1 Kings 21:2
And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house: and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it; or, if it seem good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money.
Ahab asked Naboth the Jezreelite for his vineyard, which lay hard by the king's palace and near his house, because he wanted it for a garden of herbs for his own advantage. He proposed to obtain it by giving a better vineyard in exchange or by paying its worth in money. Naboth valued the land because it was his family inheritance that had belonged to his fathers, and he refused to sell it or part with it. The proposal expressed Ahab's dominant and naturally covetous disposition, fully controlled by selfishness and an evil heart. Coveting another person's land, he felt that what he desired should by right be his.
The incident belongs to the later years of Ahab's life, while Elijah was still a prophet in Israel. It fell in the period when Elijah and Elisha labored together after the call of Elisha. Ahab acted under Jezebel's continuing evil influence from the first, for she stirred him up and strengthened and sustained him in wrongdoing. Thus he sold himself to work wickedness, in deeds of shame and violence seldom equaled.
When Naboth refused, Ahab's selfish will was crossed, for he could brook no refusal of his wishes. The refusal made him sick. His desire for the vineyard led him to have Naboth killed and murdered so he could obtain it. He seized it by the king for his own use, a flagrant evil and selfish abuse of power.
Elijah met this evil with stern rebuke, prophesying the doom of Ahab and the doom of all his house because of it. Ahab's dominant covetous trait disastrously influenced the fortunes of the kingdom under his successors. Naboth's death shows the grave duty of rulers to investigate wrongdoing, condemn crime, and punish the guilty with impartial justice.