I. Such glimpses of Ahab's life as we have in ver. 39 reveal him to us in a very different character from that which appears on the face of the Bible history. He would seem to have been one who encouraged arts and industry, one who did a great deal for the temporal improvement of his people, and one concerning whom a flattering historian might have said many things which would tend to raise our thoughts of him as a useful king. We have here an awful commentary on such godless lives as his. His ivory palace and the cities which he built have passed away, together with that book of chronicles which contained their history; but what has remained, and will remain for evermore, is the fearful testimony that neither before nor since was there ever any king in Israel like Ahab, who gave himself up so completely and unreservedly to work evil in the sight of the Lord. We see here a commentary upon this truth, that the question of lasting importance to each man is this: whether he has set himself with all his heart to serve the Lord, or whether he has determined to be rebellious; and that lasting praise belongs, not to him who builds cities and ivory palaces, but to him who fears the Lord and walks in His ways.
II. Let us lay this well to heart, that we too may possibly be walking in a vain show; we may possibly be judging ourselves, and may be judged by others, differently from the judgment of God. "The fashion of the world passeth away" its cities and its ivory houses "but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever."
Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons,2nd series, p. 33.