Scripture Daily

Context No. 1520 of 4322 · 1 Kings

Context · Reflection

1 Kings 21:1-5: in context

1After these things, Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard which was in Jezreel, next to the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. 2Ahab spoke to Naboth, saying, “Give me your vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near my house; and I will give you for it a better vineyard than it. Or, if it seems good to you, I will give you its worth in money.” 3Naboth said to Ahab, “May the LORD forbid me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers to you!” 4Ahab came into his house sullen and angry because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him, for he had said, “I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers.” He laid himself down on his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread. 5But Jezebel his wife came to him, and said to him, “Why is your spirit so sad that you eat no bread?”

King Ahab covets a vineyard that borders his palace, belonging to a man named Naboth. He offers to buy it or trade for a better one, but Naboth refuses, because the land is his ancestral inheritance, which the law forbade him to sell away. Ahab, a king with a whole kingdom at his disposal, is thrown into misery by this one refusal. He goes home sullen and angry, lies down on his bed, turns his face to the wall, and will not eat. His wife Jezebel finds him there and asks why his spirit is so sad that he will not eat.

The picture of a king sulking on his bed over a single vineyard is a portrait of the misery of covetousness. Ahab had everything, a palace, a kingdom, wealth, power; and yet he was made wretched by the one thing he could not have. That is what coveting does. It fixes the whole of our attention on the one thing we lack and blinds us to everything we have, until a single denied desire can poison the enjoyment of all our blessings. Ahab could not enjoy his kingdom because of one vineyard; the one thing withheld spoiled the pleasure of everything given. Covetousness is an appetite that grows the more it is fed, always fixing on the next thing not yet possessed, so that no amount of having ever satisfies; there is always one more vineyard. And it makes us miserable in the midst of plenty, turning our eyes from all we have been given to the one thing we have not, so that we lie down sullen and will not eat, like a king made wretched by a plot of ground. There is a warning in this against letting a single ungranted desire ruin our contentment. The cure is not to get the vineyard but to break the covetous fixation, to lift our eyes from the one thing lacking to the many things given, and to learn the contentment that Ahab, for all his kingdom, never found. A heart set on what it cannot have will be miserable however much it has.

Have I let a single thing I cannot have poison my enjoyment of all I have been given, lying down sullen over the one vineyard while blind to the kingdom, and can I break the covetous fixation and learn contentment with what God has given?

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