1 Kings 21:18, commentary and pictures

The command directs Elijah the Tishbite to go down to meet Ahab king of Israel in Samaria, finding him in the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite where he has gone down to possess it. That vineyard lay hard by the king's palace, and Ahab had set his heart on having it for a garden of herbs because it was near his house, proposing to buy it or to give in exchange another piece of land, a better vineyard, or its worth in money. The encounter belongs to the later years of Ahab's life. It took place while Elijah was still a prophet in Israel, during the years Elijah and Elisha labored together after the call of Elisha, when Elijah continued as God's instrument against idolatry and apostasy.

The incident reveals Ahab's dominant trait of covetousness, strengthened and sustained in wrongdoing by Jezebel until he was fully controlled by selfishness and could brook no refusal of his wishes, a trait that disastrously influenced the fortunes of the kingdom under his successors. It shows Ahab selling himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up, as the evil influence she had exercised over him from the first continued and bore fruit in deeds of shame and violence seldom equaled in sacred history.

God sends Elijah to confront Ahab there at the scene of the fraud and murder by which he gained the vineyard, exposing secret wrongdoing with stern rebuke and calling the wrongdoer to account rather than allowing him to enjoy unrebuked what he had gained by fraud and bloodshed. The confrontation begins the Lord's reproof and warning of judgment against Ahab for his evil course, announcing and pronouncing terrible judgment upon him for killing Naboth and taking his property. The meeting carries a prophecy of doom upon Ahab and upon all his house.