Ahab—went softly— Went groaning. Houbigant; who observes, that the Hebrew word אט at, is from the Arabic to groan, as a camel when wearied, or falling under its burden. Though Ahab thus assumed the external garb of a penitent, we do not find him produce any of the fruits of sincere repentance; how came God, then, who inspects the heart, and cannot be deceived with external show, to have had any regard to such repentance, and in consequence of it to have revoked, at least in part, the sentence which he had denounced against Ahab? Some have replied, that God had so great an esteem for true repentance and reformation, that he was willing to reward the very appearance of it. But this is an answer which comports not so well with the purity and holiness of God; and therefore we should rather choose to say, that Ahab's repentance at this time was true, though imperfect, and his sorrow sincere, though of no long continuance; and that had he persisted in his good resolutions, God would have remitted him not only the temporal, but the eternal punishment likewise which was due to his sins. This, however, is an example of the infinite goodness of God towards the greatest sinners, when they humble themselves before him; and we may hence, to our great comfort, infer, that if the repentance of Ahab appeased the Lord for a time, because there was something of sincerity in it, though it was of short continuance; much more infallibly will those who repent with all their heart, and persevere in their repentance, obtain from the divine mercy the pardon of all their sins. See Calmet and Ostervald.
REFLECTIONS.—Ahab had now filled up the measure of his iniquities. Worse than all his predecessors in wickedness, and more infamous in his idolatries, he had willingly sold himself to commit every abomination: nor is it any exculpation of his guilt, that Jezebel stirred him up, whom he should have restrained, rather than have obeyed.
1. Elijah, at God's command, met him in Naboth's vineyard, and his unwelcome presence marred the master's joy. Ahab's guilty conscience told him that the prophet's coming boded no good, and therefore he accosts him, with his former unhumbled pride, as the enemy of his repose; yet expressing a dread, which majestic goodness impressed even on such a hardened heart. Note; (1.) The ministers of God, who cannot bear to see sinners perishing in their iniquities without warning, are therefore often counted by them as their worst enemies. (2.) The very presence of a godly man strikes an awe upon sinners, and they shun him as the ghost which haunts their conscience, and as the fiend come to torment them before their time.
2. Elijah denounces on him his deserved doom: I have found thee, and am come from God to pass sentence on thee. He charges him with Naboth's murder, and his unjust seizure of his inheritance, and, with a terrible commination of approaching judgments, thunders God's wrath against him. His wicked house shall be utterly cut off, as the houses of Jeroboam and Baasha, whose uncommon wickedness he had exceeded: his accursed wife shall be eaten by dogs; so low shall her pride fall; and in the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, (awful and just retaliation!) dogs, says he, shall lick thy blood, even thine. Note; (1.) Let no sinner hope to be hidden; sooner or later, terrors like an armed man shall seize him; and woe then to the soul, that, flying now from its convictions, treasures up wrath against the day of wrath. (2.) No subterfuges in the day of judgment will be able to evade conviction. Both the approver and the perpetrator stand guilty before that God who searcheth the heart. (3.) God's justice in this world sometimes appears most exemplary in suiting the sinner's punishment to his crime.
3. Shocked at the message, his stubborn heart, for a moment, trembled; and, driven to his knees in terror, with sackcloth on his loins, he wore the garb of penitence; and God is pleased to grant him a short reprieve. Note; Partial professions of penitence legal terrors often produce; but a sense of pardoning love alone can convert the heart.