebel is a warning of how wrong things can go when a man does not properly take on his role in a marriage and family. Besotted by love, or overcome by lust, or maybe even suffering from a mommy-wound, men like Ahab relinquish their rightful authority in the family to controlling women. They may not realize that is what they're doing, they may think they are just trying to keep the peace ("happy wife, happy life!"), but the whole family suffers for it, as does the whole nation, if the man is a king.
This is the Adam and Eve problem, too. The Fall did not happen until Adam ate the apple. He could have, and should have, told Eve "no". He should have exercised his authority and used his reason to shut that whole thing down as soon as she offered him the apple. As much as I, a woman, appreciate the equal rights won for my gender and applaud those who fought for them, I have to say that feminism has gone too far. It didn't stop at equal rights, it started demanding rights we never should have had, like the right to abortion, things that are destructive to the greater order. Unreasonable feminist demands weakened men (who, don't get me wrong, are not faultless here!), and now we are left in a country full of lost men and women who have forgotten the natural law and cannot form proper relationships. Zero Hedge wrote about this recently in regard to the "nose ring theory" (the nose ring itself being ironic as a symbol of independence, when it's original use was as a means of control).
The pendulum will swing back, eventually, but it will not be easy nor pain-free. There was a tremendous amount of suffering still to come for Israel after Ahab and Jezebel were long gone, and there has been a tremendous amount of suffering for the human race since the Fall. But in the cyclical nature of things (and unless we are truly in the end times, which I don't believe we are), eventually we will have more good, strong men who understand their role, men who will make for better times as leaders in their families, communities, and countries.
"Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”
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