“Hast thou murdered and also taken possession?” The question served to sharpen his conscience, since Ahab was obliged to admit the fact. בּשׁמרון אשׁר means “who lives at Samaria,” for when Elijah came to meet him, Ahab was in Jezreel, Elijah then said to him still further: “Thus saith the Lord: In the place where the dogs have licked the blood of Naboth, will they also lick thine, yea, thy blood.” אתּה גּם serves as an emphatic repetition of the suffix (cf. Ges. §121, 3). This threat was only so far fulfilled upon Ahab, from the compassion of God, and in consequence of his humbling himself under the divine judgment (1Ki 21:27-29), that dogs licked his blood at Samaria when the carriage was washed in which he had died (1Ki 22:38); but it was literally fulfilled in the case of his son Joram, whose corpse was cast into Naboth's piece of ground (2Ki 9:25-26).
Verses 20-24
Ahab answered, “Hast thou found me (met with me), O mine enemy?” (not, hast thou ever found me thine enemy? - Vulg., Luth.) i.e., dost thou come to meet me again, mine enemy? He calls Elijah his enemy, to take the sting from the prophet's threat as an utterance caused by personal enmity. But Elijah fearlessly replied, “I have found (thee), because thou sellest thyself to do evil in the eyes of the Lord.” He then announced to him, in 1Ki 21:21, 1Ki 21:22, the extermination of his house, and to Jezebel, as the principal sinner, the most ignominious end (1Ki 21:23). הרע לעשׂות חתמכּר to sell one's self to do evil, i.e., to give one's self to evil so as to have no will of one's own, to make one's self the slave of evil (cf. 1Ki 21:25, 2Ki 17:17). The consequence of this is πεπρᾶσθαι ὑπὸ τὴν ἁμαρτίαν (Rom 7:14), sin exercising unlimited power over the man who gives himself up to it as a slave. For 1Ki 21:21, 1Ki 21:22, see 1Ki 14:10-11; 1Ki 15:29-30; 1Ki 16:3, 1Ki 16:12-13. The threat concerning Jezebel (1Ki 21:23) was literally fulfilled, according to 2Ki 9:30. חל, written defectively for חיל, as in 2Sa 20:15, is properly the open space by the town-wall, pomoerium. Instead of בּחל we have בּחלק in the repetition of this threat in 2Ki 9:10, 2Ki 9:36-37, and consequently Thenius and others propose to alter the חל here. But there is no necessity for this, as בּחלק, on the portion, i.e., the town-land, of Jezreel (not, in the field at Jezreel), is only a more general epithet denoting the locality, and חל is proved to be the original word by the lxx.
Verses 25-26
1Ki 21:25-26 1Ki 21:25, 1Ki 21:26 contain a reflection on the part of the historian concerning Ahab's ungodly
